#132 Visiting Sojeongbang waterfall, Jeju, South Korea

Transcript

There's a little grocery store, like a little independent little market type store right across the street. I just noticed from my hotel. I'm going to have to check that out at some point in my continuing attempts to not eat convenience store food while I'm in Jeju Island. Anyway, hey, how you doing? I got a little spring in my step today and I probably shouldn't. I got to make sure I don't go on any super epic adventures today because yesterday rain trained all day, really hard actually, super hard rain. I just stayed inside all day, didn't go anywhere. I only saw three other people yesterday in the little dining area when I just went down to make some kimchi egg noodles. And yet, I could feel in my throat that I was starting to get sick. It's like, what the heck of all the days? How did that happen? But I mean realistically, I probably caught something. Two days ago that was gestating because I really saw nobody yesterday. But it's one of these things where early on in this travel adventure, I was really worried every time I started to get sick because, you know, it just sucks to be sick. And if you think way back to the very first episode, I mean, I was telling that story about being sick in Japan, but even at that time. That was the last time I got really sick was when I went to the passport office to get a new passport. And there was one coughing kid and I was sick for two weeks. But ever since then, I've had several times where, I don't know, a half doesn't at least where this will happen to me. I'll get like a bit sick and I'll feel it coming. And then it just goes away. And it's happened enough times that I'm getting arrogant about it now. Like I don't even feel worried. I'm like, you know what, there's a very good chance this will pass. By tomorrow, I might just be fine. So why even put any mental stress energy into it? You know, all the other times I'd be like, it would kind of ruin my day for a bit where I just, I'm presuming that I got a bunch of sickness coming. And then it would just never come. And now I'm at the point where I'm like, I'm not going to get sick. You kidding? I don't get sick. I never get sick. So I mean, we'll see. We'll see. I am definitely arrogant at this point about it. And that can't be the right attitude. But it works for me today. It makes today feel like, yes, it's fine.

But yeah, I'm at the little park very near my Airbnb where it's this beautiful view of the shoreline with the big islands in the distance. And I realized, because it just kept raining and raining and raining yesterday, it just wouldn't stop. And then it would rain even harder. So I woke up today and was like, what am I going to do with myself today? And that's when I realized, so there's these two waterfalls near me. Apparently, there's a third smaller one that I think might be free. I saw some guy on YouTube talking about. It's around your somewhere, I don't know. But both the paid waterfalls near me, only a couple of dollars. I happen to have exactly two thousand one bills, two dollars in my wallet. And it rained like crazy yesterday. I was like, well, you know what? I don't know exactly what else I'm doing with myself today. Wander up through town. Just, you know, wander around a bit. But this seems like, if I'm going to go see this waterfall, which this one is, Jumbang waterfall. This is the, I thought it was the only waterfall in Asia, but maybe that's too wide of a net. It's definitely the only waterfall in South Korea that empties directly into the ocean. And I think that just sounds cool. And I'm looking at the shoreline here and it's like, I guess it's in there somewhere. I guess this is how they charge two dollars. You can't see it.

Yeah, it's still really overcast today, but it's pretty. It is real pretty out. Although, that's the weird thing, man. I still just don't know how the pollution works with rain. Yesterday it was so like nice. It was like below 50. It was everything's out of the danger zone. And then when it started raining really hard, it went down to 29. It's the lowest the pollution has ever been since I've been here. And I was like, awesome, sweet. And then today it's still all overcast and shit, I figured that might carry on, but no, it's up to like a hundred now. It's like one of the worst days all of a sudden. It's like, God damn it. Fuck me. What the hell?

And I had the brief fantasy of maybe it's just because I had my window open and then the, then the pollution got bad. Maybe that's all I'm feeling in my throat. Maybe I'm not getting sick, but, but nah, I definitely am. I definitely am sick. I just, you know, let's just hope it doesn't take. But the way I can tell that I'm sick is what always happens to me when I'm sick, which is like not the worst thing. It's kind of interesting. 5:00 Is I really get disconnected from my body, like I just can't feel stuff. For example, I should be way more tired today, but I can only feel it in little bits and bursts that is like, oh yeah, I didn't really didn't sleep enough. But I just can't tell because I don't know, being sick, it just disconnects me from how I'm feeling. And food wise, I mean, I only ate one meal yesterday because it was raining so hard and all I had was kimchi to put in noodles in an egg. I had my egg kimchi noodle, but I never had a second meal because I didn't want to just eat that same thing again and I didn't want to go outside.

And the downpour, and I was already getting sick, so it was just easy enough to just go to bed hungry.

Then I woke up today, I should be, I should be fucking starving. It's like, it's like the afternoon now, it fucking times it.

It's almost 2 p.m., and I could have just gone down and made myself some noodles before I left the house. I probably should have, but I just don't feel it. I just don't feel hungry. Because I'm disconnected, and I had one a cafe law, my favorite convenience store, little bottled coffee brand. But I've also got these, you know, instant coffee sticks I bought from Daiso. So I put one of those instant coffee sticks in my fucking coffee, so I have double coffee. Because that'll be helpful later when like, you know, even though I don't feel tired and I won't feel the effects of the coffee. It's the weirdest fucking thing, I just can't feel shit when I'm sick, I feel nothing. But the effects will still happen, you know, when I start winding down, which will be extra weird because I won't quite know what's happening or whatever. But this is where it's good to have super powered caffeine to like, get me past that hump if I need to. It's a bit weird, I don't know if other people's bodies behave this way. But as long as I'm just very low level sick and it never goes any further, then it's not the worst thing to have this happen once in a while. It's kind of interesting, it's kind of neat to be disconnected. There's a little person standing, standing on the rocks of the shore. How did they get there?

Hmm, I can kind of guess, so there's a few people. Hmm, yeah, because most of the shoreline here where you can go down, it is all fenced off, but it'd be easy enough to hop over the fence.

So I guess, I think I see where they walked along the edge of the ridge.

That's cool, but that's not for me, no thank you.

Where they are though, this is kind of an interesting thing, it's this one little area where it's just going down and exploring. And there was a random little wall away from the shore that I went behind and in there was like a whole public bathing area, kind of like a big pool that's like out of, I don't know, felt like I was in a shadow of the colossus. Just like this area made out of like stone or concrete or something, you know, that is like kind of like a little combination between like a swimming pool. But it's definitely intended for bathing and not swimming, so it's like not deep or anything.

And I presume back in the ancient days it was probably water flowing straight down from the mountain, the people bathed with, now it's pipes.

And there was nobody there, I don't know if people actually do bath because it's a little too public, I'd say at this point in history. Now that it's right in the middle of tourism hotel land, I was glad there was no one there, like if I turn the corner and it was public bath land, you know, would have been like, whoops, embarrassing, sorry, I didn't know what I was walking into.

But it's cool, even just as like an indicator of the past, of how things used to work, I guess, pretty fucking, that's pretty cool. Similar, I guess, to the mineral water, those little things that pop up on the mountains all the time, give yourself a little scrub. But this was way more, this was way like this was the actual, come here to take a bath type thing.

Apparently the third, the smallest of the three waterfalls, which is the one I'm not quite sure how to get to. There's like one day a year where it said that if you are splashed by the water of the waterfall on that day, you'll have good luck. So apparently it's slammed that one day, it's like June 15th or something. But that's one of those things, like if you didn't know and you just happened to stumble upon it on that one day, that would be weird as hell. You'd be like, what the fuck is going on? Why is this the most popular waterfall ever?

But anyway, as I make my way to this waterfall, I get some various stupid odds and ends to ramble about.

Man, one of them is kimchi, it's super delicious, but man, it is a powerful fucking food.

Where I noticed, I mean I just got this little $1 Tupperware from Daiso, maybe I just got cheap Tupperware. But it definitely doesn't seal tight enough to stop the powerful odor of kimchi.

Because like today when I just opened my little mini fridge in the hotel just to get out my coffee, just that little moment of the door being open is enough to make the room smell of kimchi. It's like, whoa, I thought maybe I'd probably just have cheap Tupperware. But then I realized that all the places I've been staying that make their own homemade kimchi and stuff, in bigger Tupperwares, they always put a piece of plastic film, you know, like a heavier than Seran wrap, but over top of the container. So then when you close it and snap down the edges of the Tupperware, it's like extra sealed. And now I'm realizing like, oh yeah, I think that's probably not a coincidence. You know, you probably do need to do that to make sure the power of the kimchi stays contained.

But that's one item too many for me. I don't think I care enough in my tiny little, I got such a tiny little kimchi operation. I think it's okay.

If my Tupperware isn't completely super sealed, but it's very noticeable. It's like, wow, I cannot believe I just opening that door for like less than five seconds. It still just like allows that much kimchi to permeate the room.

Yeah, this is really fucking gorgeous. I'm just still walking along the edges of the shoreline. That one cool island in this super like the cliffs get rockier and rockier. I assume that the waterfall must be if not around this next bend I can see.

There's one more further back. It's got to be around one of these, but these are like, you know, 20 meter, maybe more than 20. Really high-ass cliffs though, just sheer cliffs straight down to the rocks. This is where in an ancient Korean drama or something, this is where you could come dash yourself upon the rocks.

After you have romance problems, do they do they do that? Do they have romance problems that wouldn't associate killing myself? I don't know.

And I also noticed that so in my hotel room, this whole time in South Korea, there's only been one toilet with a washlet, one bidet toilet, and it was at the amusement center in Jeju. But they did have it here in the hotel that I couldn't figure out how to make it work or how to make it turn on.

And in fact, it seemed a little weird to me to have just because it's the wet room philosophy, the whole room is like a giant shower room and water just gets all over. It's a little weird to have a toilet plugged in in the first place, and there was another plug over by the sink that I guess you could plug in a razor or something. If you have the appropriate South Korean plugs, which I do not. But I didn't see a lot of outlets combined with wet rooms. There was a little bit in Jeju and that big wet room, you did have to plug in a plug to get the hot water to work. And it was a little uncomfortable every time I had to plug it in, because it was in the same room. And it's just like I just don't like plugging a plug in while I'm standing in a damp room feels weird.

So in this case, what I realized is that the power is not on in the wet room. That's why the fancy toilet isn't working. And that actually made me feel a little better. I'm like, oh, I kind of like not having the power on in here. It is just nice to not have to worry about that. But if I'm just spraying water all over, there is no electricity in here. None of this is working. So I guess, presumably, there must be a way to turn on the power in that one room.

You want to use the bidet, and then you turn it back off for when you're showering. But I looked all over the place. It's a very small hotel room. There are limited options. I have no fucking idea how that could ever be. I haven't even got a guess for how power might get turned on enough.

And again, I could ask the front desk and be like, hey, what's the deal with this? But I think I just don't care. I think I'm happier. Like as much as I like bidets, and that's kind of a cool thing.

It's a lot more comfortable, like in Japan, where the toilet is in its own little room separately. I think I'm just happy to just not have the power on in that shower room. That's fine, dude. 15:00 I just don't even want to mess with it. Even if I did learn how to turn on the power, I just, again, I don't even know about electricity. What are the chances I'm in a fucking electrocute myself? Maybe nothing. Maybe it's like totally not a worry for it. That makes any sense.

But it's like almost worse because I don't really know how it works. I just have no fucking idea. So I just don't even want to fuck with it. I'll just feel better knowing there's no juice running through that room.

And then who needs a bidet really? It's a fucking, the entire room is a shower. I could take the ultimate bidet. I could just take a full shower every time I use the washroom. Why not? It's easy enough. So yeah, fuck it. But I don't know. Just slowly piecing together the situation of what's going on. Because it really seemed weird to go so far out of their way to supply this really fancy toilet that just didn't work. So at least I know now why it doesn't work that there is no power.

And that's just, that seems fine. All right, I'm nearing the ticket office somewhere around here. So I should turn off this recorder because talking to yourself. Again, so much less weird than filming yourself. I get a little odd look sometimes, but there's a kind of odd look of people like legitimately not quite knowing what I'm doing. But it doesn't have any of that, you know, you can really feel it if you happen to be filming yourself. It's very rare that I've ever do that in life. But if I ever am, like people know what's going on, you know, like people instantly act when they see a camera filming, you know, they're moving out of your way. They're visibly uncomfortable.

Where would the recorder that never happens? Everyone knows I'm not recording them, but they're like, what is that? What is this guy doing? It's a weird enough thing to have a little wee recorder with a little, you know, I got my little troll hair, windscreen on the top. If it's anything, it's audio. It's probably pretty evident that it's audio, but nobody, nobody seems to mind that they do notice. So like, what is this guy? What is he doing? Why is he doing that? A lot more comfortable in general though than filming, but certainly not something I want to go walk through a fucking CCTV ticket booth while I'm talking to myself.

So let's adjourn briefly. It's a Sunday, by the way. A little busy-ish around here, but not terrible, not too super crowded.

Alright, I got my little ticket. Cash is no problem. And yeah, it just caught my first view of the waterfall. It really is tucked away. It was just behind that little area I was at.

There's a little observation deck right at the start with an okay view, which is for the disabled and elderly. Kind of cool, because yeah, if you can't get down the stairs, it's definitely stairs only. But let's see. Let's see if I can talk to myself here with that. It'd be too weird. It's, you know, it's a little bit busy today, but it's not too bad. Yeah, man, those are pretty nice. That's worth two dollars, for sure. And just see in them from a distance as I walk down.

Cool. And I guess it's one of those things I don't know what the power of the waterfall would be. Oh, here's where they check your ticket.

Give it a little bit of a skinny scan. This is just so weird, because it's exactly the same looking as all the other cliffs I've been walking along this whole day. It's just, yeah, this particular one has a big ass waterfall. And yeah, you just, it's just designed so that you just can't see it unless you're down there. Sneaky. Perfect for charging two dollars for. Yeah, I have no idea how strong this waterfall would be if it wasn't raining all day yesterday, but it's pretty sweet today.

Pretty big ass fucking waterfall. And yeah, these cliffs are serious business, man. There would be no getting down these.

Even, yeah, this natural terrain, I'm looking at what I'm walking beside right now. It's just cliffs, like these stairs are entirely man-made.

I don't know how the heck you would have got down here back in ancient times. Maybe it didn't. I don't know. Or you must have had to approach from a ways up the coast. Maybe. I still, I don't know. Maybe just on a boat. I don't know how you could get here at all.

Oh, that reminds me. It just made me think I wonder if anybody back in the ancient days made a scary vine ropes or anything. That's one thing that's kind of cool is that there's a lot of fire extinguishers all over South Korea. They're real good with making sure there's always fire extinguishers around, which I don't know if that's related to the fact that they're... I've noticed that the outlets, maybe it's just because I got a cheap power converter from a 7-11. But there's a lot of that little like pop and you can see a little spark. I noticed that like a lot from the outlets around here. So maybe it's good to have fire extinguishers always at hand. But my place now it would be pretty easy to escape in a fire at the window because I'm on the third floor but there's a second floor roof right under me. So I could just hop down to the second floor and then hop down like be a little tough but not too bad. But this place has like a grapple hook. There was a little container in the corner and I was like, what's in this? And yeah, it's like a little Batman style grapple hook. If I ever need to grapple my way down.

It feels a little good to know that that's there. I'm just exploring away from the waterfall first since I'm talking to myself. So if you go away from this, it can go a little ways and then no entry.

Down on the rocks. Oh, this might be, again, my just very vague tiny little bits of things that I accidentally learned and then never fully researched. Apparently there's a big thing around here historically of divers. I think it's women specifically who dive down and like they harvest stuff like fish. Not fish, literally. I mean they get crustaceans and stuff but they go fishing with literally just like swimming down to the ocean floor and just picking up crustaceans and stuff.

Maybe that's what this is. There's like a tarp set out and there's people that have containers and I mean I don't think that's literally what they're doing today on this crappy ass overcast day. But maybe this is some remnant of that. I'd forgotten about that till just now. I wonder though how I was thinking with the other waterfall. If I could see it in the day and in the night with my $12 ticket. I think not. Now that I see how the process works that you buy the ticket but then another booth scans your ticket. I think that ticket is gone now. I think I burned that ticket. That's okay. Again, like I'm going to be here forever. I think I can go to a waterfall twice. But yeah, that other waterfall stays open till 10 o'clock at night because they light it up. I saw that this one is only open till 5.30.

Presumably because it just gets dark as shit. There's no lights at all around here. A lot of snake warning signs. I've been seeing those all over the place and I did finally see my first snake in Busan. I haven't seen any snakes around here but there are a lot of warning signs about snakes.

Alright, I'm approaching now and yeah, there is just like the spray from the waterfall. It's like spraying out quite a lot. So I'm guessing that's probably bigger than usual because of all the rain. A little slippery. Somebody just literally slipped right in front of me.

Yeah, I wonder. So the other, like I can feel a bit of a breeze but I don't know if the breeze is from the waterfall or just from the day. Because I noticed that in Hassawa Falls. The waterfall I went to with my friend Brad in 2019 that is like beyond Musashi Itsu Kaishi station. He got to take a bus. That waterfall I think was smaller than this but they were pretty comparable but it was in more of like a little galen in a grove or something. And you could feel the wind blowing from the water and I always just kept that in mind if I ever write a story that takes place near a waterfall. Just one of those little things that again is like super obvious if you already know it as with most things. Like yeah, of course the water, this amount of water falling pushes air makes wind but I had no idea. I had no idea about that until I went to a real waterfall.

And it's my favorite and in fact, probably the only way that I ever learned anything is a direct experience.

But all right, I'm going to put this recorder away and take some pictures of this waterfall. Something tells me the episode image today is going to be John Bang Waterfall. And I mean, I guess you know, I don't even really need to say it, right? I feel the same way about this as I feel about all things, particularly waterfalls. It's nice. It's like, it's not like, I don't know because I do have moments that are just kind of awe-inspiring where, well even I guess seeing the other waterfall from above. 25:00 That was one of those moments where I was like, well I did not expect that. What the hell? Whoa! Maybe this one is just because I was like, it's not only do I know this is here. I literally just came and spent two dollars and filed down with a bunch of people to see it.

So I don't know, I think there's something wrong with my brain that I'm like semi-impressed and just also feel nothing. But I suppose this could also be because I'm sick, right? I was just saying how I feel all disconnected from my body. What I'm trying to say is I'm staring at this waterfall and it's great. Pen out of 10 waterfall. That is the platonic ideal of a waterfall. That's a waterfall from a fucking shampoo commercial. It's just like the greenery and it's fucking pouring down directly onto the rocks and then I'm right on the coast of the ocean and there's waves crashing behind me. This is perfect. And at the same time I'm like, it has worth two dollars. Yeah, why not? It's right across the street. It's only two dollars. Can't complain.

I guess it's just that these small personal experiences are just the ones that stick with me more than the tourist stuff. No matter how good the tourist thing is, but this is good. This is very good. A very fine waterfall. Okay, I'm going to take some pictures now, put away the fucking recorder.

I took a couple pictures, but there's always like people down in the corner. I was trying to maneuver around and like, how can I get a shot without people? And then I realized it's always the same people. Captain fucking dickhead here. It's one family. It's like a husband, wife and their kids. They are right at the front. They are right in the way of everyone. And they are taking their goddamn time. But it's kind of good because it's just had me standing here for minutes on end. Just soaking in the waterfall. It's kind of helpful because I have a problem with that. I have a problem staying in one spot and appreciating the place that I met. I'm just, you know, as I said many times, I'm just way more of a pass on through type of guy. Walk by, look at the thing, go, ah, cool. But you know, see the whole area. Keep walking around. Jeez, now they're still, now they're maneuvering even more in front of me. These people are obnoxious. There's like 100 people down here and there's only one family that is just fucking right in the middle of everything. The dickhead family, for sure. But anyway, again, yeah, whatever. Whatever, take your time, dickheads. You're at least giving me an excuse to stay down here longer. But I'm looking at this, uh, looking at this waterfall. And I did notice that on the, the smaller waterfall, the one that I was saying is like, good luck to go touch or to be splashed by uncertain days. I saw a picture of that online where somebody was doing that classic sitting under the waterfall thing, which to me, that's just something that Ryu from Street Fighter does. But I mean, presumably it's real people do that. But I think if you tried to do that under this waterfall, at least today, after the big rain, man, you would be crushed. You would crush your little spine. You would have to be a very fucking strong dude. I do not think you could survive.

I was always curious about that though. Like, what does it feel like? The pressure under a waterfall. But I bet it's, I bet it's fucking bad. I bet it's real bad. Probably a lot heavier. I don't know because again, my stupid video game life, to me, waterfalls are always go check behind the waterfall because there's probably a hidden cave.

In this case, you can see it's like the waterfall is like three streams, three major streams, not just like a big wall of water, so you can see behind it. There's no secret cave. But then the other thing is to swim up a waterfall. You know, maybe you need special gear like in the rest of the wild, and then you can swim up a waterfall. But maybe you're just so badass in whatever game that you can swim up a goddamn waterfall. And then if you can swim up a lava waterfall, that's when you know your character is rocking and rolling.

Yeah, I'm just getting the sea spray, the waterfall spray. Spraying on me is really nice actually. It is nice to just like take a little time to let it sink in. It's a pretty small little area. You know, it's pretty clear. Well, there was that sign that said, don't go this way. And then the other way, I don't really see a sign. But I don't know how easily you could get over there. Maybe there's like a little sand bar. You probably could, but there's nothing over there. It's fucking just clips. Cliffside. Yeah, there's definitely no obvious way to get to this waterfall in ancient times. This is pretty severe.

So God bless the modern age, I guess, for the mere price of two dollars with a convenience store at the top, we got steps. We got freaking stairs, man.

Oh, there is okay. I see a do not climb sign over to one side of the waterfall. I can kind of see that. If you were a lunatic, yeah, you could kind of scramble up those rocks, but they're all slippery and wet. You can only go like halfway, or maybe two-thirds of the way up the waterfall at best. But yeah, they got a sign that's like, don't. Don't, man. What is wrong with you? I'm always so interested by this, too.

In general. I just don't really, I mean, I guess it's just the pure volume, the size of the world. I just don't know how this stuff doesn't run out. Like, yeah, yeah, I get that it rained up on Chester Day, but... How is there still water left to come cascade down here? How come it hasn't run out yet? And you know, especially, it didn't rain at all for like weeks ahead of this. At least two weeks, it didn't rain. Why is there still enough water? For continuous, just not just waterfall, any river, any flowing. Like, where does this fucking shit start? I guess it starts well around where I'm from. I guess you get ice peaks and stuff, so I guess that makes some sense of it melting. I don't know. I'm just surprised. I'm just surprised that it's not like that you have a river or a waterfall or a stream, you know, for like a couple of days after it rains and then it stops. I just feel like that's how it should be. It could work, but I obviously just really don't understand the pure volume of water that is getting fucking, uh...

It's weird that you can't think of a word. I was going to say, the pure volume of water that's getting trucked around. I don't know. It's just flowing through the system.

Hey, the dickhead family's done. Sweet. Alright, take some pictures.

It's kind of funny that just because, literally just because I bought a ticket for this and spent two dollars, it really is changing my like, you know, where I like feel like I should appreciate it more. Like if this was just a purely natural thing that I just wandered by, I would have been at it here by now for sure. But, you know, it just takes on that little extra, like, oh, this is a thing that's special. And again, I love that it's only two dollars. I mean, if it was like, you know, one of these weird, like, give me 1750, please, I just wouldn't do it.

But I took some pictures and I'm like, like, okay, there we go. Got the pictures. Should I take some more? Should I try to be especially picture mindful? I'm like, no, I mean, I haven't taken extra pictures of anything else. How is this any different? What am I going to do? Just take the same pictures over and over. But then what I did is I just came off to the side a little and just sat on some of the rocks, which is slightly creepy because there's a lot of little sea bugs down here, little creepy crawlers that live in these rocks, mostly where it's wet. But especially where it's more wet by the water. There was a lot of them. So even just sitting for a while on one of these rocks. It's just a little eerie because it's like, hmm, there's a lot of bugs that live under here that we are not seeing right now.

I don't even know if they're bug bugs or if they're, like, crustacean, bug adjacent. I don't know what they are. Little black things.

With many legs. But I sat there and just did a little riding. I always try to do a little riding every day. And to be honest, while I'm traveling, I have not kept up the routine as much as I should.

So it's a double bonus because it's weird. It's like, again, I just can't sit here and just observe and stare. I just can't. So this is a little weird. So I'm sitting here. It is keeping me around here next to the natural wonder, longer. But I'm in my own little world. I'm, like, in my phone, you know, fucking editing a little thing. But it's still kind of neat because every time I look up, it's like, oh yeah, there's the waterfall. And, you know, that happens a dozen times just glancing up and being like, oh yeah, by the waterfall still. Like, I just live near the waterfall now. It's just in my periphery every time I look up. Ah, the waterfall. I'm nice. So that's kind of nice. It just gives it that little, let's it sink in a little and that hits that nice point where it's, like, it would be impossible for this to be mundane. 35:00 If you lived near here, again, in like the ancient days or something, you could see this waterfall every day of your whole life. And the day you fucking die, it's still be like, wow, look at that shit. But it normalizes it just a little when you spend enough time down here that it's kind of cool, like it's extra comfortable. I guess you can stop, like, I can stop with that little mental gymnastics I'm always doing. Like, how come I don't appreciate these things more? And I just don't. I just not wired that way. But it's nice to let it sink in a little where it stops feeling like you need to. It's like, yeah, that's just a thing that's there. That's just an amazing thing that's just there whenever I look up. But anyway, I got a little bit of riding done, a little teeny bit. But again, I wouldn't have done that. I should. Like, that's what I wish I could train myself a little more. I wish I could train myself to stop at these various different spots and just sit here, just sit there for 20 minutes and do some riding. I mean, that would add up enormously. But it's just so hard, it's really hard to train yourself to do that. It's so much easier to just keep on moving.

You know, I still have not eaten a goddamn thing today and it's like, yeah, I should get up to him stairs. I should go find something to eat. This is getting a bit silly at this point. How long it's been since I've eaten. It's easily been 20 hours.

But I don't really feel that hungry still either, but I mean just purely from an energy standpoint. It's not smart to not eat ever. You gotta eat sometimes.

Oh yeah, I haven't drank from my super coffee either. I still got that in my pocket. Let me take a swig right now.

I did find the little Adia instant coffees that I bought from Daiso. They are a little strong. So I took the Smoky Americano, which by itself is a little much. It's a little, a little acidity. But when I put that in the acaféla, size up cafe latte, lower sugar, my favorite type of South Korean convenience store coffee. Let's see how these taste together. And with their additional super caffeinated properties.

Oh wow, that's pretty good. Yeah, I like these acaféla's because they're not super sweet to begin with.

Oh yeah, gives it like an aftertaste. I got an aftertaste kick of the Smoky Americano in my acaféla. And yeah, it's still plenty sweet enough to counterbalance the distinct unsweeteness of the instant espresso thing. That's fucking delightful.

Oh man, now there's how you appreciate a fucking waterfall drinking goddamn coffee while you stare at it. Ooh, bracing. Delightful. Anyway, this is pretty nice. Pretty nice.

I think the... It's probably less than 100. Maybe it's 60 people down here. But I think the 60 I came down with, I don't recognize anybody. I think it's a new wave. So I think that means I've spent enough time. I've spent the same, at least the same amount of time as everyone else.

Yeah, totes good. I didn't notice one thing. There's a... It seems like a semi-common pose when people are taking, you know, getting their picture taken in front of the waterfall. That... Again, I don't know what... Denomination of Asian... Any of these people are because it's, you know, tourists, so they very well may not be Korean. But they may be. Maybe they're from the mainland just coming to Jeju. You can get here for fucking $40. And it's a tiny flight.

But there's a pose I saw multiple people doing where they just hold both arms straight up over their heads. Like, uh... Goal! You know? Someone's doing it right now. But then one of the times that I glanced up, I saw a standard North American, you know, just younger copy of me getting his picture taken. And he's doing the, like, arms... With arms! What? Open! The fucking Christ the Redeemer pose. Head back, arms out. And it's like, fuck off, you dickhead. You dick shit. Stop being such a douchebag. The stupid, super aggrandized fucking pose. Nobody Asian is doing that pose. Maybe it's the King of the World pose, you know? Titanic. Whatever. But it's just like, you're a dickhead. No one's gonna see that pose and think, what a cool guy. They're gonna think, God, what this guy? What a dink. What a little dink.

I'm semi surprised I haven't seen anybody fall. It must happen a bit regularly because these rocks really are tough to traverse. And in particular, these two old people came down and... Man, the ravages of age. They were having a tough fucking time.

Jim, in. $2 well spent. Highly recommended. Am I turning around on waterfalls? I think I am. It seems that the Jeju variety of waterfalls... It's doing it for me. It's working out.

Alright, I'm on the way out, but I'm not going back to the main entrance that I came in through. Because if I wanted to go back to my hotel, that's perfect. But I have a feeling that my plan today is that I'm probably just gonna wander my way up to the McDonald's. I think that is what's in my future. Fuck it.

So I'm taking a different route out, but it's very clearly the wrong way. Nobody else is going this way. It's just no one. But it is a road. It is a proper road. And here it's connecting up to something. I'm sure it'll all work out. Okay, I see. It's taking me east. And I'm outside of like the main central part of Segwapo is a different color on Google Maps.

So I've gone outside of the color for the first time.

However, I'm going directly back in. We'll save those explorations for later.

Yeah, that was nice. I'm glad I spent a little extra time down there. It did feel good to let it sink in. I should really be applying that philosophy more. I should learn to chill a little bit. Take things a little slower. Stay a little longer. That conqueror down to do some writing, you know. It's a win-win. Will I though? Hey, you know, we'll see.

And one thing. There was a sign there that said, no food, coconuts. And I was thinking like, who am I? What a strange thing to specifically call out. But then I saw my way out, like, oh, they sell coconuts. And by coconut, drink some coconut water. I didn't catch how much they were.

But that's kind of cool.

But yeah, they don't want the shore littered with coconuts, although in a weird way. As far as litter goes, that would actually be kind of like visually cool. There was just coconuts all over the place. The fucking land of Milky Joe.

Now, what was I going to say? There was some stupid thing that was on my mind since this morning, where I'm like, oh, I should Yammer about that. But I think that, yeah, even though, like I was saying, I feel kind of disconnected from myself when I'm under the weather a bit. So that's the case here. You know, I don't feel tired. I don't feel particularly hungry. I don't even especially feel the effects of that double coffee I just drank. But the effects are happening. And how my brain is drifting. I am starting to flag, but I can't tell. It's the weirdest goddamn thing. Hey, here's a tiny windmill. I don't know what this is associated with. Maybe just another hotel. That's kind of cool.

Oh, I remember what it is. It was hard to remember because it's not really associated with South Korea. This is going back to Japan a bit. So there's a bunch of people on YouTube that post videos of just walking footage. To be honest with you, early on in this podcast, you know, I post these on YouTube and they get, you know, they don't get views on YouTube. But I like putting podcasts on YouTube just in case. Like I got a comment the other day that somebody was just like, hey, the YouTube algorithm just like led me to your thing. And I think it's kind of neat. Thanks for posting these on YouTube. You know, if anybody, if literally just that one person found this podcast through the YouTube uploads, then hey, it's worth it because it's not exactly a lot of extra effort. But what I was doing initially because people have all this walking footage, I was trying to find walking footage that was approximately where, you know, I was talking about in each episode and just slap it on there. Why not? It takes longer to render, but it's also not a ton of work. But really early on when I was talking about the Calgary Airport, I got a copyright strike because I was using, you know, 45:00 a specific person's footage of the airport. I really didn't think people doing random walking footage would care. You know, I didn't think that was going to be like intellectual property in the way that a TV show is or something. But I guess it's good that I got nailed with that so early on.