#126 Last exploration of Busan

Transcript

Oh, well, well, well, well, well, well. Man, the weekend is fucking busy. I wonder, assuming I'm keeping the same release schedule, I've been doing Wednesdays and Saturdays. So there's a 50% chance that this is actually coming out on a Saturday. But who knows, might be a Wednesday. But in real life, it's a Saturday. And yeah, dude, the weekend. Everybody's working for the weekend. It's true in South Korea, as it is in North America. I'm walking between Song jeong Beach and Haeundae Beach, my favorite, everything. But I'm actually up in the woods, in the trail, the little mountain trail, just above the boardwalk, because everything is so busy. Even that fucking boardwalk is just packed with people. Packed with peanuts, like a fucking Snickers bar. There's that random music, and I can hear like a travel, someone farming to music, down there somewhere. But yeah, I was thinking this morning, I only got a couple of days left in Busan, though I likely will be back after I go to Jeju, or at least in this vicinity. So I was like, what should I do today? And I was like, well, I could go to a good old Songjeong, sit at the Adia coffee, because I did this the other day, and it was wonderful. Just like, for nice, empty-ish beach, and that Adia coffee only had like four fucking people in it, including me. Two old ladies talking, a guy in his laptop and me. Wonderful. But in the back of my mind, I was like, it is Saturday, though. It's probably gonna not be like that. But then the other idea was I haven't been to the reservoir in some time. When I first got to Busan, I was hitting up the reservoir all the time, and hiking all the mountains near there. But it's actually quite a long walk to get there, and then to hike up a giant 600 meter mountain. Which, it's funny how Blasea was about that at the time. I'm realizing more and more. But that's really high, you know. Mount Takau, I realize the other day, feels big because it's quite a gradual. It takes a long time to get to the top, but it's under 600. But then that mountain I found in Jetchon toward the end of staying there. It was like 700. So I mean, I don't know. Mountains, man, it's all, it's just even like a 400 meter mountain. It can feel very big. So I guess it doesn't really matter.

When you're dealing with these numbers, anything sub a thousand, it's all just, it's all just a mountain.

But yeah, so if I did go that way, that is quite, you know, that's the day that's gonna take the whole day. And I kind of wanted to get back home a little early because of the 12 hour time difference between Atlantic Canada and here. If I'm gonna call home or talk to anybody, the weekend is the only time really that people are available Saturday night for me, Saturday morning for them.

Still a little tricky to maneuver it, but it's impossible during the week. So as with all things, just the weekdays, the weekdays are my friend, the weekends, busy, and yeah, holy fuck balls. I didn't realize how busy it was gonna be even just getting on the train. It's a good old light blue line that's like the above ground train that's like a for real train line that has also a a subway component as well as the long distance train. Just packed, just packed full of people.

And I realized it originates at Bujian, which is walkable, very easily walkable from my Airbnb. So I can go to the first stop. It's as empty as it's gonna be. It was still packed. And then as it went, guys started coming in with bicycles. And I was like, I always sort of stand against to try to get to the front or the last car. So I can just lean against the wall and be as out of everyone's way as possible. But that's also generally where bicycles go. And there were three people with bicycles pinning me to the wall. Normally, I would get out of the way and let the bicycles have that area.

But there was nowhere to go. This thing was so packed. And I was kind of thinking like, what are you guys doing? You have bicycles. Fucking bicycle. Busan's not that big. Where are you trying to get to to bicycle to where? Start bicycling from here. Why are you on the train? I don't know.

I mean, I guess they're probably heading to some kind of a mountain bike, 5:00 daily or something. And yeah, then I got to the beach. And yeah, just a mountain of people got out of the train at the beach. And we're all walking toward the beach. And I was like, well, this is not going to be this is not going to be the same. That's for sure. And then I got to the beach. And yet it's like really busy. 200 times busier than when I'm usually here.

And the idea didn't seem so bad because people just weren't sitting at the bottom.

I saw as I left on the top floor. I'm like, oh, yeah, look at that. It's not just a little smattering of people. It's pretty full. Because when I went in, there were already some people at the little. There's only one little self-serve kiosk. And they definitely don't they don't hurry. They don't skimp with the coffee in Korea, which makes sense because it's such a huge coffee culture. If you buy the $5 fucking fancy coffee, they do take their time and make it make it all proper.

So even just the three people ahead of me, it's like, well, it's going to take a little while if I'm the fourth person. But I also wasn't directly in line. I'm like, let me just go sit down at the window for a sec. Let them clear out. But another group of people came in and then another group and I was like, all right, now I'm like eighth in line. I'm getting out of here. This is not going to work. Not going to happen today. And that's when I glanced upstairs as I left and was like, oh, yeah, the place is actually super packed. And then I noticed as I went down the street a bit, there's a Tucson place coffee shop that I went to one of those by one of my first attempts to go to Bukansen, the actual Bukansen subway stop in Seoul, where I failed to actually find any mountain approaches. But I did go to a Tucson place there that was three stories, this enormous building, this just giant coffee shop like you couldn't even dream of in North America. It's so enormous. And there's one of those here too. As I walked, I'm like, oh, yeah, look at that Tucson place. I've walked by it many times, but it's always just kind of empty. And that's why they're so big is for Saturday, you know, just for the weekend. Time to fucking squeeze in everyone.

But then I was like, yeah, whatever, who fucking cares. I'll just fucking go to I'll just do the little walk along the shoreline. And then even that was really busy. I didn't want to pull up my recorder. So now I'm on this path and I'm actually going deeper into the woods. I'm not staying along the shoreline this time. And this goes a lot deeper than I thought. Oh, there's the the blue and the orange. So this is that this is that official coastal pathway that I saw north up the coast from here. The blue is back where I was going and I'm heading toward the orange, 1.2 kilometers to something. All right, good enough. Let's go. And I guess basically the little lessen I, I mean, I know this, but I had to relearn it today is just that expectation. It's amazing how much disgruntledness or kind of unhappiness, low level unhappiness comes from expectation. Big time unhappiness probably comes from serious shit that's wrong. But if it's just little stuff, if you just kind of can't get over the hump, you're just feeling a little like disgruntled with the day. A lot of it might just be your expectation where I just had this expectation for things to not be that busy because when I come down here during the week, it's just not that busy.

What day was it the first day? The first day I came to Busan. That was the busiest I've ever seen, the trains. That's never happened again, but that was not the weekend. I think that was just after work hours or something. It's nice though that it never hit that level again. That was just extremely bad luck that when I first arrived, everything was crazy. But yeah, and it's not only just this, it's all these dumb little things of like, I left my laundry like right to the end where I'm literally out of shirts and it's like, I got no choice, I got to do laundry. But everybody else was doing laundry. Probably again, a weekend thing, because this was Friday night. The little sharehouse is just more busy on the weekends. And yeah, like I got home early so I could do laundry and I just couldn't. I could not sneak my laundry in all fucking night. Other people were doing laundry. Then I finally managed to squeeze my in, but they do have a little sign of like, please don't do this stuff after 10 p.m. And my laundry was done just a little bit after 10, but I didn't get to put it in the dryer. And yeah, the dryer would have taken it past 11. And there is a room right next to the laundry, and I would feel bad if I was making noise for that person. Because it's not even just the warm, 10:00 warm, warm of the dryer. The dryer here, which a lot of the washing machines and dryers do this here, but this one is really obnoxious. It plays a jingle to let you know the laundry is done. And it's so fucking loud that even though I'm at the other side of the floor, like I'm two hallways away, I can vaguely hear it. I can hear the song. It's really loud when you're there. And it's endless. It just won't stop this little jingle. Whoa, a snake. Hey, buddy.

Cool. That's my first snake that I've seen. Here. Quite a small snake, but I just didn't expect it.

Watch out for snakes. That's my first snake in Asia. But he seems pretty harmless. Anyway, this jingle. It's just like d-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. But, da-da-da-da-da-da that, like, it just won't stop. And it's, like, oh, yeah, I know I'm right here. I've opened the door already. I know my fucking laundry's done shut up please. So if nothing else I didn't want the jingle to play that late at night. It's so obnoxious. So instead I just put all my clothes on clothes hangers put them in my wet room in my little shower room with the door closed in the fan on to see if they could dry but you know that's just too much. It's just too much clothing for things to dry like that and yeah and just today just that weird little slight slight smell of just like hmm I just don't trust this. I think I just need to start over. Just need to do this laundry again. Well will I be able to today? Who knows? I was going to do it this morning but yeah like noon somebody else was using the dryer and it's like God fucking damn it tonight since it's the weekend it'll probably still be busy. I don't know. Between Sunday, Monday and I'm leaving on Tuesday I'm sure I'll get my laundry done but it's just like again just expectation. I just expect to be able to do my laundry and it's so annoying to not be able to then I expect the beach not to be crowded and I expect all this stuff. Oh this fucking dumb shit even all the way to just expecting I guess because I also got woken up a little early today because of the person running the Airbnb doing vacuuming but it occurred to me that even with that it's like I just why do I expect to be well rested? I shouldn't even have that expectation. I've practically never been well rested a day in my life. I should be fucking used to it by now. It's just the expectation. Expectation is a killer. It just makes you so grumpy. You expect things and then as I like discarded the expectations it's like okay so I got to do my laundry again. Who the F cares? Like I didn't lose anything out of that. I am wearing my last shirt but even just those shirts that I washed and didn't dry. I have to wear one of those you know it'll survive. I expect I guess the train to not be that crowded. I expect the coffee shops to not be that busy. I expect the beach to be all done myself. None of these are reasonable expectations. I mean they're somewhat based on precedent but doesn't mean it doesn't mean it's going to happen. This is interesting. I don't quite know where I'm going. I've sort of doubled back. I think I'm heading back toward Song-Jean but on some new trail have never been on. But anyway the other thing though with this is a do still think it's also like a combination of your brain and your body that it is important to have these thoughts in your brain that you shouldn't expect these things. That you're expecting things you don't deserve and it's just making you miserable. Like just don't expect them and everything will be fine. I think it is important to have that in your head because if you're just dedicated to being a dickhead I'm sure you can just continue to be a dickhead. Come hell or high water. But there's also the physical element that I think if I was just in my Airbnb I think it'd be extremely hard for me to think my way out of my funk. You know I would just be feeling annoyed and bothered and vaguely grumpy all day. It's like once I'm out here walking around out in the sunshine and out in the out in nature. Like it didn't even occur to me to think like am I having unrealistic expectations and either one making myself miserable for no reason? That thought didn't cross my mind till I was out here because then it's like I'm quote unquote giving into the situation but it's like failing forward. It's like oh no so I'm at the beach and I can't sit in the coffee shop. Instead I got to go to the convenience store and buy a coffee and walk along the beautiful beach and now I'm walking through the beautiful mountain path. Oh no. Oh what a shame.

And then that's when it occurs to me, like, oh yeah, I'm just building expectations for myself, and I'm feeling grumpy based on some expectation where the reality is just, this is awesome. What the heck is wrong with this? I have like looped around them on the other side of the farm with the radio. Oh, it's not a radio. It's the trolley going by.

This is spouting out music and announcements and random noises. I guess it's to tell people, like, don't cross. That makes sense because that is where I crossed the train tracks. So that's the thing warning people, hey, don't cross. It's a train coming. Yeah, and even this. Apparently I've looped back around. I'm not going toward Haeundae, but that's fine. I don't care. I don't like going back to Songjeong, but this is cool. This is some path I've never been on. I saw a snake.

Yeah, it's just, I don't know, I guess it's like, I guess I just really don't want to become that archetypal person who has got like the blessed life, the charmed life of just being able to travel around and be a fucking trust one guy. And yet to still be like bitter about it and just to find fault with stuff like I never want to be that guy, but it's so easy to do.

It's so easy to fall into that and I think that is kind of how it's just to expect things. I expect things to be this way, expect things to be that way. And they ain't and they don't need to be. Like even I was thinking about Japan, toward the end of being in Japan, just how I was getting not even the end, actually, I guess this was happening by midfukuoka halfway through the shrines. Like why are there so many shrines? What does this mean? All these Buddhist statues and like, it was bugging me. And it's like, what do I care? I just, what I just expect these to not be here? Why though? Who cares? I'm sure there's some reason for it. There's something in the human brain that there must be some reason to always want to find fault with everything. Keep your mind grinding.

But a lot of it is going to be just shit that doesn't matter and doesn't make any sense. Gotta be a little wary. Gotta keep an eye on yourself that you don't become a big, weird stick in the mud.

But again, I don't know how useful that advice is to anybody because maybe you can apply that to other situations, but my situation is so unusual.

This is probably only really advice for me, but hey, in case when I listen back to this, case I've forgotten, you know, if I was going to have my memento fucking message on the wall that I see every day, I don't have a pithy version of it, but it should probably be something about that, something about expectations.

Just chill out with the expectations. Cut it out with that. Cool it with that. Just light whatever is going to happen. It'll be fine.

And I guess you can rash it up a bit. Like, oh, you expect not to have to go to the dentist? Yeah, why is that? You don't expect tonight to go to the dentist back home. And I mean, being out here, it's like a cool, unique place to me. But the people who live here, it's just where they live. You know, they don't have any expectation that they don't have to go to the dentist sometimes.

This weird expectation that I should have a force field around me. Like, hey, I'm traveling. This isn't the time to go to the dentist.

And I mean, maybe that is generally if you go somewhere for two weeks, it's unlikely you will have to go to the dentist.

How many months do I have to be traveling before I just, for all intents and purposes, live out here? You know, for now, for this year, this is just where I live.

I just got to do the normal stuff sometimes. Anyway, that's a bit of a ramble. Yeah, I'm for sure heading back now.

Back towards Sung-Jun. Yeah, maybe that'll be today's adventure. Just a weird loop right back to where I started.

Yeah, it turns out there's another beach. So this connection between Hyundai and Sung-Jun beach is my fave. And Sung-Jun in particular, I like, I think, because it's smaller in a lot of times. When it's not the weekend, it's just kind of like a nice cool little boutique fucking beach. Yeah, it turns out there's another beach in the trio where, you know, Sung-Jun's pretty easy, easy word, even with my total lack of knowledge about Korean. 20:00 It's like, I probably got that word down, but just to be on the safe side, I did Google it just to make sure. It's like, I just want to make sure I got that spelled right for the episode title.

And I saw a thing that said, even though the two famous beaches are Hyundai and Guangali. Sung-Jun beach is coming up. It's the up and coming beach.

And I was like, hmm, Guangali, eh? What the hell is that? So I looked it up and it's just a little further down the coast south from Hyundai. But there doesn't seem to be an easy way for them to connect. The way these two beaches just connect with this cool, not only the shoreline boardwalk, but even like this mountain path I'm on right now that you can go various ways, various nice walks between the two beaches. It doesn't seem that Guangali connects to Hyundai in any easy way, like you have to walk through the city. But there is a subway station very near it. So I just took that on the green line. Super easy to get to, went and checked it out. And it was kind of cool for a second because there's the big bridge that I keep seeing.

Like I think I first saw it from way far away, from that big 600 foot mountain out past the reservoir. I could see the bridge way in the distance.

And then from the mermaid statue and from the boardwalk here, you can see it. And then when I was up on the observation mountain across the street from my Airbnb, I could see it from there really well. So it's like I just keep circling this bridge. And then now it's like, boom, I'm right there because when I got to this beach, Guangali Beach, that's the first thing I saw. It was just that like, boom, there's the fucking, there's the bridge. Like, whoa, it's right there. Cool.

I just found a little spot with one of the many exercise areas in the mountains of South Korea. And a nice little look out here. You can just look out to the ocean.

I can just kind of see Songjong Beach a little from here.

And a lot more populous here now that I met the exercise place, not one but two. Two fellow Hike people. Oh, actually that's a duo, so three.

But yeah, first it was kind of cool because you just see this big bridge spanning, like going alongside the beach. But ultimately, I think it's kind of the least pretty of the beaches just because of that, because the view is just this big bridge. It's kind of cool for a second. But after you've been there for an hour, it's like, hmm, that's not going anywhere, is it? It's just a big giant bridge. And it was a bigger beach and very busy. So it was like bigger and more busy the way Hyundai Beach is. But also more active and more surfing and stuff. So it was kind of like a combo of the other beaches. But I think I would say I don't like it as much just because it's kind of isolated. And then I walked around the neighborhood around there and it's just surrounded by city. There's really no escape from that beach without just going into the city. Where I love that these two beaches are just kind of connected by the coastline. It's really cool.

But it was still kind of neat just to explore it and just like, I didn't even really realize. I guess that was the first time I went to the coast here in Busan. It was one of the subway stops. Did Dipo Beach?

Oh, another person. Yeah, they're everywhere here now.

And that beach was pretty nice, but there didn't seem to be an easy connection again from it up the coast. A lot of just city stuff. More people. Yeah, I've stumbled upon where everybody goes, I guess.

But again, it's the weekend. If the beach is going to have hundreds of people, then this walking path with like nine people would have none on a weekday. Yeah, if I lived around here or if I was just in Busan for way longer, I would keep doing that, like just explore different parts of the coast and try to find all the different beaches and stuff. But from that first one, from to Dipo, there did seem to not be an easy way to progress up the coast. The same way as here, I guess, where even once you go north of Sungjeon, it's not easy either.

Really the only reason Sungjeon and Hyundai Beach are so easy to get to is because they went out of their way to make this big four kilometer long endless boardwalk along the shoreline. Or else it would be impassable as well.

So that seems to be how the rest of the beaches generally are around here. They're nice in and of themselves, but they don't connect to a contiguous experience.

So that's what makes these two my favorite.

But it is surprising too, like I didn't know this was up here, this path I'm on now. I just keep finding more and more and more little aspects. One thing I did the other day as I was walking along the boardwalk is there's a bunch of places on the boardwalk where you can go down to the shore. And again, it's just like a little piece of the shore. You can't continue along the shore because it's too rocky and the water just rises right up to the edge. And definitely no one's looking after those areas because they're probably just going to be like a fucking little pile of plastic bottles down there somewhere or something. But it's still kind of cool. And then these paths up in the mountains are extra double cool because they're not very high up. Like I can still see down through the trees. I can see that little monorail thing that you can take, the little trolley. But it's just nice. It's just a nice little thing.

I can't believe how much fucking mileage I'm getting out of just this one little spot between these two beaches. There's just so many different things to do in so many different ways to progress through the two of them.

And even just to see them when they're busy, see them when they're not busy, see them in the daytime, see them at the night time, see them on a clear day, see them on a rainy day. I fucking love it. I love all of this shit.

It's that basically. I mean, I guess that is basically my whole baseline experience. I feel like can kind of be boiled down to the reservoir and these beaches. It's mostly all I did. Keep going to the reservoir till I get that more or less figured out. Now keep coming to these beaches till I get these more or less figured out. And then I'm jetting off very soon.

But I think that's kind of neat too, even if it's like a neat way in some ways. I guess to gauge like, is something cool? Is it worth coming to see? Is it worth checking out? It's like, well, that one guy with the podcast for some reason just did like six podcasts in a fucking row about this one area. It's probably okay. It's probably pretty good. Well, since I've looped around and I'm heading back to Song John when I got a coffee from the fucking convenience store it was a two for one coffee. So I have another coffee tucked away in my fucking pocket. I'm going to drink that bitch because I'll be back in beach land with washrooms and stuff soon.

Alright, back at Song John Beach just walking back along it. And again, just now that my expectation has changed it's like, yeah, I know it's busy today. And that's kind of cool just walking down the busy beach seeing all the people. There's this kid who was chasing a seagull around or some kind of bird. And the bird would flutter a little ways away and stop and the kid would chase it. And they'd flutter a little ways away and stop and the kid would chase it. And it's like, why doesn't this bird just fly away? You know, it's like stopped and been chased like eight or nine times just since I've been watching. It's like, it's going to happen again bird. Fly away for real to a real flight. But maybe the bird wanted to be chased, I don't know, maybe it's fun. It likes that this kid is chasing it endlessly. I have no idea.

But I was just thinking about something else that again, I don't know how applicable this is to anybody's life who doesn't just float around from place to place. But along with having expectations of stuff, I think kind of connected to that is how it's so easy to get kind of blasé about a place when you've been there too long. Which I know to most people, it's like you don't necessarily have much of a choice. You know, you just, you are where you are and you know, you got a life and you got responsibilities and you got a house and a job and a family and such and such.

So, I could just be talking to myself here, but I don't know, maybe this is applicable in some way to somebody. But I was thinking how it really is hard to not take a place for granted when you've been there too long. Like even though I loved Vancouver, it was like very eye-opening to move there and be like, whoa, a big city can be like this, this is amazing. But then by the time I had moved back for my third or fourth time, I remember I was there one winter where the range just wouldn't stop. Like an entire month, it was just cloudy and drizzly almost every day. And I just lost my mind. I'm like, I need to get out of here. And I've never gone back to Vancouver for any extended periods since. I'm like, I can't deal with this anymore, this sucks so bad. And like Toronto, I was so in love with Toronto. And like Toronto, I was so in love with Toronto when I first got there. Again, so much better than I expected. I'd always just heard of Big Bad City, Toronto. That's no good. And it took many years, but now when I go back to Toronto, I'm like, oh, actually I see what people mean because that's how I kind of feel now. It does just kind of feel like Big Bad City. And then New York was that, you know, turned up. 30:00 So fast. The only reason I moved to New York is because it was so fun to visit. But yeah, I burned out on New York in like within six months. It's like, oh, I guess I hate this actually. This is way too big and way too packed in and way too crazy. And I'll fucked up.

And I'm sure that would happen around here too. I've seen so many people on YouTube or whatever who've lived in Japan long term for like a decade or whatever. And there are a lot of complaints. You know, generally along the lines of I keep trying to fit in and I never can, which I just think that's just how it's going to be. I don't think there's anything you can do about that.

Which I'll give South Korea credit. I've done way less research about South Korea. But all the, you know, I've lived more than a decade in South Korea videos I've seen are actually pretty positive. People seem to like it better on the longer term. But even people that are still on good terms with Japan, you can feel that it's a lot less exciting to them of like, you know, there's only so many weird tourist statues to see. Weird tourist statues to see and obscure prefectures, you know, I've seen them all. There's only so many places to go. It's a very small country. I've seen it all. It's just another family mart and another town, you know, which to me, amazing. I can't wait to like go down along the coast of Japan and just go to a family mart in every stupid town. That's going to be the best thing ever. But that's only because it's all still new to me. Because I've been thinking, even today I was just thinking this today because I have said, you know, started off today on the wrong side of the bed.

Having a little bit of a hard time, not being cranky. And I was thinking about Japan and like, oh man, I sure do miss. I keep thinking of Enoshima Island, which I was so not impressed with when I was there because it's such a tourist trap. But I keep thinking like, God, though, what I wouldn't give to go back there right now. Or similarly, along the tourist trap line of thought, there's this anime called Encouragement of the Climb, which I really like the anime Yurukamp. And I like those kind of slice of life anime quite a bit. But they do generally, you know, along with the calming slice of life stuff. They generally also are an all female cast, but they're usually written by men. And it's just about being cutesy, like the characters being cutesy. That part of it wears me out a little bit. And I never watched much of Encouragement of the Climb because of that. It's way more about that. It's about mountain hiking in Japan, which should be right up my alley. But the characters are so just like a vapid cute teen girls that it's like, this is a little much. You could reel that back a little and it wouldn't hurt.

But I saw that they did a run of the first season of that show. The episodes were only three minutes each. And they did a little run where they went to Mount Takau. It's like five episodes. They are trying to decide which beginner mountain to go to. They decide on Takau. They go by a book bag. Then they travel there on the train. And then they do the opposite of what I did. I hiked up Route 6 and hiked down Route 1. They hike up Route 1 and then down Route 6. The whole thing takes like 15 minutes to watch. And I was so goddamn delighted watching it because it's like that's Mount Takau. That's the place that I was, the gloves that I found on Mount Takau, that I still have, like where somebody obviously dropped their gloves, so somebody else hung them on a branch.

And I had to make that decision of like, should I leave this in case the person comes back or is the person never coming back? And those will just, you know, those are abandoned. Those are essentially now just trash on the mountain. And I decided on that second half. So I was like, people never come back for these things. If I'm ever somewhere where I walk by multiple times and I see someone's hung up a pair of gloves somewhere, no one ever comes to get them. So I decided no one's coming back for these. I'm going to take them. And I've still got them. You know, they're pretty nice gloves and those are my gloves. And they are my little Mount Takau memory. But is this specific point where Route 6 goes from being a rough nature pass to actual wooden steps built into the mountain. And they went down those steps and I'm like, holy shit, I'm watching an anime that shows the place where I got my Mount Takau gloves. 35:00 And it's just fucking delightful, just charming. But if you recall that episode, I didn't think Mount Takau was shit. I thought it sucked. It was so crowded. It was like this beach but a mountain. It made no sense. It's still like the only mountain I've ever seen in my life that is that crowded. That is just like a tourist trap built on a mountain. I guess it would make no sense except that they have all the rail cars and the cable cars that you can take up. If people actually had to hike up to the top to buy ice cream, I don't think they would. But yeah, I thought Mount Takau was blue. I considered that like a failure of a day. Like man, that sucked. But watching it back through this anime, I did not think I'd like to go back there the way I do with Anoshima. But I still just had good feelings about it. It's like, oh yeah, that was cool. You know? I don't want to go back. I don't think I'm going to go back to Mount Takau. But my memories of it, even though at the time I was annoyed by that place, the memories are way better. So that was happening to me even while I was in Japan just for the three-month visit. You know, I was like, ah, this tourist stuff. Too many tourists everywhere. Why are there so many shrines? Like it was already starting to happen. That feeling was starting to encroach.

And then I was thinking of like South Korea. Like today is a perfect example. Even though I woke up feeling kind of grumpy, I was trying to tell myself like, you know very well that when you're back in Canada, you're going to think back to this beach and wish you were here. You're going to wish so hard you were here. So you are here. You're here right now. You're here today. Fucking get it together, grumpy. Just appreciate where you are.

And then I started thinking of like Jetshan, same thing. Jetshan, you know? It's an odd place. Pretty odd place. Pretty 50-50 is the weather I'll ever go back to Jetshan. But I know God damn well when I'm back in Canada. I'm going to remember Jetshan and be like, oh, I wish I was there right now. Wish I was at that reservoir. Wish I was hiking up that mountain. But even being aware of it in the moment, you just can't really force yourself to feel a given way. I guess being aware of it, you can keep yourself from capitulating entirely into Grumpsville. It's a good thing to be mindful of, but there's only so much you can do to force your mood. But it's a good example of all these places. Like if I stayed in Japan for years and years, if I stayed here for years and years, the same thing would happen as what happened when I stayed in Vancouver for years and years. And I stayed in Toronto for years and years. I stayed in my hometown for decades and decades. Everything just wears out. The best place in the world just stops being fun.

And I guess my point with all of that is to just sort of appreciate the transience of it. I didn't have really that long in Japan, although again, it's all relative. Three whole months to just wander around Japan. That's insane. That's such a long time. Most people don't get to do that here in South Korea. It's been six months. But my time is almost up in Busan and I'll probably be back. I don't know. It's just like good to focus on the positive, the positive in the negative. You know, the fact that I got to keep moving on and that I can't stay is a good thing. Staying is not a good thing. Staying makes everything wear out. Staying makes your brain just turn into the shitty human brain that it is that's just dissatisfied. It's just trying to find fault and just looking for what's wrong with things. And I don't know that there's much a person can do about it except be mindful of it and try not to let it get out of hand.

But it's just going to be that way. Some moving on is good.

But anyway, it's nice when it all converges because I am here right now. Here I am on the beach. I saw a little sign about Songjong Beach. It's 1.2 kilometers long. So not short, but pretty small for a beach. Definitely smaller than the other beaches around here. And strangely, this is the same length. It's funny to look at the whole crescent of the beach and know that's 1.2 kilometers. That's how long that fucking tunnel was by Kamene Park in Japan. A terrifying tunnel that I went fucking walked through.

This looks shorter than that, but of course it does. It's a beautiful fucking amazing beach. Of course this doesn't look that big compared to the nightmare tunnel that just felt much longer than it really was.

But yeah, I don't know what is that. That's not advice because what is the advice? Try to keep moving. You know, it's easier said than done. I guess if you are in a weird life like mine where you do just keep moving, just appreciate that that's a good thing.

I don't know. I don't know what my point is. It's hard to have a point sometimes. It's very difficult.

But anyway, one last stupid little thing. This has been on my mind the whole time in Korea, but I've never really thought to bring it up. It just crossed my mind because I found a replacement hat the other day. It's about my hat. I bought this random hat off of Amazon before I left Canada because my other hat was getting worn out. And I just need some kind of hat with a brim because I tend to buzz my hair off when I'm traveling just for the ease of not having to worry about my hair. So my little handy head can get burned and it's good to have some kind of a brim to protect your eyeballs from the sun. But I just got this random hat. And it's like a little flat cap type thing, but it has buckles on either side on the left and the right. That I guess you could use to adjust the size of the hat, but I just left them as they are. And I never thought twice about them. But once I got to South Korea and realized it was pollution town, that became super useful because whenever I put on one of these little 50 cent KF94 masks to protect against pollution particles, I didn't feel like it really fit that well against my face. It wasn't tight enough. So I pulled the elastics around behind my head and tied them together, but that was really tight. That was kind of crazy tight. And then I realized I could just instead of hooking the loops around my ears, I could just hook the loops around these little buckles on the side of my hat. And it was perfect because not only did it just give a little more pull to the mask because I also need the mask to be very close against my face or else it might fog up my glasses, you know, if my air is getting out around the nose part of the mask. It's a real pain wearing a mask when you got glasses. So that was just handy. But doubly handy because I realized recently, sometimes if it's kind of musty in that darn Airbnb I met, I'll put on the mask at night just because I don't like the musty smell. And I've started to notice in the morning because in that case it's just around my ears that my ears are hurting, wearing a mask, I mean for a whole night's sleep, I'm probably twisting around and stuff. Maybe I'm yanking it into weird positions, but it really hurts my ears. I have like a little elastic burn on one of my ears, like it's like rubbed a little raw. So I don't know what this kind of hat is called, but man, it's good. It is so good if you're traveling to a country where you might need to wear masks, I super, super recommend trying to find a hat that has these little buckles one on each side. Because this one is starting to wear out finally. I ran it through the wash one too many times and the brim is getting frayed, but that's kind of a cool. I mean it probably looks bad around here where everyone tries to be very permanent proper in Canada that's a very normal look that your hat has a frayed brim if anything that's fine, that's kind of cool looking. But I did have my eyes peeled of like I should try to replace this hat at some point because it's starting to get a little raggedy.