#130 South Korean convenience stores are not my favorite

Transcript

Alright, it's technically still the same day as last episode. It's just that night. Is it midnight yet? Must be getting close. 11.20, not quite a new day. I'm going to open the window of my little hotel room and I'll just talk out the window.

I can hear some... See, that seems fine. There's outdoor noise. There's people frallicking in the parking lot and stuff. Because I still can't quite tell. I saw some reviews say how thin the walls were here and there is like the quiet hours, like you're supposed to shut up at 10 p.m. But I haven't heard a soul. I haven't heard anybody in these other rooms, but I don't know. I can't tell really. So I don't want to talk too much, be too loud, but I'm just talking out the window. I'll just blend in to the people outside.

And yeah, it's certainly not like, you know, the little share houses I was at where it's just like literally I can hear, you know, a guy clear as throat in the next room. I mean, that all went pretty well. Very rare for anyone to be a snorer and people are just really considerate in South Korea.

It wasn't that bad being that close to people. It was way worse in Japan, but I don't think it was necessarily the Japanese folks that were the problem. It was, you know, other freaking tourists.

One thing I realized where I think I've got this cool thing where you have to put the key card in a little slot to turn on all the power in the room. But I was downloading like a giant 10 gig file and I went downstairs because I'm like, I'm going to try to get, get me some noodles.

But I had to take the card and then it turned off all the power and I made the internet not work in this room because I noticed there's no passwords or anything. There's just, there's internet for every room. It's just a room number, but that's another thing that turns off when you're not here. So it's like, oh, that's pretty cool.

So anyway, they got noodles downstairs. It was like busy the first time I went down at like 9.30. There was a bunch of people and I was like, oh, you know, I'll just go later and wait till there's nobody around. But then I was reminded how somebody said that coffee shops don't open until like 10 a.m. in Korea. They're not big morning people necessarily or they are big night people more. I'm sure there's plenty of people in the morning have to go to work and stuff. But yeah, I went back down at 10.30 and there was even more people. So I was like, I will fuck it, you know. And then when I went down there, it's like there's so many packages piled up and stuff. Like, I don't know how many rooms are in this hotel, but it's three floors. There's at least 20 rooms on each floor. So, you know, say 65 and I don't know how many are full right now, but enough. There's like a lot of people went through there to get noodles. So I'm just going to have to accept that I'm just going to have to mingle if I want my noodles. No point trying to because a lot of times I feel like I can pull that off, you know. A lot of places in North America, especially like if it's students or people with jobs, you know, they got to go to bed. So if you just stay up a little later, you get the whole place to yourself even if you're in a communal place.

Why am I telling this story now? I didn't just wait till tomorrow. It still feels a little weird talking. I'm like, but I mean the other people all walking around outside and stuff. I don't know if it's fine, but I'm not going to make a habit of this. This is a little weird just standing in my hotel room. But just to get one, I guess, one little hotel room experience. But yeah, I wasn't quite sure how it all worked. There was like pots. So I got a pot and I put my noodles in the pot. And then there was one of those hot and cold water things. So I put hot water in. And I was like, okay, I mean, that's good enough. You know, it'll soften up if I wait a few minutes.

But one of the ladies there, she looked at me like, like I was the dumbest person in the world. I was really exaggerated this look. And I was just like, oh, did I do it wrong? And she showed me there's like these little burners. You got to plug in the burner and turn it on and put that on. So I guess the weird part was putting hot water in the pot. You would normally put cold water in the pot and then heat it up. And I was like, okay, cool. Thank you. And it's a simple thing, but I'm glad she showed me because you know, plugging in even just Korean plugs are weird. You know, they're a weird shape. But again, there's nothing hard about plugging in a plug and turning on a burner. But I just don't know that I would have fucked with it. It's a pretty big kitchen. I could have just sort of not paid attention to that corner of the room probably. But yeah, no, they were very nice and helpful said, okay, you're doing this now three minutes. And it's like, I really cool. Thank you. Thank you for helping me. I'm the baby. I don't know. I don't know nothing. And I made that and it's really nice down there. This is like a dining thing. And they got a bunch of books on bookshelves. Nice big window. You can just look outside at the street. 5:00 Everything's all lit up at night, you know, inside. Hey, there they are. There's the ladies who, you know, when they're looking up at the window. The ladies helped me do the thing, but just it is a small world. They just looked up and, you know, just I'm standing there with this recorder.

I wonder where they went. I think there's a convenience store around the corner. Maybe that's where.

And then I just grabbed some noodles that were a brand I never had before and they were spicy as fuck. Holy fuck, they were spicy. I am definitely missing that kimchi and the eggs and all that stuff from before I wonder. I do have a little fridge in this Airbnb. Maybe I can at least get some kimchi. Even if I just get store-bought kimchi and then I can just like put it in my noodles. I don't know, that's not the worst idea. I'm actually surprised how much I, because they had like, you know, if you're pouring out your noodles like through a strainer, so that the noodles wouldn't go down, you know, sink. It was just in like a big tub. Just pour your stuff into this tub. And I was surprised how many people don't finish their stuff, like they just pour out half of their noodles. I always finish all the noodles. There's only one pack of noodles. It's not like that much stuff, but...

But then a lady came down who has a white lady who is older than me. And I kind of like that. Like in the share house and so all.

There's a bunch of Korean men who are older than me. And you know, just always like not being the oldest person. I'm not usually the oldest person. I mean, I'm only in my early 40s. That's really not old in the grand scheme of things. That only seems old if you're very young. It's coming for you. It'll be here soon. Realistically, I'm right in the middle. There's plenty of people traveling and dicking around and doing stuff that are older than me. But I still just like having one around, you know. I just like... I just like to be young by default. Oh, and there's man. Yeah, it really is a small world. I mean, obviously it's just whoever's staying at this hotel, stumbling around, but a guy just walked in who he's the other guy met on my way back up. He was sitting in the lobby with some bags and stuff. So I don't know what his deal is if he's like waiting to head on to somewhere else tonight or what. But yeah, a nice Korean guy who just was like, hey, Canada, America. He said, Canada first wrote ever reason. And I was like, yeah, Canada, man, I'm from Canada. And then I said, you also from Canada? Got a nice laugh. But I got to be careful that I don't become that guy who only has one joke, that that's my one joke. But it totally worked. But then it was one of those things where it's like, hey, cool. You know, we had the nice little, a nice little moment between us, but it was clear like, well, unless you break out some Korean right now. There's not much else we can talk about. So it's like, right on, cool. Man, those are spicy noodles, huh? He's like, ah, yeah. That's right. But yeah, this, I don't know. I've had a couple of people notice me up in my window. And I don't know how much noise I'm actually making. Maybe I'm being annoying us fuck right now. So I'm going to shut the hell up and not record anymore from the hotel.

But I like this hotel. This is cool.

20 bucks a day. Neat, man. My weird, stupid, vagrant dream of like, it'd be so cool to live in a hotel. Well, I mean, you could do it. You could do it in Jeju.

Though this is by far the cheapest hotel around. But all you need is one. Sweet. Sweet. Okay. I'm going to stop talking now.

Alright, it's the next day. Pretty good day out. Very nice weather-wise. The pollution level is like just a little above, you know, into moderate, not that bad. And I was like, hmm. I just want to leave the stupid window open in my hotel room so it doesn't get all musty.

And judging by the AQI number, I'm not sure. I mean, that's all relatively new to me anyway. I don't know. I don't know when it's reasonable to have your door open. But I realized from my window, I can see out across some other hotels and I can see the water. You know, I can see the bay. And it looks pretty fucking clear to me that cool. There's a really cool, very prominent mountain. In the distance that I can see a little bit of. And I can see it fine. Like it was clear. It didn't look hazy. So I think I'm just going to go with that, you know, just visually. 10:00 This is when I guess I'll really start to learn how the locals live, right? Just visually. How's it look?

Today's plan is to walk across the bridge that's down at the southern tip of Segwipo to this island. And I'm looking at it right now. I just left my hotel. There's the bridge. There's the island. This should actually be a pretty short walk. There's some people walking across the bridge.

And they don't even look especially teeny tiny. It should be pretty easy to do. From this side, it is a little hazier out in the distance. So I'm going to stop in. This is the last convenience store before my escape. It's a nice to see you store. See what I can find. Find some random ass food. Then head off to island adventure. It looks nice from here. That's for sure.

And I'm just at the parking lot before I cross over the bridge. There's tons of tour buses and stuff here. Lots of tourists. Not just western tourists, but eastern tourists too. Tourists from all over. It's kind of cool that I can just walk here real fast. Took me like no time to get here. I was saying about how there's like signs in every single washroom about please in the men's washrooms. Please stand closer. Please don't pee on the floor. This one. This one said don't spill it. Cool and precise.

Which I like that it's a good way to put it. Instead of you know obviously it doesn't work to try to shame people because it's you know they're still peeing on the fucking floor. But maybe you can appeal to their desire for mastery. Cool and precise. Show everyone how cool and precise you are. How well you handle your peeing cock. Don't spill it. Cool and precise.

Man I am I'm at a bit of an impasse with South Korean convenience stores. I mean I didn't like them from the get go. Immediately they had the feeling of small weird New York bodegas and they just don't they don't ever seem to have anything that I really like in them. Nothing that I really want besides a cafe la latte is maybe you know the coffee drinks are fine. But yeah today I mean I went in this one the I see you but they're all the same. They're all fucking identical.

And I mean I'm kind of hungry. What time is it you know it's like fucking Jesus yeah it's two in the afternoon quarter after two. And I haven't eaten yet today I could certainly eat but I did it. I just I left without buying anything. It's like I would rather be hungry. I'm so I'm just so tired of dealing with this shitty convenience store food. I fucking don't like it. I fucking I'll go survive say I hate it. I hate this shit. They had one sandwich and again it was every sandwich in the world. Everything you could ever have. One half was like some kind of egg thing and the other half was various animal parts. But the main trouble there is I mean it's just going to be somewhat uncomfortable and weird to eat everything all mashed together. But I think it had onions. I couldn't really tell that I just hate onions. I already don't want to eat the thing. I'm not going to force myself to eat onions. It's like one of my most hated foods.

And then they didn't have, if they had one of those little push-pop things that would have done, I guess, that would have eaten it even though I think they were also gross. But instead they had, instead of the push-pop format where it's like a little macchi roll thing that you push up and it's at least easy and convenient to eat, they had those but in like a big tray. You had to buy the whole tray, it's sit down with the tray and I don't have the utensils to eat that even, but it's still just the same thing. It's just like weird, you know, radishes and stuff with just some kind of weird animal-based paste crammed in there. It's the same stuff that's in the little tube, but in a less convenient format. And it's like, I don't want to, I don't want to fucking eat any of this shit. I can go through but who cares? It's all just, it's like, I look through everything. I was quite desperate and it's like, am I just gonna end up just buying chips in a chocolate bar? I don't want that either, fuck that. And I mean, I'm doubly because I still haven't sorted out my dentist stuff. That I got a chew on one side of my mouth. It makes eating a little bit of an extra to do. And it just, yeah, it wasn't enough. Doesn't matter that it's two in the afternoon. It doesn't matter that this is my last chance. This is not good enough. I just, I'm kind of done with it. I'm done paying money for stuff that I don't even want. Where it's like, I'm just gonna compare it directly to Japan. And I saw a whole history of 7-11 in Japan. Like Japan really did pioneer this style. 15:00 Of tons of convenience stores everywhere. So in this case, I think it's fair to compare to Japan. They're not even close. These places are not a fucking, they're not 10% as good as a Japanese convenience store. In the Japanese convenience stores, I feel like they're doing me the favor. Like, wow, I can't believe I'm allowed to come in here and spend money and get all this stuff. I often felt in Japan like I wish I could eat more. I wish I was more of a big fat bastard because I would go in more often if I could.

Where here, I feel like I'm doing them the favor. I'm going in, I'm spending money. And it's just for something that I'm begrudgingly eating, that I just don't fucking want. I mean, today's just putting my money where my mouth is, dude. It's like, it's clearly true because I would rather eat nothing. Like, this is not good. What the fuck? This is why I've been hitting up Burger King so much while I've been here. But that's not really going to be an option. There's only the one McDonald's and it's the other way from this beautiful coastline, which is what I should probably be talking about. Going across the bridge right now, beautiful view of the ocean, beautiful views everywhere. But I don't know. Maybe I'll get desperate enough. You know, there's that thing of like, if you don't like such and such food, you're just not hungry enough. Well, how much more hungry can I get? It's two fucking PM. I haven't eaten anything today. But maybe I'll just get to a point where I don't know. Maybe I'll just figure out something. I don't know. But it's just, it's so difficult. It's so difficult to just like go get something nice and easy when you're in the literate weirdo. I can't just go into a weird little mom and pop score. I can't just go into wherever. I guess I could, but I'm not gonna. I'm just not. I just wish I could find fucking convenience store food that didn't, that I didn't feel like it was a job to eat.

Really, really disappointed in the convenience stores here. Even like dessert type stuff. You know, there's some like, everything here is just passable. It's just like, I guess, all right, a dry kind of muffin bread thing. Hooray. Yay, some cookies. Fan, fucking, fantastic. We're in Japan. Fuck, man. I mean, I know if you went to a real store, you could get some real shit. But even just the convenience store stuff is wild. It's fucking parfays and cheesecake and endless, endless amounts of wonderful, amazing stuff.

Oh, this journey might be shorter than I expected. Now that I'm over here on the island, it looks like they're just doing construction.

Until the 25th. What day is it today? The 9th. Wellie, wellie, wellie. I mean, this is still very nice, but that was quick. That was a quick adventure, I guess. Whatever there is on this island, I mean, maybe it's not much. I don't know, it's not that big. But I'll still be here. I'll still be here when this opens up, so I'll be back, whatever you are, island.

Man, yeah, all these like, I wonder if there's beaches around here, but definitely everything around this area. It's all rocks and steep cliff sides, but it's fucking gorgeous. It's really beautiful. Hmm, well, I mean, I suppose since this particular little, yeah, I also kind of get the feeling this island looks really cool from a distance, but it's very, uh, tree covered. So I think on the island itself, it's just going to be paths, just nature paths. I don't think that I'll even necessarily, you know, I don't know that it'll be that different from any other nature path. It's like when you're on a mountain and you just feel like you're walking through a path, because you can't see past the trees. But all right, put that in the back pocket. I'll come back for your grand reopening. Random, weird island.

So I guess maybe a new adventure, maybe I should just try to find something to eat. Maybe this would be a day to try to find like a grocery store or something and try to find some kimchi and find some stuff that I can add to the noodles back at the hotel. Hotel makes super noodles. Maybe I can get some hard boiled eggs and stuff. Yeah, just shocking, shocking about these convenience stores. I don't know. At this point, I really think, uh, I mean, North American convenience stores are terrible, but I think they might be better. I don't know. It's like weird to compare which shitty convenience store is least shitty. There's more options in a South Korean store than in North America.

But yeah, I just, I'm the opposite of delighted. I would rather fucking starve.

I don't know. I don't know what's going on with that. I would be a little interested to know the history of South Korean convenience stores, because it doesn't even, I mean, the little bit that I know of South Korean food, it doesn't even seem to be in line with that.

It's just like its own little branch of fucking annoying, unpleasant food. All right, I'm just going to keep complaining. So let's just fucking quit it. Let's just quit it. Let's find a new adventure for today.

So I started just walking up, uh, just walking up a little windy road up a little nearby mountain. It's very beautiful and, you know, pretty much right away. I'm like, yeah, yeah, this tastes fine. Don't worry about the stupid convenience store where the fuck gives it shit. And I think also, I guess just because I put off eating for so long yesterday, because I was hoping I could sneak down and get food while no one was there that ate really late. You know, it was like 10, 30 or 11. So I mean, I'm actually really not that hungry, even though it's 2 p.m. I usually don't eat it night like that because, uh, especially salty stuff like instant ramen. Spicy instant ramen, especially. Just drives me out a lot and I got to drink a lot of liquids. And then that just makes me wake up and pee all night. So I tend not to eat at night that often. So I mean, I'm kind of overstating to like, oh, wow. So I'm starving. And I still won't eat convenience store food. It's like, no, I'm not. I'm legitimately really not feeling very hungry. I'm sure if I really was, I would have just bought that fucked up sandwich or something, you know.

But anyway, yes, just like wicked, beautiful. So far, this place, I mean, it's pretty small. I'm going to be here for a severe number of days, but for a quick visit or whatever. Especially if you're already in South Korea, J-Joo so far seems very much worth it. It's very fucking pretty. And then when I got to the top, I recognized like, oh, if I go down this way, I took a different way up yesterday. But this would take me to that sweet waterfall down in the grotto that I found. But somebody was directing me away from there. Some lady, I don't know, again, just construction stuff. I don't know what's going on. It's like a Thursday today. So I guess this is a good time if you got to fix stuff up. Although there were a lot of tourists off a lot of tourists, especially down by that island. A lot of disappointed tourists.

But I was like, yeah, cool, whatever. That's fine. I've already walked down this path yesterday. So I thanked her for her help in directing me to where I'm supposed to go. And then I got to, basically, I'm approaching from a different way. And right now, I'm looking right at the spot. I'm near the spot where the waterfall is. I just haven't walked over there yet because I stopped to fill out this recorder. But I just wanted to comment on how one of the things that makes this waterfall so amazing, what's so cool about it, is traditionally, I think, you know, generally, not like I've seen a ton of waterfalls in my life. But the one by Camine Park and the Hassawa Falls that I went to in 2019 with my friend Brad, you're at the bottom of the waterfall. You're looking up and you're like, whoa, waterfall. What makes this one so weird is that you're looking down into this weird grotto. And seeing a waterfall. And it's so cool because even as I was walking, you know, I'm trying to piece together in my mind, okay, if I walked over that way yesterday, and today I got directed this other way. But we should all end up in the same place. But I'm looking around and it's like, well, where's the waterfall? It should be right over there, but I see nothing. I just see nothing. And then as I walked over and got closer, it's like, oh, oh, yeah, there it is. There's the railing. There's the little, take a picture here. Now I'm going to head over and like, that's what makes this double magical. It's like a reverse waterfall. It's not a reverse because that would be a waterfall going up. It's an inverse waterfall. It's a waterfall below you down, down into the ground. Here we go. I'm walking, walking, walking. Boom. There it is. That's fucking crazy. It's so, Jesus Christ, that's beautiful.

Oh, and there's more people down there. Okay, that's going to be today's journey. There's for sure a way to get down there because there's a lot of people down there. I'm going to figure this book and shit out.

Fuck, this is really, really pretty. I love this fucking waterfall. Holy fuck.

That's what they should have over at that other island where people were walking across the bridge and they couldn't get in because the construction, there should be a little map. 25:00 Hey, turn around, go this way. In 20 minutes, you can see one of the coolest waterfalls.

That shit's red. All right, so maybe if I'm just mindful of signs, there's like, you know, arrows and ribbons and stuff. Artists walk away. I presume that might be what I was on yesterday because there were some really cool sculptures and stuff.

And there's ribbons denoting some kind of path.

And all right, just, what do we got here? Two arrows. There's an orange one pointing back the way I came. There's a blue one pointing also where I came. The blue one is Jeju Alley Trail. And then there's this not pink, not purple. What does that color? Moved? No, there's a word for this burgundy. There's a burgundy arrow. That's the Ha Young Alley. And it's got this little symbol that looks like a little, uh, kind of like a little horse. All right, well, I'm going to follow that. I don't know if that's the one I want, but it's got to be something. At least like a pick a thing. So even if it fails today, I'll have, I'll know what doesn't work for tomorrow. Though, isn't this leading me back toward where that lady directed me away? Yeah, this ain't going to work. So confusing.

Hmm, okay. All right, I'm looking at the little map here.

Because yesterday I walked down and around near what seemed like the top of the waterfall, but it was all fenced off and stuff. Which was good because I don't want to dive off the top of the waterfall again. I love Lara Croft. But it seems like if I go a little further, these Chanjian waterfalls.

Instead of taking the road I took yesterday, if I go a little farther north, there's another entry for Chanjian Falls with another little photo op symbol.

So maybe that's the one that leads me down toward them, whatever. I'm going to go try it.

And yeah, this is still these ribbons.

Blue and orange, the same as in Busan. Is that like, I wonder if that's like, I don't know, maybe that's like a common thing for for a hiking trail or a path or something you're supposed to follow. Because the coastline of Busan was all about those blue and orange signs. And now there's still using blue and orange here. Hmm.

Oh, there's another happy to see you convenience store.

What time is it now? Almost 3 p.m. Sorry, not even remotely hungry enough yet. I think maybe there's another chain called E24 that also has larger, more supermarket type stores. And they kind of stuck in my mind because I saw them on the list of places that will take a tea money card.

So again, with the size of Seguapo, maybe they'll have one somewhere.

Park Sunshine Jeju. I don't think that is a park. I think that's just a hotel. I wonder if these trees are just palm trees. I should look that up too. Like palm trees are the only trees I know of from like Miami and stuff. They're like the famous tree. And I'm just presuming like who knows what these particular trees are. But maybe is palm trees just as that it? If I see a tree that has these kinds of leaves, is that just a palm tree? I should look that up. All right, I'm at the additional side road that I didn't take before, but this doesn't seem promising. There's really no sidewalk. There is another guy walking down here. But the arrow just says Seguapo Sports Council in Gilmei Soccer Stadium. Nothing about a waterfall. I think this cannot be the intended method. I predict a failure for today. I'm going to have to actually look this up and try to find maybe on YouTube someone can do a little walkthrough or something. I don't think I'm going to be able to figure this out on my own. I mean, probably I could. I got 40 days, but two two distinct days of trying. I think that's enough because this is a little different again from going up a mountain. Especially like when I first got to Fukuoka, it definitely took me a few days to figure that out. How to get up on the mountains. And then when I first got to Seoul, that took geez, maybe a couple of weeks before I started getting a handle on how to approach these mountains. But this one is different because this is not a mountain. This is not going up. This is going down. And the closest I got yesterday to finding a little, you know, beaten trail 30:00 off the main trail just led to like a dangerous cliff side. Even right now next to me already, I can see it like diving way down deep to the side of me. This is just not the right place to be fumbling around and bushwack and looking for trails. I feel like if you don't have the proper method of getting down to the bottom of this gorge, prepare to break your arms and legs and your neck and die. Speaking of though, here's just a little weird opening. Where does this go? What is this?

Okay, now it's just a shortcut between the two roads from this road to the road I was on yesterday. Let me take a little moment though because one of the things I decided on yesterday that I was going to try is because it's a little tricky to find English friendly coffee around these parts where there's these awkward stories of like it was hard to order the coffee and then my card didn't work and then they didn't take cash and it's like I know it sounds so entitled I can't usually get a coffee rent here but that really is like that's such an awkward situation you got a order from somebody at like a chain too that was a composed coffee there's a real chain then you finally get in your order and you can't pay for stuff and they won't even take cash wild anyway instead of fighting with all of this with the local coffee culture and it's difficulties I just bought some instant coffee packs from Daiso it's like I'm just gonna make a coffee in the morning put it in a little thermos and I did I made a double where I got smoky espresso was one of the flavors and then like the special golden blend was the other but the espresso one seemed to have no sugar at all and I like a little touch of the sweet just a little so I did both I did a pack of each boiled up some water got it in this little 200mm liter thermos I think it's time now let's give this a try let's see how instant a dia coffee is because a dia is my favorite coffee chain because they are so English friendly their little kiosk is a fucking joy it's beautiful but there are none in segwapos so let's give us a little taste test my little thermos that I also bought at Daiso in jetchon thermos ASMR it looks very black the instant coffee at the place in Busan it was really nice because it had powdered milk in it so as much as I love a dia I think I might look for some little packets that have the powdered milk in it because even if I found one with no sugar but just with a little powdered milk I would take that that's that's really what I like but all right let's see woo still very hot yikes this thermos works man maybe I shouldn't be drinking this yet in fact maybe I shouldn't have it in a thermos at all maybe this is a weird plan in the summertime I never really thought about that this could take hours to cool down yeah it's hard to tell it's hard to tell how good it is because I can only drink the tiniest little bit oh yeah look at that look at the heat the steam coming off this bad boy might have to think this plan through maybe instant coffee's not going to be the thing maybe I should just go to a convenience store and get the thing that I do like which is buy two get one free a cafe lot cafe a cafe lot cafe a cafe lot coffees put it in my little mini fridge take those with me hmm yeah because this is a seems to taste okay it's not bad but uh yeah I didn't even think about that it's summertime now why am I putting coffee boiling hot coffee in a fucking thermos when do when am I going to be able to drink this maybe if I pass another convenience store maybe if I get no I was gonna say maybe I could just go buy some a cafe lesson I could add this to it but why it's already coffee I don't need to add more coffee to my coffee all right maybe this plan isn't gonna work out so good but that's okay because again like yeah a latte at a coffee chain here is like at least five bucks if you go to a to some place it's gonna be like 650 but I can buy buy two get one free a cafe lot that's five bucks as well for three coffees so even if I literally do that every day that I'm here I just drink convenience store coffee it'll still be cheaper than hanging out at a coffee shop hmm not bad not bad but yeah potentially uh an ill-advised plan and now that I've been standing here but do you hear that 35:00 I think I hear water interesting there's like a little cliff side here but it's just a small one I can't see any water but I see a path down there there's a for sure path how do I get to that thermos up my coffee again hmm all right well I'm gonna keep exploring wish me luck if all goes extremely perfectly I'm gonna get to a waterfall oh I'm starting to pretty much doubt that's gonna happen but whatever man exploring is its own uh it's its own reward oh okay I went just a little bit further what is this some kind of map there's a little stairway down that has like the caution tape of like don't go by here but it's caution tape attached to the tree on either side but the actual connecting tape has been broken that doesn't look like it was by official people though it looks like somebody just broke the tape but that's good enough for me and there's a little map here I am here I still love how easily you can translate Korean stuff with the translator app all right here's where I am John Gian Falls is nearby there's a little pink trail and then there's a yellow one this has bypass please use the detour in case of rain okay well it hasn't rained lately it's really hot out so that should be fine and then there's a trail that goes the other way away from the falls too all right let's try it let's try ahead and toward the falls but if that doesn't work they'll just go the other way just walk along this uh and there's the water even if this is supposed to be blocked off I'm glad that somebody just broke the tape and just gave me an official permission to go down here because uh I've run into a few this area is cordoned off things while in South Korea and it's uh you know it's annoying it's like I was trying to go to a thing man yeah this is pretty nice this is just like a nice little rugged trail man this is so I mean I guess I would have seen it anyway as I was walking I didn't just find it because I stopped to uh test my thermos copy but I I got a preview of it from that okay and there's the cymbals a little horse-looking cymbal of that waterfall park yeah even if uh even if I don't make it at this point this is just nice this is just really cool there's a stalk just chilling in the standing on a rock in the water oh and now on this path there's that uh that weird woven carpety stuff that they put down sometimes it's really old and run down but at least at one point somebody official tried to make this easier to traverse quite a bit of garbage down here just random cans and stuff all right and now I'm passing under the road I went on last time under a bridge so I think this is working maybe because yeah when I got to the top of the falls yesterday I was on the other side I went across that bridge I was on the other side of this water oh no here we go now if it in no entry official no entry with an arrow pointing away and oh yeah I see like yeah I could go down here like there's nothing physically stopping me but that's for sure the top of the waterfall and I totally don't want to do that that wasn't what I was trying to do anyway I was trying to get to the foot of the waterfall yeah I don't uh I'm scared of heights boy I do not want to be at the top of a waterfall that's the last place I want to be all right so that didn't work but still pretty cool man still a neat little diversion but yeah I think I'm going to have to look that one up whatever the secret is to getting to the bottom of the waterfall it is eluding me

all right I think I made it and because there are an actual mountain of people here it is a flood it is like in train to Busan when the zombies they're like liquid flowing that's what it's like there's 40:00 a little bit of a western tourism but a lot of this is domestic and it might be a school trip or something tons of teenagers but I haven't I haven't gone yet but basically where I started from there's like a parking lot at the start where yesterday I went up some stairs and saw all the cool views and stuff today I went over across the bridge and got stifled and then went up a different route so I think I just kind of missed the most obvious thing all of these tour buses they're all going here not that many people are going those other directions everybody's going this direction so from the parking lot which makes sense because at the parking lot level we're down at the level of the bottom of the fucking waterfall tons of people flowing this way towards some kind of park I'm a little bit off to the side right now so I can talk to myself in fact I better just stay here for now because I won't be able to comfortably talk there's too many people but just real quick to continue from my haranging earlier so there is a 7-11 here and at this point it's like really late in the day what is it now oh I guess it's only quarter after four I thought it was more like five but anyway there's a 7-11 here and I'm like let's just do it let's just cram some food in my face I just need to eat something and again there's really no particular difference I've noticed between any of the chains it's all still just random whatever so I got some like little own a giri rice ball things that I guess I had some of these when I first got to soul and they were like not the worst and they're still kind of not the worst but they're just like weird spicy rice and it's like whatever you know all of my comments from before still stand of just like it'll do but I feel like it's a bit of a job to eat these they're just like well the packaging's annoying it could get in the the nori get stuck in the stupid cellophane and just like whatever whatever just get it in your face but again compared to how man I could I love so much the the own a giri at a Japanese convenience store and it's certainly not the same here own sandwiches again just sandwiches from fucking hell it was egg salad tuna salad and grape jelly all together in one sandwich why the fuck would you do that I just don't understand give me any one of those three sandwiches and we're fine don't put all of them together it reminds me of uh you know people who stir up all their food on their plate before they eat which I am the opposite I eat things individually I usually eat like a thing and then the next thing and then the next thing but I know there's people that enjoy that of like oh look the way it's gonna be in my belly it's that way now it's on my plate all mixed up as though it's being digested in front of me delightful so if you're that type of person first off you may be one of history's greatest monsters but maybe then you'd like this because that's what this is like this feels like a pre-digested sandwich let's just put all the sandwiches together I don't know it's obviously a cultural thing where they just like everything together I hate it I don't like it at all that's the opposite of what I like like give me simple give me direct I'll eat them one at a time I don't want it all mixed together or at least you know mix things together wisely don't just literally mix three random sandwiches together anyway then I also got some some nacho cheese corn chips I'm like oh that's pretty safe right but I guess now that I think about it I mean potato chips are kind of the worst part of the Japanese convenience store experience and uh this is the step beyond this is corn chips maybe I shouldn't know they'd be so bad but it was again like work to eat them I wanted to eat this stuff while I was in the convenience store just so I could throw away the packaging right there and man it's just it felt like it took a million years to eat that horrible bag of chips it was terrible fucking terrible such low-quality garbage anyway I got some a cafe la coffees and uh and then I did take my my thermos coffee drink half of in a cafe la put my thermos coffee in the other half mix it all up it's fucking delicious so a cafe la is still there for me the coffee is wonderful nothing against the coffee drinks in general you're all good other than that though oh jeez but anyway anyway let us never speak of that again that's enough complaining about convenience stores for one lifetime but now that I'm on the right route again so many people I don't want to hold up my recorder it feels weird but oh and here's an additional sign beyond all the people a sign with an arrow that says way in oh wait here's a map because yeah wait a minute tickets okay okay maybe this ain't gonna work maybe you have to pay to see this thing ticket checking center oh yeah I mean that makes sense though all of these like tour buses coming here this is a serious fucking 45:00 serious endeavor they get going here and I mean hey how do you pay for all these uh tour buses and stuff if you don't charge people to go see the waterfall but uh not only am I disinclined to do that I mean I don't even know how it works I don't know where you get a ticket I don't know what it costs I don't know nothing yeah I feel like the view from up at the top was plenty this was just like a little bonus like can I figure this out can I determine how this works and I guess I did and I guess I am not going what a weird day what a weird day of adventures that didn't quite work out but that's fine again the uh the adventure is the adventure the destination the destinations are more important just to have one just to have an excuse to go explore around this has been a fucking beautiful day and a delightful walk and yeah as I've said it many other waterfalls who cares about the fucking waterfall the waterfall itself is not the important part of the journey so I think I think we're going to end this bad boy here then I wonder I mean there is literally hundreds hundreds of people like it's really busy and there just it's a constant stream I wonder how much this costs are there so many people because it's cheap or are they making crazy bank off this waterfall enemy to be fair like I said it's an amazing waterfall it's a real good one I guess if you're lucky enough to have this bad boy here why not man why not monetize this shit but there's a little check ticket booth a couple little people went in to have their tickets checked everybody else just rolled right through it's just so uh who knows man who knows confusing I don't know I don't know how things work if I want to I can go to the top of the waterfall and accidentally kill myself that's in my arsenal now if places I know how to get to Yeah, the other cool thing is because I'm not part of a big tour bus thing. My hotel's across the street from here. It's so close. Maybe I'll go do a little research and just see how this works. But who knows, maybe it costs a dollar. I don't know. But again, because I'm across the street, it's like, hey, whatever dude, I can come back here anytime. I don't need to fucking unravel this mystery right now. I don't need to know how this works.