#125 South Korea is cool and strange

Transcript

What the heck? South Korea is still just feeding me stuff that I don't understand. Just left my Airbnb and I'm just taking a little stroll. I think I'm just going to literally go back to Songjeong where the surfers hang out, go to a coffee shop there or whatever. I just go there every day. It's just so nice. But in this park, there's these little benches and they have, you know, a little roof to protect, I guess, against sun and rain or whatever. And they just started spraying out this mist. But it doesn't look like water. I was like, what the fuck is that? But there was a guy sitting on one of the benches like right under the spray. So I mean, I guess it's not like insecticide or something, but that's what it looks like. It looks like a smoky kind of more than it looks like water. So I walked over and I put my hand in the spray and I didn't feel anything and I don't smell anything. It just doesn't seem like water, but then what the fuck was that? What the hell was that? I'm looking back at it now. It's spraying again. And it's just again, it's spraying all over people that are nearby. So it can't be any, I mean, why would it be something dangerous? It just, that's what it looks like though. And I have no fucking idea what that fucking is. I don't even have a guess. Besides water. I mean, but what would the water? I mean, it's pretty warm today. Is it just like spray delightful moisture on people or something? I don't know.

That is definitely a thing in general in South Korea. Is that kind of a cliché stereotype idea of like a an ignorant ass North American where you get that idea of like, oh, things are so crazy in Japan. If you go to Japan, you'll just see crazy stuff all the time. There's robots and octopuses and everything's all crazy. And I don't really feel that way about Japan, but it could just be from, you know, playing video games and reading manga and fucking watching YouTube videos. I mean, I think I was just pretty aware of how Japan was going to be more or less. But maybe if you just took some random guy from the Ozarks and put him in Japan, maybe that's how he would feel. But that stereotypical like, whoa, things are so crazy in the east. I do feel that way in South Korea. This place has just felt weird from the fucking moment I got here. And that type of thing is still just happening. I mean, that's just a perfect example that I just can't quite suss out what is happening and why. And even when I walk over and put my hand in the stream of whatever this stuff is, I still, I just don't know. I still don't know what it is. And that's like kind of common. I guess that's happening less and less. So I'm a little surprised today to just like, oh, there's a new one. There's a new thing that I don't know what the hell's going on.

But yeah, definitely, definitely get that feeling so much more in South Korea.

Then in this park, they've got, they're kind of like statues, but they're, I guess they're like wireframe with like some kind of fabric pulled over them. And it's just all different things. There's like robots and dinosaurs and martial arts guys. And then at night, right now it's just mid afternoon, but at night there's lights inside them and they light up and they look really cool. I don't know what this is all about, but it's not a permanent thing. This wasn't here before. It just popped up. Whereas in the Busan citizens park, the more I walked around that park, the more and more superheroes, specifically, I found tons of statues of like Marvel superheroes all over the place and robots. And that one seems more permanent. This is just some kind of exhibition.

Piece of mind, happiness of the world. All right. Well, this one, it's like a robot that it looks very much like a transformer, but I can't say for sure if it is because it looks like, it looks like one of the old dinosaurs that turned into a cassette tape. Let me try to translate this little side. See if it's got any info for me. Triceratops. No, okay. Hmm. I mean, this is definitely a robot triceratops, though. But then this is just information about the real triceratops. It's not just about robot animals, because now here's the smurfs, lace thrumph, and gargamel. I guess because these things are all wire frame with vinyl or whatever pulled over them, it makes everything look like an old video game, like a PlayStation 1 era video game. 5:00 Everything looks like it's made out of a polygons. Pretty cool. But anyway, yeah, there was those three benches with the spray and none of the other benches are spraying anything, just those three. So I don't know. But anyway, I guess I can just notice it. Chronicle it. Just enjoy the vibe, I guess. Just enjoy the general sense of who the heck knows what's going on. Because yeah, that is definitely a difference. Like, I was surprised when I went to Japan because it wasn't, like, necessarily on my bucket list. I should have known I would like it so much because of my upbringing full of Japanese pop culture. But then when I got there, it was this nice mix of, like, oh, this is exciting and cool and new, but at the same time, weirdly comfortable, weirdly familiar. It's surprising how much stuff I recognize and how much make sense. Where if you want the more sort of, again, classically ignorant, like, whoa, what's happening? Everything's so wild, whoa. If you want that experience, I feel that's so much more in South Korea. South Korea.

It's truly weird. It's just a weird feeling place.

I mean, I don't think anything will be weirder than walking out of the subway in Seoul, hiking up a mountain that's like 40 minutes away, and then meeting wild dogs up at the snow-covered shrine. I mean, that whole, like, that's the weirdest day you could ever have. That's where it feels like you're in virtual reality. It's like, this cannot be life. This is fucking weird.

But even on smaller levels, yeah, it's just plenty of weirdness. I'm heading to Boogie on station. Gonna hop on the blue line, the light blue line, to go to Sangyeon, but this is where the huge fish market is that I walked through the first night I was here as they were closing up, even just that experience. Like, just to walk through this huge fish market, just full of all kinds of different stuff. It's weird because it's like going to the greatest aquarium in the world. You're just seeing so many species and so many different things, except in this case, they're all gonna be in someone's belly by tonight. But even there, just seeing people like, have to herd their octopuses. Like, yeah, that octopus crawled out of its bucket and go grab it. It's just like, keep it away from the turtles. Like, it's just, just wild, man. Just cool.

Hmm, I met Sangyeon station and there is this nice little walking path that leads toward the station, but I noticed it keeps going. Keeps going up that way, and I'm a little curious.

Keeps going up north, but I've been up there. I've been up to Osiria, so I know what's there, and I guess the next step is the 14 kilometer superwalk.

But since you can't properly walk along the coast the whole way, maybe this is the way, or maybe this thing only goes a bit further and stops. I don't know. I'm a bit curious, but I'm afraid it's the opposite way of the beach, so it will remain a mystery because like, how do you beat the beach and the beach? I keep thinking about how there's such a huge number of hotels right there, and it makes so much sense. It's so fucking nice. Surfer land.

Anyway, I did happen to find some Wi-Fi, did a little searching, and this is where it's weird, where like sometimes maybe these like confusing semi-magical things, maybe sometimes it's a little better not to know, because when you don't know, it's just confusing and weird, and it's like, what a weird thing. I wonder what's going on. And then once you figure it out, I don't know. I just don't know how to feel. I don't feel great, and I don't feel bad. I just am confused still, but in a different way. Now it's just like the confusion of having having info, but I guess not all the info, because then one can only have so much info about the hugeness of reality, and what really is happening, and how things really work. Because you know, I did go over to this thing that was spraying, and I put my hand in it, so it wasn't wet. It did seem much more like a smoke. So I didn't find anything about parks, spraying stuff, but what I did find, this was a post from two years ago on Reddit, about Busan, about a truck. Somebody was like, what the heck was this? This truck came 10:00 into my neighborhood with a big metal pipe, and just started pumping out smoke, and it drove around the whole neighborhood, and smoked out the whole neighborhood. What the fuck was that? And I'm quite certain what was pumping out of this truck is the stuff that was spraying out of the little nozzles at the park I was just at. Basically, it's a pesticide truck, and people were saying like, oh wow, they still do that, like I haven't seen that since I was a kid, but apparently in the 80s it was really common, and I guess they still do it here, as recently as two years ago, and people said in Seoul and stuff, people do it as well, or the government the city does, and it's to fight against mosquitoes primarily, and like mosquito larvae, which is not a bad thing. I'm happy to have mosquitoes be gone. I fucking hate mosquitoes. If I had like a genocide scroll from a video game, like there's an old video game called NetHack, where sometimes you can get a scroll of genocide, and you name a creature species, and then it removes them from the game. You say orc, and now there's no more orcs, and I always think like if I had one of those in real life, you know, I know the delicate ecosystem in the yada yada, and it's probably a bad policy to a genocide, any little creepy crawler, because you know, it has its place in the larger bleb bleb bleb. But if I had a scroll of genocide, it would be either bed bugs or mosquitoes. One of those would not be long for this world. I just have to decide which one. Fuck mosquitoes, I hate mosquitoes, and I guess around these parts of the world with a malaria and stuff, it's much, much more important to keep mosquitoes away. And you got to assume if they're driving through a neighborhood at 5 p.m. pumping out fucking pesticides smoke everywhere, or in the case of what I saw today, it's deliberately placed above benches, and one of the benches had a guy sitting on it. You know, I guess that's like a double bonus of like, hey, you can sit at the park, and you definitely don't need to worry about mosquitoes biting you, because we put the thing right here. All of this suggests that this is not dangerous, that this is a non-toxic pesticide. But that's still just really fucking weird, man, and that's really weird. I feel weird that I went and put my hand in the thing. And I mean apparently like, you know, dangerous, like DDT type stuff has been outlawed since like the 70s. But people did mention in the 80s and specific these trucks, it was like a cultural thing in South Korea, that when the truck came and sprayed all the stuff in the neighborhood, apparently it smelled kind of good, and kids would chase after the trucks. And one guy said he's like, yeah, it was fucking weird as hell when I think back to it, like we would spend literally hours following this goddamn truck. It was just the thing you did, like it was the ice cream truck. You just follow the truck as much as you can and breathe in the fun smoke. There's just no fucking way, that's a good idea, but they said, you know, adults at the time, would say like, yeah, yeah, no, it's fine. Go ahead, it's safe. And I mean, I just have to assume that by and large, it's generally safe. This is all too crazy. You can't just spray this stuff all over the neighborhoods and you can't just put it above the bench if it wasn't basically okay. You know, I'm sure in my case, just walking past, putting my hand in the spray for a second, you know, no biggie. But to deliberately follow along behind the truck, that's fucking weird. To deliberately sit in the bench right under the spray, that's fucking weird. Like, it seems to me like, shouldn't you be spraying this stuff like way early in the morning? Or late at night when there's not people around, but they deliberately do it during the day. They're very much dedicated to the idea that this is not dangerous. And that's where I just like, I don't know. I don't know who am I to say. I got to trust that it's not extremely dangerous, because I mean, at that point, somebody would notice by now, if they've been doing this for decades, somebody would fucking notice eventually. And I very much do want mosquitoes to fucking die. I want mosquitoes to have never existed. I want to eradicate mosquito kind from existence. They can fuck right off. I'm extremely happy to have less mosquitoes around. So I just don't know how to feel about it. I guess I can just kind of generally presume like, okay, don't get any tizzy about it. It's probably fine. 15:00 And you know, appreciate, understand that if there's no mosquitoes around, maybe this is why. But I also just will not be able, now that I know what it is, I will certainly, I don't know, I'm just going to keep my distance.

If I come across more spray, I'll just be like, all right, well, now I know what the spray is at least. I'm just gonna walk on the other side of the street. You know, it's a thing. Maybe it's helpful. Maybe it's not dangerous, but I just think it's probably better to, you know, don't trust like everything that's just common, the common understanding. You know, there's a happy middle. Don't be a wacky conspiracy theorist that thinks everyone and everything is out to get you and you know better than everything and that the establishment is always all fucked up. But also don't just, don't just breathe it in. Don't just breathe in the chemicals. Come on. Have a little fucking sense of self-preservation just in case. Just in case. So anyway, that's what that was all about, I guess. Yeah, and like I was saying, it sure does, sure does take the magic out of it. It's like, well, okay, that's not remotely magical. That's actually semi troubling and, you know, still weird. I mean, the weird moniker still fits plenty good. Just not weird in the same way. Now it's weird in me like, hmm. Is this good? Is this bad? I just don't even know. I mean, I'm leaning toward good. It's probably generally good. If it was really dangerous, I mean, I just don't think they'd be spraying that stuff around. And I do hate mosquitoes.

But I'm not going to go sit on a bench. That's the part that's weird, I guess. That's the part that's really sticking with me. If they were just kind of spraying down the park here and there, it's one thing. Dude was just sitting there. I mean, he was wearing a mask. But guys just sitting there. Old man in the mist. Just, I don't know. Why would don't do that? Don't do that. Try to keep things neutral, I guess. Keep things neutral. Don't fight against something that might not be a problem. But don't just fucking with arms wide open. Just fucking accept it into your very being. Try to hit a happy middle, I guess, as all I can do.

Because it's just, I just don't know what the heck. That's still so. It's very hard to fight that initial feeling when you learn that it is indeed pesticides of like, that doesn't seem great. But again, yeah, maybe it's fine. And if it fights mosquitoes, maybe it's worth being a little dangerous.

Man, one thing that's weird about having an upside down sleep schedule, today I slept in like crazy, I guess. I guess I didn't really notice that they don't do a super full deep clean of my Airbnb every day. It must just depend on who's checking in, who's checking out. No vacuuming or anything today. It was deadly quiet. So I didn't wake up until two in the afternoon. It's like, ah, well, got to admit that feels pretty good. And then I went to the kitchen and made, they've got the sauna eggs they're called. They're like way that they make hard boiled eggs in Korea where it's like, they're like caramelized. And the homemade kimchi and put that in with some noodles and just fucking delicious.

And then by the time I got on the subway and came out here to Songjong, I mean, at this point, it's almost 5 p.m.

So I'm like, dude, I can't get a coffee at 5 p.m. It just makes these sleep problems worse. But realistically, it's not going to matter. It's not going to be up all night, no matter what. And this is still the beginning of the day to me. I mean, if I'd woke up in the morning, this would be appropriate coffee time. I just got to have a coffee. Fuck it. I'm not going to live my life. I don't even drink one coffee in some vein attempt to go to bed earlier, which isn't going to happen anyway. So even though idea is my favorite coffee chain in South Korea and Songjong Beach is my favorite little area, I've never been to the idea in Songjong till today.

I guess because I usually don't start here. I do usually start at Hyundai Beach and then by the time I get here, it truly is late. I mean, it's already late, but I was speaking of, I guess not big enough waves today. No surfers. I guess it's all or nothing with surfers. I guess if I look way down the beach, there's somebody. But deeper out, there's somebody with like a wakeboard or whatever, like the board with. Oh, and there's another one with like a sail. Cool. But anyway.

This place is pretty empty. There's a few little people, but not too many. Got the nice little piano music playing. Although I'm just listening to my own music. But I'm in the second floor just looking out across the little street to the beach, out to the bay. Got an iced mint mocha with an extra shot of espresso and no whip.

Fuck, dude, it's so good. It's so fucking good.

I don't know why. I don't know what the relevance of that is. I really felt like, oh, I need to pull out the recorder. This is important. I'm at the Adia coffee by Song John Beach. But now that I've recorded this segment, I'm like, why did I say that? Who cares? But I guess who cares about any of this, right? If I'm not here to capture a nice moment, then what am I doing? Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that it's okay to drink a coffee. I'm only going to drink this one. That's fine. Yeah, I found out too. Adia has their own brand in the stores. I got one the other day, like a vanilla adia latte. It was fine. But a cafe latte is still my favorite. Which doesn't seem to have its own stores.

Anyway, delightful. Delightful fucking view.

What's the next best thing to actually hang it out on the beach? It's going to a coffee shop with a perfect view of the beach. I'm still very low down there, like only the second floor. I bet the view from these hotels and stuff is probably fucking red. There's also a bunch of, like, it's very mountainous right behind here. And I was walking up through those mountains just yesterday, but I don't think that there's any, like, observation or deck things. There's a couple of buildings, but I don't know what those are.

I don't know that there's an up-on-the-mountain view of this.

But the vibe, maybe I've said this before, but it reminds me of Atami, the place I went in Japan, Huara. The nicer thing about this is it's way easier to get to the beach. Atami, it was a little tricky. But that once you're by the water, there's all these mountains in the distance with buildings up on the top.

And in Atami's case, it was this, like, an ancient castle that you have to take a rail car to get up to. I just saw it from the ground, but this has that feeling of, like, that was a nice little vibe, nice little moment out there. And I guess it's one of those things that, like, I don't even know how much I appreciated it at the time. I remember Atami, I found it a little tricky. Like, I couldn't get to the water. And that was right after my food poisoning and stuff. I don't know. I think it was one of those days, whereas maybe not at my chipper best, but the memory is so good, where it's like, oh, I wish I could go back there. I didn't appreciate it enough at the time. That place was great. And it kind of, that whole experiment of going down the coast led me to think maybe that's what I should do next time I'm in Japan. And just try to go down the coast. I keep hearing more and more about how, like, tourism is back full force. And with the yen being pretty weak, it's even worse. So, like, the big place is, like, I've never been to Kyoto. But based on how I felt about, like, the touristy mountains and stuff, mount a... Mount Kappalama was going to come. What is it called? What was that mountain in Tokyo? I mean, it's not Kakao. It's something like that.

Mount Takau. Based on how much I thought that sucked, because it was so super busy. Places like Kyoto and stuff, I can't imagine. You know, I would just perversely attempt to just go where no one else was going and go out to the edges and stuff. Like, it would be weird to even visit there.

Because I would just not want to do the stuff everyone else is doing. So that made me think, like, maybe just going down the coastline of Japan. That's probably pretty rad, because I love being by the coast. It's amazing that the trains just connect and connect and connect and you can just keep going. And every little middle and nowhere place is just amazing to me. I just think it's so great. Anyway, the point of all that rambling is that... ...is that this Songjong Beach is so good that it reminds me a lot of that, but it's better. 25:00 Like, this is better. It's easier to get to its way closer to the water. It's just really pretty... Like, the development in Atami was tricky. It was a lot of condo type stuff kind of getting in the way. And then from here, you can just walk, just keep walking all along the edge of the shore.

Or if you want to go north, it gets tricky, but there's stuff up there too that was nice in its own weird way.

Just delightful. That's all. Songjong Beach. Fucking god damn delightful.

Actually, you know what I was thinking? Maybe I'm just making myself guilty for no reason. You know?

Like, the only reason... ...staying up late and sleeping in matters are travel days. And again, if I just accept that, like, okay, that's going to be a bit of a rough day. Like, who cares? It makes all the rest of my days better to just not fight it. And it's about the same. Like, in Japan, I was getting up earlier, but it was pitch black. Like, the darkest it could ever be by, like, 430, you know? So it was about the same. Like, I got about the same amount of daylight in the day. Maybe not today. Waking up at 2PM is pretty extreme, but... ...but in general, like, I still got plenty of daylight. Like, it is very light out right now. This view of the ocean and everything is so fucking beautiful. And I'll hang out at this coffee shop for a while, and then it'll be getting dark when I mosey. You know, just mosey down to the mermaids, that's you.

So it'll be, like, better. Like, I wouldn't want to have the full force of the day. Even today, it was, like, very, like, a press of sunlight. Very hot, sweaty blood, you know? Where now, the sun is behind me. It's, like, just beautiful. It's, like, better not to be outside earlier in the day in the summer. Like, this is actually better. This is a better sleep schedule. It's better not to get up early into, you know, it's why they take C.S. does and stuff in southern countries. Because, you know, you just don't want to be out there for that shit. I feel like I'm making myself guilty for no reason. Like, I should be, quote, unquote, getting up early.

When it really is just, just travel days, is the only day that it remotely matters.

And, in fact, it made me think I was watching some videos by a Canadian guy who lives in South Korea, who, eventually, when I dug deep enough into his videos, he did eventually make a passing reference to the pollution, just by saying, as far as things that he misses about Canada, he's like, you know, air quality. You don't appreciate air quality when you got it. You don't appreciate it until it's not always there. And that's all he said, which is a great example of, that's not enough. That doesn't count. I would have seen that if I had never been to South Korea and that would have just passed me by. I would not have even realized he was the extent of the problem he's referencing there. And that's not good enough, my friend. But at least he did mention it. But one thing he brought up is that, apparently, I just never knew this because I'm never awake in the morning here, but things don't open early in Korea. He said, like, in his neighborhood, it's hard to even get a coffee before 10 a.m. Coffee shops aren't open in the morning, except maybe he said, like, Starbucks opens at 8. Everyone else doesn't open till 10. So, again, that just kind of made me think, like, oh, yeah, like, this whole culture is geared toward nighttime, very much. You know, the cities are beautiful at night. Everything's open at night.

What do I care about getting up in the morning? Why am I flagellating myself over this? Nobody wants to get up in the morning. Anyone who does have to get up in the morning is barely even catered to, apparently, in South Korea. I thought that was so interesting, like, that's so opposite of North America. If our coffee shops aren't 24 hours, then they are open early. You can get a coffee at 6.am. Not around here. That's four hours away from coffee time. And it's like, yeah, you know, why don't I just stop beating myself up? I wonder, too, just to psychoanalyze myself a little or try to. Part of it is just that I have this lucky life that I don't have to go to a job, and then I do just get to travel around. I mean, I think you can't help but feel guilty about that if you're not a fucking sociopath. 30:00 You know, you can't help but feel like, yeah, it's a shame other people don't get to do this. Why do I get to do it? No reason. Luck of the draw. Just have lucky, quote unquote, lucky, lucky that I got a dead parent who had a lot of money. But, you know, even that that's being dramatic. If my dad was alive, he would still, he'd probably make a comment about it here and again. But he would have been like, well, whatever. If that's what that idiot wants to do, then fine, go ahead. He wouldn't have stopped me. So maybe it's just like nature's counterbalance in the human brain of like, you know. It's one thing to be in a privileged position. It's one thing to be lucky that you can travel around. And that you, you know, that your sleep schedule is not dictated by your, by the needs of society or by the needs of your life. It's only dictated by your own fucking vague feelings that you're doing the wrong thing.

But it's probably like a counterbalance. So, you know, you can't also be a spoiled traveler and also think that that's like that you deserve it. Or that, you know, you earned it somehow. You know, at least my brain knows that. My brain knows this whole situation is like a weird sham. I don't deserve this. This doesn't make any sense. I'm just, there's just a lot of people in the world and some of them have lucky circumstances and I happen to be one of them. So I wonder if my brain is like coming up with things to be guilty about or things to like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know.

But it really is senseless. Who the fuck cares if I wake up at 2pm? Who the fuck cares if I have a coffee at 4.30? Who the fuck cares? Who the fuck cares? Nobody cares. Only I care and I don't care for any reason. I gotta shake that one loose. It is just the weirdest thing. Why? Why do I give a fuck? The only reason I guess is like, you know, again in the wintertime in Japan, and when I got dark really early, then there was a reason to get up early because I couldn't go hiking in the nighttime. And to a certain extent that's still true in South Korea, you know, it does. It is gonna get dark eventually. If I wanna go hike up a mountain, I gotta be somewhat reasonable when I start that plan.

But that kind of takes care of itself. I mean, if it gets dark at 4.30, you know, that's when I was waking up at 9am, you know, it's just like...

Like, maybe that's all that's happening now, is again, like, reality is just taking care of the situation. I'm like, yeah, you didn't want to be up at 10am because it was gonna be hot and super sunny and who needs it? Get some daylight in the day and then enjoy the nighttime.

But I mean, it's a bigger topic. I don't know. I don't know how to fucking unravel one's own neurotic fucking strange guilt and worry about fucking nothing. If I could solve that, I could write The World's Greatest Health Book and I wouldn't have to be a trust fund baby. I would just be rich.

So I certainly don't have those answers. But anyway, I thought that was kind of interesting that coffee shops don't open that early around here. Because when would I have ever noticed that? When would I ever have been awake before 10am? That wouldn't happen in a million years. So I thought that was interesting.

The World's Greatest Health Book Alright, sun is mostly down. I can see it's 7.30. From a nice big digital clock, 1930.

I'm just across from the coolest hotel.

And one thing I got to give South Korea credit for, because it's one of those, it's a minor thing, but it really did kind of, was a constant tiny burr in my saddle in Japan. Is the lack of soap in public washrooms. Everything else about Japanese public washrooms is amazing. And in fact, did I bring this up? I don't know if I did. But I saw a YouTube video about, you know, zen-like practices or like social practices in Japan that are uncommon other places. And one of them was cleaning public toilets. I feel like I might have brought it up because I'm so obsessed with the idea of public toilets.

It's like my least favorite thing about Europe, is that they have such a problem just making toilets available.

But yeah, there's this idea. I mean, it's certainly not widespread, but this idea in Japan of just like cleaning a public toilet just to humble yourself and center yourself and to remind yourself, even if you're like a powerful businessman, that really you're just a cog in the machine, you're just a piece of the puzzle.

And it's pretty hard to be fully yourself when you're cleaning a bathroom that's not even yours. And that really makes a weird amount of sense to me. That really feels like it's not just zen, because even that's the irony, too, of like being a zen-type guy or like, oh, I'm so centered, I'm so mindful. But you're just sitting there like it's selfish in a way. Like you're not doing, you're literally not doing anything. Whereas if you're going to center yourself and humble yourself by cleaning a bathroom, then you also have a clean bathroom. You know, it's a lot more, makes a lot more sense to me. And there is that weird idea that even though it's a humbling thing to meditate, maybe there still is that thing in you that's like, look at how great I am at this though. Look at me meditate. I'm so superior. I'm so above it. I'm so fucking centered and spiritual. You just can't have any of those thoughts when you're cleaning a fucking toilet. You just can't. So I really like that one. That makes a lot of sense. But the one weird thing about Japanese toilets to me is that there's almost never hand soap. And I just don't like it. I don't like wiping my butt and not being able to wash my hands. I just can't be comfortable again until I do. You know, it's like those fingers, even if they didn't touch anything except toilet paper, are just going to feel radioactive until I can get some fucking soap. But South Korea is like the inverse where once in a while there will be soap in a bathroom in Japan. And South Korea once in a while there won't be. But generally there is. You can always just trust that there is. I just thought of it now because I was just at this washroom by the beach, which is one of the few washrooms that has only squat toilets that I found in Korea.

Squat toilets are pretty common, but there's usually both. There's this one washroom here on the beach that's only squat toilets. It's like, well, that's unfortunate. But there's two other washrooms that other points on the beach. So still, you can still avoid the squat with minimal effort. But anyway, this washroom had like a hard soap, not the liquid soap, but it's like a hard soap on like a pole. It's on like a stick.

And just to sort of a slightly odd, unusual form of soap. But just seeing it made me realize, like, yeah, that is a little bit weird. But the normal liquid soap out of a dispenser is usually how it is. And you can really just assume that's going to be available. It's just everywhere. And I appreciate the hell out of that. Nice work, South Korea. Very good.

But anyway, bathroom report updated. Yeah, just walking down the beach. Very beautiful. All the lights have lit up on all the hotels and stuff. And it's funny because even though I was just saying how I need to stop flagulating myself about my sleep schedule, because who gives a shit. But it's funny that as the sun's going down, despite having just said that out loud into a fucking recorder, I still have that feeling. That's like, ah, the day is ending. The sun's going down. I feel that weird tug of like I am sitting at the coffee shop doing writing, getting something done. But is it enough? Did I do enough today? Like, I still just can't shake that feeling. Because you can say things as much as you want. It doesn't change how you feel on the inside, I guess. But then once the sun went down, then I felt fine. And I wonder if there's something more going on there. I think I just don't like the transition feeling. I don't like the feeling of day turning into night. Because I've long noticed that I'm super tired during those times. I would notice it all the time in Toronto, where I'd feel like as the sun was going down, it's like, God damn, I don't have the energy. I'm supposed to go meet people and go do stuff tonight. How am I going to make it? But then as soon as the sun went down, then I felt fine. And I had all my energy back. And this was similar. I didn't feel tired today because I only woke up in fucking two in the afternoon. Something would be seriously wrong if I felt tired already. But I just felt a tug. Some kind of weird tug of like, did you do enough? 40:00 Are you accomplishing enough? I don't know. I feel like it is just the neurosis of North America. Maybe it's just going to be in me for my whole life. Maybe I can't help it. Because it's so like, I've had people say that they feel like I'm productive. Like, wow, I can't believe how many podcasts and stuff you put out. You always seem to be doing stuff and working on things. And like, what a productive man. Whereas I don't feel like that at all. I feel like considering the fact that I don't have a nine to five job or shouldn't I be getting more done? Why aren't I getting more done? Why are there not enough hours in the day? And that feeling of the sun going down is when that feeling is most acute.

Where it's like, oh, no, a day, another day slipping away, another day on the surf that I do enough during this day.

But then once the sun goes down, yeah, then I just, it's like a new day. All of that goes away. It's like, it is like a new day. I guess it's like if people get up super early in the morning, maybe they feel like this too. It's like my version of the morning. Everything's dark now. Like, the world just feels so remarkably different at night. This whole area looks like a different place. I'm looking back behind me now at the crescent of the beach and all the lit up buildings. And like, it is the same. Obviously, the geography is the same. Oh, there's that building. There's that. There's the idea coffee if I squint with the end of the beach. But it's all just brand new feeling. It's like a brand new place, a brand new day, a brand new world. And what the fuck am I talking about? I don't know. I don't know. Oh, okay. I remember what I wanted to say. All of that is just, those are just my whatever. Those are just my scattered nonsense, fucking thoughts that I can't actually explain. And I don't know what they mean in whatever. I actually had something useful or potentially that I learned that I wanted to mention.

This is my day of learning stuff where I learned about the weird pesticides this morning. By this morning, I mean it, you know, mid to late afternoon.

While I was in that coffee shop, I was, well, it's because I had to go look up Mount Takau and I was like, oh, you know, maybe I don't still have my downloaded map of Japan. But I was like, maybe I should read download that just in case I want to look something up when I don't have Wi-Fi. But the pre-downloaded Google map of Japan was be like a couple of gigs. I don't know. If I do need to just look up a random name, I can probably find Wi-Fi. It's South Korea, the land of internet.

But then I did think, well, I should grab where I'm going to be going to Jeju next week. So let's get the offline map of that right now. And I might be going to Taiwan after South Korea. So let's grab that too. And then I was thinking like, when I come back after Jeju, in between my last little bit in South Korea, I really did like Ulsan. Perhaps I'll try to go to Ulsan because it's also on this light blue line. I could literally come to here. I could take the train from Ulsan to Song-Jeon. It's a pretty long ride. But it's still literally just a train ride. I could come to this very spot, but make my home base be somewhere different and explore that. So I went to get the Ulsan map. And I noticed this the other day when I was at Ulsan, is that it gave me this weird warning about certain areas of this map. Or I think if you're really just focused on Ulsan specifically, it just says flat out. This map cannot be used offline. And I was like, oh yeah, I saw that the other day. Let's research that a little more. Because what is going on? Like I knew Google Maps was distinctly worse in South Korea. And that's why people use Naver Maps. But since I'm an offline man, and I prefer to be an offline man, even if I had like a free, that would be like a terrible gift someone could give me. If I just had a data plan for free, just here you go, just have data whenever you want. Technically that's a good thing, but that would make my life worse. And be like, oh no, now I can just check stupid social media shit or whatever at any time. It's like so nice to just disconnect. And you just can't do that stuff until you go suck out some Wi-Fi.

It's kind of freeing, you know, like right now I'm just walking on the the boardwalk, going to walk along the shore. There'll be no internet for me. It's nice to have these little islands of Wi-Fi and the rest of the time you're just swimming through normal life and nice and disconnected.

But anyway, because of that, I do need to use Google Maps because it's the only one with a pre-downloaded map option, but yeah, it just doesn't work that well in South Korea. So I was like, let's look into this because I know Japan was that way in 2019. I don't know that you could download Google Maps stuff at all, but now you can. So they worked something out, whatever the problems were, they figured it out. And what I learned about South Korea, this actually makes a lot of sense. Is apparently the main problem is military installations. Because there's a shit ton of military stuff in South Korea, they just don't want that to be all mapped out. So apparently the deal they have with Kakao Maps and Naver Maps and whatnot is that these military things will just be shown as forest on the map.