#131 Day and night in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, South Korea

Transcript

So I'm starting to get to know my neighborhood in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, South Korea. And it's pretty cool because I'm right by the coast. It's not at all beach stuff. It's like rocky and really cliffs actually. A lot of cliffs very quickly. But with the rocky shoreline and these islands out in the bay, out in the, well not in the bay. It's the fucking ocean out in the ocean. I realized it actually reminds me quite a bit of gas bay Quebec, where my grandmother used to live. May she rest in peace. She was 101 years old when she passed away. Pretty good, pretty good run. Beatrice D. McNally, nice work, B. But she lived right across from this thing called the Perse rock, the purest rock. And it was this cool big rock. It was called Perse rock because it has a hole in it. Like it had been pierced. Where here the island is farther out and is not pierced, but still the vibe. The vibe is similar. It's like oh yeah, maybe that's, I mean I like it just because it's nice, just because it's perty. But I think I like it a bit because of that too.

And I'm realizing how insanely close I am. There's like two waterfalls around here. There's the one that's like hidden in this little grotto and you can go up above and look down and that's kind of cool. And I figured out yesterday that you can actually walk up to the waterfall for a mere $2. It's pretty affordable.

But it's also really busy, super crowded, megatorist thing.

So since it's right there, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to wait till there's bad weather. I'm in no big hurry.

So on a bad weather day, when there will probably be less people, I'm going to lay down my two bucks and go. Or if I happen to be there at night, they light it up at night, that'd be cool too.

But then this other waterfall, it's apparently the only waterfall that empties straight into the ocean. In all of Asia, if I understand right?

Geon Bang Waterfall. It's also apparently only $2 to see. I was looking up little reviews on Google Maps and there was the occasional, I can't believe you have to pay money to see a natural phenomenon. But it's like, I think $2 is pretty reasonable. I think that's okay to sort of maintain the grounds and stuff. I can't complain about $2.

But I realized that's even closer, not that waterfall, exactly, but the whole, there's like a whole park that goes along the shoreline that leads up to the waterfall. And the beginning of that park is literally across the fucking street. You know, I said the other waterfall was across the street for me, but it's not really. It's, you know, 10 minute walk. This park is just like, I didn't realize how insanely close it was, but now that I'm learning how things are laid out, just got to turn a corner, go one block, and across the street. And here it is.

And it is a pretty fucking beautiful day.

And my only plans for today, I'm just going to go to Daiso. I got to buy some, some sundries. But I can walk at least, I don't know, like half the way there along this amazing beautiful park. But I was also thinking with that, I mean, who knows, it's two bucks again. I could just go whenever, whenever the mood strikes me. This one seems a lot less busy, but I did see a review say that it's especially awesome after it rains because then there's just way more water.

So it's kind of neat again, just to not have to be in any kind of a hurry. I got weeks and weeks. I can go whenever.

But to have little, little little bits of randomness, I guess, it's like, hey, if it's randomly a bad day, maybe I'll go to this other one. After it's been a bad day, if it rains, that's the perfect time to go to this other waterfall, just like an embarrassment of waterfalls around here. And if I get in the mood and I just go some other day before then, then I'll do that.

But there's people down on the rocks, I see now. So you can actually go down there.

But they have this nice walkway up here. I'll stick with the walkway.

What is this? Some kind of like a big brass pair of hands coming out of the ground with like flowers around them. Writing on a big brass piece of paper. Brass art, brass man.

But man, one weird silly little thing about that I'm staying at more of a proper hotel now than I have been. 5:00 And it's kind of cool. It's like, yeah, I get a hotel experience. It's very inexpensive hotel, but it's still a hotel.

Whoops, I almost walked into somebody taking a photo. I'll just go the other way.

But Jim, staying at more of a proper hotel this time, and I was like, oh, this is cool. I get more of a hotel experience. This is kind of, you know, I was thinking like, I wish I could just stay at a hotel. That'd be cool. And now I am. And it's still pretty cheap. It's only five bucks a day more than the teeny wee share houses. And yeah, it just feels kind of neat to be in a hotel. And if anything, one thing I liked about it was extra anonymity at first. Just because it's a bigger place, a bigger building, more rooms, more floors. It seemed initially easier to just kind of fade away a little, which is what I like. I like to just do my thing. So when I first checked in and the lady was like, there's no... Why'd she even tell me that? Is this such a lie? There's no room type cleaning or whatever. And I was like, great, no, that's fine. I have no problem with that. But today I got woken up by fucking... I guess there's a phone. I didn't really realize it's like tucked away behind the TV, which I've also never used. But really fucking loud. I thought it was like a fire alarm. It's like, what the fuck's going on? Not a fun way to wake up. But I didn't figure it out until it stopped ringing. And I was like, oh shit, fuck. Well, I guess I'm up now. God damn. You know, that sucks. But then it rang again a bit later. And it's like, hey, housekeeping or whatever. Do you need your room clean? It's like, no, no. I've been here like three days. No. I was very polite about it. I wasn't. I had no zero attitude. But I did say like, no. In fact, no, I'm fine. And if I need it, I'll let you know. How about that? I'll let you know if I need it. But I don't. I'll be fine. And it's like, dude, I hope that doesn't fucking happen again. Where did that come from? Why specifically say that isn't going to happen? And then it happens three days later.

And I guess it's because there's a little garbage can in the corner of the room. And I realized there's a garbage can in the bathroom too. That was the only place like I picked it up. And it's like, oh, it's still wet under there. I just moved it out of the, out of the wet room. Because again, it's just, it's a little awkward with these wet rooms that the whole floor is just wet several times a day.

It's actually not an appropriate place to even have a garbage pill. But I never used these garbage cans in my Airbnb's or anywhere. You know, I always just keep my garbage tucked away. And then when I leave the house, I just toss it in a little garbage can wherever I might happen upon one. I don't have much garbage to start with. But I guess that's the idea. I guess. I guess that's what, because I don't even know what else they would do.

I haven't even had time to make a mess yet. I don't think I even own enough things to make a mess. Just, just no. Just leave me alone, please. So, so if this happens again, if I get the call again, I guess I'm just going to have to take the phone off the hook and see if they take the hint there of like, like, yeah, just no, please. I was so happy when you said you weren't going to give me an amenity.

Being catered to is annoying. And in a smaller thing, but similar, I guess, it ties in.

Is last night I went down to the little kitchen area, made some noodles with the kimchi that I bought. It was very delicious.

But then there's this nice little, like, side area, like a nice little nook over to the side.

Where no one else was sitting, and I went and sat there and just stared at the window at all the pretty lights of the nighttime.

But then the lady turned on the light. You know, because she saw like, oh, he's sitting over there in the dim. And she turned on the light and it's like, oh, this went from such a nice, ah, the nice pleasant evening where I'm just eating my noodles and kimchi. To just, oh no, harsh artificial lighting. Way too bright, washing out everything, making it so I can't even actually see what's going on at the window really. Awful, awful.

But, you know, the polite thing to do is to just, you know, pretend you appreciate it. That's where any of my socially awkward folk out there going over and turning off the light yourself, bad move. Even saying that you don't want the light on, bad move.

You will seem like a real dickhead.

All you can do is pretend, oh, thank you for helping me. Thanks for doing that thing that I fucking didn't want you to do at all and made everything worse. But yeah, it's just funny, two little examples of, ah, by helping. You know, by trying to, oh, I'll help this guy. I'll turn on the light. Oh, I'll help this guy out. I'll see if he wants to, you know, his fucking room service, room cleaning, whatever the fuck. Housekeeping, I guess it's called room services, a different thing.

But you're fucking stepping on my toes, you're fucking my shit up. Leave me alone. I just want to be left alone. I want no one to pay attention to me ever. So like today, one of the things I'm going to buy at Daiso. I need to buy some little like clips or something to clip my kimchi bag closed, because it doesn't have a zip lock top.

Gonna buy a bigger water thermos because the one yesterday just putting coffee in it one time. It cannot be a water thermos ever again. It just has this vague coffee smell after one day of having coffee in it. So that's okay. That'll be my coffee thermos. Should I need one? Gotta go buy a bigger water thermos anyway. But I'm gonna buy toilet paper, buy a big, wacky toilet paper.

I did that at the last place too, because it's like I'm sure I could ask them. I could get more toilet paper or whatever, but just it's okay. I can handle it. Just let me do my thing. Just leave me alone. That's all.

But it made me think of. I mean, I've thought back to this many times throughout the years, but it's such a direct example. In the book, The Fountainhead, which is one of these things, Iron Rand is this writer from back in the day who, you know, I feel like kind of stuck in the middle where I feel like people who just really hate Iron Rand stuff, they're just kind of a little disingenuous, I think. She's like this writer from Russia who moved to America, you know, the classic come to the land of freedom, followed the American dream and she did. She became this super famous writer. She had plenty of reason to be terrified of communism. So her writing is like mega capitalist. So a lot of people don't like that. But on the other hand, I also don't really care for people that are huge fans of her. I feel like those people are as bad if not worse. Probably worse, because there's so much weird shit. It's like you're overlooking some seriously weird shit if you just throw in your lot in all the way behind this. So I feel like even though it's a little bit of a tightrope to walk, being a moderate Iron Rand fan, there's a lot of interesting stuff in her books. Very neat shit. Like what I find most interesting is not at all her political philosophy or even her philosophy philosophy. It's mostly the weird sort of psychological stuff that she was presenting that I don't think she knew she was presenting. You know? Didn't have a word for autism back then. But she's on some kind of spectrum, that's for fucking sure. But anyway, there's a part in this book, The Fountainhead, where this architect gets hired to design a vacation resort for introverts. Like a vacation resort that is entirely designed so that people can be left alone, can be isolated from one another, and can just go have a nice, quiet, private vacation. When the prevailing wisdom would be, hey, make it a big fun resort. Have group activities. Have everybody communal. Yeah, party, party, party. And it turns out that the reason he was hired to build this thing is because it was like a money laundering scheme. The people who paid for this resort intended for it to fail, and in fact needed it to fail for their money scheme to work. And then it was unexpectedly a success. And like, what the hell's going on here? You've really fucked our shit up. I think anybody would want this fucking kind of a place. Who the hell wants to go on vacation and just be by themselves? For obvious reasons, that stuck in my mind. That's why I like ironed books. It's like, yes, she says this weird shit that certainly other people have not said to me before. I read those books and I was like 17, and it's like, finally. Oh, thank God somebody understands what it's like to be a fucking weirdo.

And then like I was saying, you know, then there's many layers of less charming weirdness that you got to dig through.

But that's a different story for a different podcast.

Let me just say I understand if you don't like ironed books, but you know, try to chill out a little about it because there's some cool stuff in there. Relax a little bit.

It's a very interesting character study of her as a person, if nothing else.

I think I'm at the waterfall entrance, but not today, my friends. Not today. Someday, though. That's a weird duality, too, of like, yeah, it's just my neighborhood for a month and a half. This is just where I live. I get all the time in the world, but it'll still go by quickly. Before I know it, like I say, with Busan. It'll just pass by and I'll be like, oh shit. Time's up already. I'm somewhere else. But anyway, yeah, that's a... 15:00 An unexpected wrinkle of the hotel life is... Yeah, like, I don't know that there's any... Like, I don't think it's these two specific examples that are like, oh, in these two particular cases, I have a worse time when people are trying to cater to me. I don't think there's a good one. Like, I can't think of any situation where I want a person to proactively come do something for me, because they just don't realize that they're fucking my shit up. I was just walking through a bus stop. Get a little echo. Yeah, they don't realize I don't want the light on. I definitely, definitely do not want you to wake me up to ask me about cleaning my room. No, no, no, no, no. Giant X. Never, never, never, never. I can come ask you if I need something. Don't try to help. You're not helping. You're making things worse. So, yeah, again, I don't know. I don't know that that's at all relatable to anyone. It must be relatable to someone.

But yeah, these little kimchi bags that I bought from a convenience store, they're really good. It's like a little satchel, a little sack, probably last three or four meals, and I got that by two, get one free. So, I got a whack of kimchi, and it really goes a long way. Like the instant noodles are good already. They're already just way better than North American ones. They add some kimchi, and you add an egg, and it's like a real meal. It's fucking delicious.

This is a fucking nice ass day. I've been taking my weather resistant jacket around with me, because it's a little too heavy, but I just kind of wrap it up, like roll it up into a long tube, and just hang that over my shoulders, so it goes around my neck to keep my neck from being burned. And then oftentimes, by the time night time comes, it actually is cold enough to need it. And I definitely need to have some kind of a hood, just good advice in general, but especially being right by the ocean.

But I'm a little concerned about my arms. It's so sunny out now. It's like, hmm, I'm not going to be running into sunburn territory. Maybe at the Daiso, I'll keep my eyes peeled for suntan lotion. Yeah, another little dumb thing in the kitchen. I found this one book, this finance book. It was a Korean book, but the title was English, and it was this weird compound word. That was just such a strange unnatural word that we wouldn't have thought of, wealth, thinking, wealth, thinking, wealth, and thinking, sharing the TH. Just one of those things that it sounds, if you're not an English speaker, it's like, what a clever thing. What a clever turn of phrase. I can't believe no one's used this before, wealth, thinking, so obvious. But if you're a native English speaker, you know, it's like, that's not, that's not right. That's like a Saturday Night Live sketch. That sounds like a seriously irreputable book. Practice the art of wealth, thinking, wealth, thinking, wealth, thinking, put it together. What if you got wealth, thinking?

The thinking that'll bring you wealth, the thinking that'll treat you well, wealth, thinking. Just repeat that for nine straight minutes, and you got an SNL sketch. Wow, this place really is small. I was just about to say, well, I'm just walking into a new part of town I'd never been to, and I'm starting to get lost, so I should pull out my phone to put away my recorder. But I just recognize there's this roundabout that has colorful, the colorful stuff. I don't even know what it is, like paper lantern type things all around it. I'm like, oh, shit, okay, I do know where I am.

Oh, man, and now I've just turned on to like one of the more major streets that should take me straight up to Daiso land, and you can just see the big center of the island in the distance. The volcano, I wonder how tall that thing is. That is fucking big, man. That is big. I'm gonna have to look into that at some point while I'm here.

Is that even realistic? Can I do that?

But it's weird, because on the one hand, it's huge. It's taken up the whole horizon. It's like, fuck that's big. That looks bigger than the mountains in Vancouver, maybe? Certainly comparable. About the same, but I think maybe bigger.

But on the other hand, if you got up over that and went down the other side, that's the whole island. So it's like big and small at the same time.

Oh, wow, I actually managed to connect to random internet. I just tried out of curiosity, because sometimes in South Korea you just get internet. I didn't know where, just while you're walking around, and even here in Jeju, sometimes it works. Halasang is a shield volcano. Okay, you're gonna help me out there. Shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a shield lying on the ground. Alright? So yeah, that makes sense. It's not like just straight up Mount Doom style. It's summit at 1,947 meters, almost 2,000 meters.

Over 6,000 feet is the highest point in the country. Fuck. I've definitely never been that high. I don't think I've ever been higher than...

I don't know if I've ever hit 800. I've never hit a thousand, for sure, under a thousand. So I don't know about that. I'll look into it, but that seems pretty insane. But it doesn't look that bad, like they were saying. I mean, shield volcano. Yeah, it's just like, it's not scary looking. It's not like an intimidating peak. It's just really fucking big. 2,000 meters. Fuck me.

But then on the other hand, I mean in Jetchon, I walked up 700 meters, almost by accident, 600 in Busan. I remember I went higher than 600 near Ome station and I was like, fuck this, I hate this. But that's because that was like that sort of steep, scarier Japanese terrain. Like it's not the physical part of it. I could for sure walk up 2,000 meters. No problem. No fucking problem. It's just how do you do it? What is the route? If there's a route that's not crazy. I don't know, maybe. Maybe.

It's going to be right there, fucking staring me down every goddamn day. I will certainly look into it. So yeah, racking up things to do. Go to this waterfall, go to that waterfall, climb the biggest fucking mountain in all of South Korea.

Dance club. Just a clothing store. But here, let's fade out this segment with these sweet tunes because I'm around the corner from Daiso. Have a quick dance party.

A real quick dance party. The song ended as soon as I tried to do that. Damn. Okay. All right. Break time.

All right. I said I wasn't going to do any more hotel room recordings, but it's only, it's like late afternoon. This is fine. I won't do any more at night. At night is when it's like, I don't know if I'm making noise and bothering people. This is fine. The bubble tank store across the street that sells scuba stuff for rent scuba stuff. They're still open. I can see between some hotels across the street. I can see the blue of the ocean and that one island.

There's a guy down in the parking lot waiting to be picked up. He's got his luggage. It is pretty genius. The wheelie bag, the bag with the wheels on it and the extendable thing. My one bag is that type of bag. He's going to those, but it's pink. Cool.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, hopefully I cleaned up that recording a little while I edited so that it doesn't sound like I was completely brain blown. I'm sure I edited out a lot of awkward pauses and stuff, but man, I was really having a hard time getting my mind together. Just figuring out what I was talking about during that.

I think it's a combination of, I mean, that the phone waking me up, I clearly didn't sleep enough, but also the heat. It's probably a good thing because I'm sure my sleep schedule, it's just going to slide anyway. It always does. But it actually, let's walk into the bathroom reverb. It was my squelchy little rubber sandals.

Yeah, I'm sure my sleep schedule is going to slide like it always does, but that could be a good thing because we're definitely at the time of year where I just shouldn't be outside in the day. I mean, that was fine. I had to go hit up the dice though while it was open. I don't know what the hours are, but that's like an appropriate thing. Just go to one place, do one thing, come the fuck home because it's so hot outside. It was boiling my brain. I did get some suntan lotion, which is good because you know, why would they not have it? But then again, why do they not have deodorant, right? They should have all this stuff, but they do have suntan lotion.

It's death out there. This is not an appropriate time of day to go out and explore and do stuff. Really fucking hot. So yeah, maybe slip into more of a nighttime fucking kind of deal is not such a bad plan. Oh, here we go. That's why he's got a pink bag. He's with a couple of ladies. So that is, although he's still, they each have their own bags and he's still, he's still got the pink one.

Maybe it is his. I highly doubt it, but you never know. Some rear window shit. I'm just staring at people at the window. Anyway, I just wanted to say I feel so much better. I came back, came back with all my stuff, especially since I got a, you know, big giant 12 pack of toilet paper at the dice though. It's like, well, it's definitely not the time to go hang out at Starbucks or whatever the fucker just walk around. I should just go the fuck home. Came home took a shower and it's just like, oh, yeah, I'm indoors. I'm indoors and I'm not sweating to death. This is so much better. See, I think it's officially time to switch up the schedule. Being awake earlier in the day is of negative value at this point. It is just asking to sweat, to have my brain function it. Half capacity and to get sunburns. I could feel it. I could feel my arms starting to get that little, little hurt, a little bit.

I always forget one thing too. I forgot to buy a water bottle while I was there, but I did get, I was just trying to find some clips that I could use to clip my, my kimchi bag closed, but instead I found Tupperware. So now I, it's like I'm carrying on the traditions that I learned in Busan. Now I just have a little one liter Tupperware and I think each of these kimchi bags I bought are 400 grams. They'll easily fit in there. So now I'll just walk down to the little kitchen area with my own little Tupperware of kimchi and my little hard boiled egg that I got from the convenience store and make my stuff.

This is nice too because I'm not totally sure what kind of Korean stuff is available easily available in North America, but I know kimchi is, kimchi is easy to find. So I don't have to give up this one because that's one thing with like Japanese food. You can get sushi in my hometown and it's pretty good, but it's really fucking expensive. You know, like there's so much stuff in like Japanese cuisine that just cannot easily be transferred to, again I'm not talking about like Toronto or Vancouver, I'm talking about my little shitty hometown. Very tough to carry on that stuff there, you know. I just kind of, me and my mom watched some YouTube videos about how to make Onigiri and we would just make our own and you know, it's not saying it went great, but we tried. Whereas kimchi and Tupperware, fucking kidding me, I can take this with me for sure. I will carry this on with me easily. That is totally available. That's kind of nice. Who knows what other stuff I'll carry on from my visit to Korea, but that one for sure. Nice little Tupperware container full of kimchi. You ever see that in my fucking kitchen if you ever are in my, if I ever have a home in the future. You'll know where I picked up that habit.

So anyway, I'm just gonna hang out here. Then maybe, either I'll just, I don't know, maybe I'll take a little nap. Fuck it, I don't know, but yeah, maybe I'll go out at night.

And maybe I'll wander over to the waterfall because that, you know, the free view is a view you don't have to pay $2 for, but the view from up above the grotto is such a cool fucking view in the day. What'll that look like in the night? It might be really sweet.

But yeah, I mean, it legitimately might be worthwhile for me to actually do the crazy shit I was talking about in Busan. Just stay up all night. Get a little morning time in, sleep through the afternoon because yeah, it's just death out there. It is not, not pleasant.

That's definitely a big, a big switch growing up. I used to love the summertime when I was a kid and I used to hate the winter. And it is the opposite now. Now I hate the summer and I love the winter. I love when there's big snowstorms and shit.

But visually, this is beautiful. Just looking at the window. Gorgeous. Not saying summer is actually bad, but being out in it, highly fucking overrated. I need to endeavor not to do this.

Which again, I guess is going to be tricky because the coffee shop plan is just so not working out. If I was just hiking to a coffee shop and sitting in a nice air-conditioned coffee shop through the afternoon, that'd be great. But since my plan is just to make my own coffee and go sit on a big rock somewhere or something, that's not going to work.

During the bulk of the day, too fucking hot.

A nice cool evening. I got my little coat, but I don't quite need it yet. My little jacket. I guess I should say too, as I'm walking out of the hotel parking lot. This place I met is called Hotel Pine Hill. And I know I was given a shit earlier for being too nice and too helpful. But that's obviously just because I am a dick fuck. That's just my own fucking issue. And even from here, there's Hotel Fine. What's this over here? My hotel? That other one is probably a hotel because it's got lit up letters, but they're not in English. Hotel Jeju. Yeah, this whole fucking block is nothing but hotels. But yeah, Hotel Pine Hill. It's pretty cool, especially because I love being a cheap bastard. And it's real nice for how cheap it is. Too nice, too friendly, too helpful. But anyway, it's like nine o'clock. I had a wee little power nap and then I made one of the little instant coffees because I'm like, I don't know how much caffeine is in an instant coffee. I have no idea. I was like, yeah, that's probably okay to drink that at 8.30 at night, right? Maybe an incredibly stupid thing to do. But again, fuck it. Fuck it, man. There's an extremely little value to maintaining a regular sleep schedule this time of year. And it just, it's fun to just leave the house really late at night. It feels cool. I can see the water now just through some buildings and can see the lights shimmering on the water.

One thing though, this is going to make me go through clothes way faster if my days become double days. Change my clothes twice. But that'll just mean sooner that I'll have a nice laundry day. There's apparently a laundry place really near, which man, Google Maps are pretty handy. Just the reviews and stuff on Google Maps. I found a lot of handy shit off of those. So just the. The laundromat near me just had a review from really recently, like two weeks ago with someone saying, hey, if you're an English language traveler, here's the deal. Here's how many machines there are. Here's how many dryers there are, not a ton. But they got these machines. You put in these different little except these different build denominations. It spits out 500 one coins and you use those. Here's how much the laundry costs like everything.

And I was like, well, thank you. Thumbs up to you, my friend. That'll be something I can do if I'm just stuck in the middle of the dog day afternoons where it's super hot. Go sit in the laundromat. It's been a while since I've done laundry. I've always got these weird situations at the sharehouses because all the sharehouses have had laundry, which I'm not complaining. Maybe this hotel does too. I don't know. I noticed a weird little place today where it's like, oh, down by the kitchen. There's like a public washroom sort of area in an office. I don't know what's all in there. But I don't know. Would that be normal for a hotel to have laundry? I feel like not. But I mean, obviously I don't know much about hotels. Not a common hotel guy. I feel like probably like a laundry service would be more of a thing. But whatever, I'm just going to go to the laundromat, do laundry. Kick back, relax.

But yeah, my plan is, since it's a pretty short walk, I'm already halfway there to the park with the cool view, the grotto view of the waterfall. 35:00 The waterfall is only open until 10 pm. So I presume after 10 pm, maybe they don't leave the lights on all night. So if I want to go spy a look at the lit up waterfall from above, I should try to get there before 10. And I don't know what the deal is with that park. Maybe it's just open all night. Maybe you can just wander around through there. I don't know. I don't have a ton of experience with nighttime stuff in South Korea.

I mean, it's the land of CCTV. I just saw an LCD screen. I just walked under, said something, something CCTV. They want to make it clear you're being filmed at all times. And I definitely saw notices in Seoul saying, don't come to this park after such and such hours.

So I don't know. I don't even know if I can go to this park at night.

On the other hand, there's the delightful foreigner card. If I just go snake my way through there, it's like, oh, sorry, I didn't know. I mean, I really don't.

But from here, I'm down at the bottom. I'm approaching the parking lot.

So there's the snakey road that I took last time. But then there's also some steep steps that I took last last time, aka the first time.

So I think steep steps are the plan. And then from there, it's just across the park and the view of the waterfall.

So let me put away this recorder. So I'm not huffing and puffing as I walk up these stairs. Small training for the 2000 meter ascent. I did the most I did today when I got back as I just googled like hiking in Jeju. Top 10 best hikes in Jeju. And it's like, okay, I'm not, I'm not prepared to dive into this yet. But, but again, that's just a cool, that seems so doable because this island is so small. Like that actually doesn't seem like a crazy plant. Because I don't know, you bump into those things sometimes of like such and such shrine run, find the, find all these things or whatever. See all of these ancient buildings, see all this, see all that. And stuff like that never really grips my brain.

I guess I tried a little bit in Yokohama with those, like when I realized they were numbering the bluffs. And then I found out there was like 120 of them or something. But the top 10 hikes of Jeju, that does not sound crazy. I mean, the fact that I was looking at what is no doubt the number one hike. And I was like, I mean, it's 2000 meters, that's insane. But I don't feel like I couldn't do that. That seems like it might be possible. So presumably all the other hikes are way freaking smaller than that. Yeah, I don't know, I'm not making any promises, but that doesn't sound crazy to me to do all 10. That's possible. That's a thing. But all right.

I'm gonna go, uh, Metal Gear Solid style, infiltrate this parking lot, go up the stairs. Will they be lit? Will they be dark? Yeah, I mean, maybe they're just lit the whole time and maybe the whole park up there is lit. Maybe none of this is at all a big deal. Just, just feels a little weird because it's night time. It feels very fucking different than daytime.

All right, there's nobody up here, but this seems, seems cool. There was in fact lights up the death stairs, but now at the top, even though there's nobody in this park, it's pretty well lit. I thought it's not a person, but no, it's just a flag. And one of these areas where it's like, hey, take a picture here that I took a picture at because you could see the islands out in the, out in the water. This time of day, you can't see anything out in the water, but the city does look pretty cool because it's all lit up, but even just the big symbol that says like this is a good place to take a picture. It's like neon, it's changing colors. Huge and lit up. I wouldn't have expected that to be lit up at all. That's weird. And there's the Casa Loma hotel up here. I didn't even notice that was here at all. This enormous fucking hotel. But now it's all lit up. It's like, well, all right. This is Hotel Grand Central. This fucking Segwapot, at least down in the southern part here where I met. It's got to be like 50% hotel. There's just hotels everywhere.

But it's still kind of neat because even though this is pretty well lit, it's still pretty creepy. 40:00 It definitely has Moontan Trail vibes. It's not that dark because there's above. There's lights up above that make it more, you know, you can at least find your footing here. But it's a bare reminiscing of that. It's like, I'm glad that I've been here before and I already know where I'm going. That makes it kind of cool to walk through at night. If this was my first time, I think I'd feel a little different. This would be a little unnerving.

Actually, though, I guess it's all relative because compared to some of those parks in Japan, this is a light paradise. Like this doesn't have horror movie vibes like in Japan, where it shits fucking terrifying.

But speaking of Japan, as I was coming into the parking lot down there before I went up the stairs, this was kind of interesting. There was a guy walking ahead of me who was an Asian guy about my age, maybe a little older. So I just presumed he was Korean, but of course this is the hotel zone. So maybe not. And then he, well, he wasn't because he pulled up his phone and he had a translator app and he was translating the sign. It's like, oh, yeah, like that is something I started to realize more in Japan is how many tour groups and stuff there are of people that are Chinese or Korean or other stuff. I don't know, but it's just kind of neat because yeah, it's like, oh, if anything, there's probably, I don't know, is there more, probably more? I have no idea. I don't know the numbers. They know, you know, a lot of people go to Japan from all over. But of course, if it's right there, if it's very cheap to get there and it's right next door, why wouldn't other Asian people go there? Alright, oh, there we go, finally some people. I was just going to say I'm quite sure I'm going the right way. And for sure I am, and because there's finally people. So let me stop talking to myself.

Okay, perhaps I can talk to myself quietly, quietly, quietly, quiet, quiet. So it is lit up. I can see the waterfall from here. It certainly still looks pretty cool. It looks nice. But I feel like the promotional imagery down at the ticket booths, it was like, hey, it's lit up at night. It was like it was like a light show or something. Like it's going to be pink, it's going to be purple, it's going to look like club noir, it's going to be fucking crazy down there.

It doesn't seem to be that way. I was kind of expecting to look down into like a neon fucking 1980s blood dragon fucking waterfall, which would be kind of maybe godly, maybe it's better that they don't do that. Or maybe they only do that at special times. Maybe they have like little light shows. I don't know. Maybe the advertising was just wildly exaggerating.

But yeah, it still is kind of cool. Kind of cool to see it from up here. And yeah, this is all way too subtle for a picture to pick up. I did just try to take a picture and you can't see shit with my crappy phone.

But this is like really cool in a different way. It's better in the daytime, but how it's lit up so you can see the waterfall. But then above it is way, way dark. You can just see a little smattering of city. Like this side of the city is not hotel land. It's not all filled with lights.

Because these buildings are not especially lit up, you can see the big mountain behind them. Like this, you know, sloping up toward the big 2000 meter crazy one. So you got these really subtle mountains in the distance. And then a little sliver of a moon. It's just like almost the opposite of a full moon, whatever that's called. You know, it's just like a little fingernail of a moon. And it's like almost almost like a painting. You know, if I couldn't see the water moving in the waterfall, let's see the only thing that's moving. I guess some lights, some red lights on the mountain are blinking. Yeah, not bad, not bad. This one is better in the daytime though. This is a rare case of, you know, I say, and everything looks cooler at night, but that really only applies to city stuff. Nature doesn't look better at night. And you can't see fucking nature.

But I guess if I have any more wild adventures tonight, pop back in, but I don't expect to. I think I'm probably just going to mosey back. Well, I was going to say mosey back to the hotel, but I don't know. I just realized actually I've got a previous episode of this podcast that I just finished editing. So I do have to give it a listen back.

That's a good excuse to walk around at random. So maybe I will walk around a little, but I don't expect much action to happen at 10 p.m. on Jeju Island. 45:00 But if I do get jumped into a fucking biker gang or something, I'll be sure to let you know, but presuming that that doesn't happen, I guess that's an episode. Thank you for joining me once again. I like how it's like, I mean, it's obviously this is a podcast about nothing, but how little things still happen. You know, like, I mean, I'm just thinking today, I feel in my bones that the important thing that happened today is as I was walking up the street to Daiso, I for the first time realized the enormity of how this place is a freaking volcano and right in the middle is just this big mountain that everything just circles this big mountain. And there's a very distinct feeling as you walk toward that big mountain.