#134 An idiot's guide to convenience stores in South Korea

Transcript

Alright, yesterday I walked along the coast of, I'm staying in Seogwipo down on the southern part of Jeju Island, South Korea. And I was walking along the coast, just walking to the west along the southern coast. Because I saw various little like photo-op spots on Google Maps, the hill of storms. And it turned out to be this really awesome area where there's like all these walking trails built into the cliffs, like they made like a walking promenade along the cliffs. But at a certain point, those specific walking areas, they sort of dried up. So I bailed out and headed back, but then I was looking at the map. And according to the little trail markers on Google Maps, the trail just keeps going and going and going and going. And I realized it goes around the entire island. And I immediately had this fantasy of like, oh man, wouldn't it be cool? What if you set up hotels or Airbnb's or whatever? Because at first I was thinking like, oh, I guess I could just go as far as I can go and then jump on a bus to bail out and go back. But what if you actually set up all around the perimeter of the island, just set up different places to stay? And then just, I don't, I mean, I don't have a good sense of how long it would take. But Jeju Island's not that big, you know, I feel like two weeks would probably be plenty of time to walk around the island. And that seems like it'd be so cool to just walk from one Airbnb to the next each day and just walk around the whole island. How fucking neat would that be?

But then I realized it's probably, you know, I'm sure you can walk around the outside edge of the island to some degree, but it's probably a bit, I doubt that it's a specific boutique, what's the word I'm looking for?

A discreetly prepared hiking trail all the way around the island. In fact, probably most of it isn't. It's probably the same way as what I saw where there's probably bits that are the extra touristy, really good views. And then the rest is probably just walking through normal communities or walking even on highways and stuff. Because if nothing else, the cliffs are a problem. Like I was thinking about the other way. If this thing supposedly makes an entire loop, I've already been the other way. That's where the waterfall is that empties out into the ocean. And it's all cliff-side stuff up that way. And you're definitely not walking along the actual coast. So I thought I might experiment. I might go back that way and just go a little farther. Just see what the next leg of the journey is like. Because it appeared to be like, alright, pre-determined hiking time is over. You know, now you just gotta make your own way through a community further up the coastline. And I figured that could maybe be a good indicator of how it might be all around. And I got to assume, too, there's gotta be plenty of spaces on the coast. I mean, I'm by Segwapo. It's the second biggest city. And it's still a little 50-50 as to whether you can really walk along the coast or not. There's gotta be plenty of parts around the perimeter that are just random little neighborhoods and stuff that there's no way they're all up prescribed, discreet journey set up for my twinkle toes to walk on.

But I started heading that way. And again, I'm sure I sound fine right now. This always happens when I pull out the recorder. It's like when I got crazy drunk in Chiba. But I felt fine as long as I was talking to people. I was able to not feel like I was super drunk. You know, having something to focus on helps a lot. And then once everybody went to bed, I realized how fucked up I was. It's similar being sick. Now that I'm talking into the recorder, I'm like, oh, I feel fine now. But I didn't feel fine right up until now. I've just got to accept the fact that I finally got sick. It took a while. It took at least half a year. I've been blessed on this fucking journey that I just barely get sick. It'll be like a tiny little sickness that lasts a day. This one is actual sickness and it's still not that bad. It's really not that bad. You know, little bit of coughing here and there, little bit of running nose, little bit of headache, little bit of less than predictable poops. But all of it is so just like not that bad. If I have to get sick, I'll take it. This is fine. But I've been denying it. It's going to go away. It's fine. 5:00 But it's not. Every day I keep waking up and it feels the same and it's like, alright, this is probably going to be one of those things that's going to hang on for two weeks before it's like really gone.

But even still, I'm thinking, I don't know, it's just not that bad. Maybe a week.

Regardless though, once I got out and started journeying, it's like, I just can't do this. I shouldn't do this. What the fuck am I doing? Except that you're sick, stupid fuck. Don't go on a big journey. You dipshit and I did notice along that coastline a distinct lack of washrooms on that particular trail. So it's like, I just don't want to. Why put yourself at risk? You got all the time in the world, bro.

So instead I'm just walking around these like the artist's way, all these cool parks that are in this vicinity that have just cool like where I saw the projections at night where they projected flowers onto the park. But you know, it's mid afternoon now, but that whole area, cool statues. This is just all kinds of cool shit around here. But yeah, not only do I just think like, yeah, I'm kind of sick, I shouldn't do this. And if I go extra far, I will have to take a bus back and I just don't want to while I'm sick. At least when I'm walking around by myself, I feel like I'm a relatively harmless germ bomb. I don't want to get on a bus with some poor people who do not deserve to catch a cold.

But also, it's just too fucking nice out. God damn it, I could go for some bad weather. This would be a great journey to make on a nice overcast day, but it's still above 20 degrees Celsius, super hot and warm and sunny and beautiful. But that means I got to wear my jacket like a cape, you know, with my hood over my head and my arms covered. Because I got suntan lotion on, but I just, I don't, I don't trust it. It's not enough. I'll still get burned. My lily white skin cannot survive this kind of weather. It's a hot and sweaty. And it's like, yeah, summer, dude. It's too nice. This fucking blows. This sucks. I'd be a way easier journey to make on a nice rainy day.

Yeah, speaking of the park with the projections, I'm pretty sure this is it. Sure does look different in the day, but I think that's where I am.

But yeah, I still had even though I'm not actually going anywhere today. Not going on any new adventures. I got some, some random ass thoughts.

Tagyama about. And one of them is I've been given South Korean convenience stores quite a lot of, quite a lot of flak. Just because they're not Japan, you know, and I wish they were.

But I did go hit up the convenience store today just because yesterday I ate kimchi and noodles at the hotel twice in one day. So I just don't want three meals in a row to just be that. I was like, I'll just go to the convenience store and I ended up finding one of those weird little push pops where, you know, it's still got the classic Korean quality of every meal is every meal. You know, every one item has as many different ingredients as is humanly possible to put in. So it's just this crazy ass push pop with fish and meat and various random proteins and just I don't know what it is. Really spicy though, which is actually kind of good when you're, when you're kind of sick. Spicy don't hurt. It's kind of good. Just kind of shocks your system a little.

But it was a slightly bigger than usual convenience store because it's over by, by one of the waterfalls, one of the touristy areas.

So it had more like areas to sit and stuff that, you know, a lot of the convenience stores do have a little area to sit, but a lot of them don't. They're generally a lot smaller than Japanese convenience stores. The vibe is much more like an American bodega, I find. But I was sitting there and I was eating this thing and it was one of the rare times that I spent some time at the convenience store. And I could just kind of spend a little time to feel the vibe and feel the, you know, you can just feel the pressure level kind of. Maybe that's a weird way to put it, but of like how busy is this? What's going on here? And I think I had a little realization to kind of, to, you know, it's one thing like, haha, okay, dumb white guy from Canada doesn't like the South Korean convenience stores. Funny, he's complaining. But, you know, there's no point and I got my complaints out. It's like on the surface without understanding what's going on. I don't really like these convenience stores. That's fine. There's no point in me rehashing that opinion. Who gives a shit? I don't care what I think in the first place, but now that that's the baseline, it's like, okay, now let's move on from that. Let's try to figure out why. Like, what is it I'm not understanding? What's going on around here? Because I guess one thing I've realized about South Korea is if they wanted their convenience stores to be like the Japanese convenience stores, there would be nothing stopping them. 10:00 It's really clear that when South Korea decides they want something to be a certain way, it will be that way. Like, the emergency buttons that are in every park and every washroom, all of them, literally, I've seen hundreds of them, they're everywhere. Like, they decided this is how it's going to be and then that's how it is. Or, I was thinking even the train system, taking the train from Seoul to Chechan and then to Busan. So I got to experience not only the train system between major cities like Seoul and Busan, but Chechan is kind of out of the way, doesn't particularly lead anywhere that I could tell. But that system was still immaculate and amazing and the Chechan train station is way bigger and way better than it should be for a city that size. They clearly decided we are going to have awesome trains everywhere. Our trains are going to rule, our train system is going to rule, our train stations are going to rule. We've decided it and it will be that way. Like, that very much is the vibe in South Korea. Once a decision is made of things are going to be this way, they're that way everywhere. You know, the trains are beautiful everywhere. The emergency buttons are everywhere, every city, every random park I was in, now I'm on a freaking island and it's still that way. So, the point I'm endlessly repeating is if they wanted their convenience stores to be different than they are, they would be. Their convenience stores are this way because this is how they want it to be. So, gotta accept that. I like Japanese convenience stores, but that's not what they need around here and that's not what they have around here.

Oh, here's another one of those stamp boxes. I noticed another one of these yesterday too. Okay, so this one actually does have the stamp and the ink pad, but the other one I found yesterday did not. So, I found four of them and it's still 50-50. Still a 50% chance as to whether the stamp is there and in good working condition or not. But again, I don't know. I don't get that stuff. Stamp that you've been here. That's not really my style. My stamp goes on my soul.

So, yeah, this big realization I came to, as always, standard disclaimer. This is nothing. This is stupid. This is anybody else probably could have figured this out way quicker than me. There's nothing deep about this. There's nothing here that everybody doesn't already know. But when I figure something out for myself, it's like, oh, hey, I feel accomplished. I feel proud of myself that I actually figured something out instead of just fumbling around. Confused in complaining. Why are the convenience stores different? What I realized is people just don't eat at the convenience stores the way they do in Japan. And it's like, you know, just walking around these various South Korean cities. There's tons of restaurants and like the doors are always open to the streets and you look in and it's tables full of people sitting around eating stuff and there's just mountains of them. Tons. You know, that kind of stuff exists in every country but there's really a lot in South Korea. And I remember I was watching this one lady before I came here just looking up YouTubers. This chick who was like a beautiful blonde lady. I assume her whole deal in life is probably significantly different than mine. But she mentioned how one of the things she found a bit uncomfortable living in South Korea is how difficult it is to eat by yourself. That it's such a couple's culture at the very least, if not, you know, just like a whole big group of people, that it's literally hard to go to restaurants sometimes by yourself. It's expected that there will be two people at minimum and she even had like a guide, like helpful tips, how to just get food solo. Where that's obviously not the case in Japan. In Japan they're all about solo eating. Like to the point that there's ramen restaurants, famous chains and stuff where you sit not only by yourself, but there's dividers between you and the next person. And there's a little like like a divider between you and the person that hands you your stuff. You don't even need to make eye contact with a human. Obviously that whole culture that works way better for me in my solo life. I love that shit. And then a huge part of it is people that just eat at the convenience stores. The convenience stores are intended to be a totally reasonable option if you just are by yourself and you need some food. 15:00 You know, if you're a salaryman, you're working hard, whatever. You stop in, you have a zillion different options. And yeah, that's the big realization I had is that they just don't, that's not how things work around here. There's a lot less solo eating. It's way more focused on group restaurant type eating.

And then, suddenly, the way the convenience stores are set up made so much more sense to me, because, like, for example, the one I was at today, they did have, I was really scrutinizing, and it's like, okay, they do have a little more stuff. Like, they had the sandwiches, they had these two sandwiches that, again, I couldn't even guess what was in them. My almost bought one just just like, oh, this will be, like, just something funny I can complain about, but it's like, why? I'm just gonna be annoyed by this weird sandwich, two different sandwiches, both just full of random stuff. And then I got the little push-pop because of all the things.

I guess the push-pop is my favorite, but I still don't like it that much. But they do have, like, little, if you wanted a microwave stuff, like, you can get little, like, spaghetti and meatballs and that type of stuff. And then they have, like, little onigiri's, but they're so not, like, Japanese onigiri. You know, it's all spicy and weird. But, they only had one. One of each of these things. And I've learned that I really do need to check the dates just to be sure, because there's a decent chance that, this stuff has been sitting there for a bit. Even with this very limited inventory, you know, they do have extras tucked away somewhere in the back or whatever. But only one of each thing on display, or if it's one of these things where it's, like, by two get one free, oftentimes there's only three available. There's no extra stuff. But it's also not like in Japan, where if you go to the convenience store and the, you know, if you just happen to be there at the wrong time, a day, the selection might not be that good because they're constantly bringing in stuff throughout the day. Constant fresh food all the time. You see the little trucks coming in the guy unloading the stuff all through the day. And again, that is just big time. Not what's happening here. Here, it's like, all right, we'll put one out. We'll put one of this item out. And it's got a shelf life of the next, you know, two to three days. Hopefully someone will buy it. In that time, you know, like the, the complete opposite, in fact, of, of the Japanese way, where that thing is, it's gone for sure. You just got to hope you can actually get there while there's still some left. You know, nothing is sitting around in Japanese convenience stores.

So yeah, I mean, the vast majority of the stores, it is just kind of packaged goods, you know, cookies and like mass-produced cake things and whatever. Like all the same type of, but even that stuff in Japan, it's just so much better because in Japan, it's clearly moving. You know, it's like, here's a, here's some kind of a crape thing with fresh cream and all this great shit. Where the South Korean version is just like, here's like a little Debbie cake, you know, here's just something that can sit on the shelf for two weeks and it's fine. And I guess the ultimate evidence is, is that all of the convenience store chains, they're all South Korea specifics. They're not chains I've ever seen anywhere else. Except 7-11. There's a bunch of 7-11s and the 7-11s here are exactly like the happy to see use, the E-24s, the GS-25, all those stores are all the same.

7-11 just falls into line with how things work here. So that's the, that's the trouble. Of course the trouble is me, you know, I would be insane to be like, it's the world that is wrong. But in this case, it's super duper as me. I'm just wanting something out of the convenience stores that I had gotten used to in Japan and that I just presumed when I got to South Korea and I saw that they have, they don't have as many convenience stores as Japan, but it's a lot still. It is a lot. They're everywhere. So I just assumed, hey, there's a 7-11. There's another 7-11. There's another one. This is going to be like Japan and it's just not. It's just really not. It's not even close.

But it's kind of nice to have the realization, you know, just, just don't fight it, dog. Just don't fight it. I still love the coffee. Plenty of great drinks. The drink game in South Korea is great. It's all good. Lots of delightful coffee products and the occasional time I delve out into something else. I just saw an ad on like I'm getting all the South Korean ads on YouTube now. I still don't know what the stuff is. I got like this little, it's like a little, the one I got was like a melon, melon milk. But I don't know if it is milk, I don't know. But it's just in this little plastic container with a little foil top to gas if I wanted to straw, but I just, I just peeled off the foil top and just drank it like that. And it was pretty delicious, but I don't actually know what it is or what it's called, but I saw an ad for it on YouTube. And it's like, oh yeah, one of those ones. I should try some more of those. Those were good. 20:00 So I guess yeah, I just got to focus on what I like. I like the drinks. The drinks are great. And then just, just got to make my peace that the rest of it is. I mean, I think even, I don't know, I feel like even if you go, it's, I mean, it's more similar to North America where, you know, the ham and cheese sandwich may have been there for a couple of days.

It's just here they don't have the ham and cheese sandwich. It would be ham and cheese and tuna and jelly and I'm not fucking kidding. That's what it is. I don't know, maybe they don't specifically make that, but just pick four random ingredients that sort of can go together and put them all together.

But yeah, even one thing I did kind of like is you can get these sandwiches occasionally that are like cream, like whipped cream and strawberries. But again, it's similar to they have the cream sandwiches in Japan, but in Japan, it's the most brand new delicious fucking thing you've ever had. Here, I only see every maybe 10th convenience store, maybe even less than that that they actually have this thing. And then even when they do, it's like, yeah, this just isn't the same. This has been sitting here since yesterday and it's all right.

But yeah, I guess it's a good thing that I've, I'm starting to branch out a little bit and at least, you know, learning a little of being able to, since I met a place with a mini fridge right now. You know, buying my own kimchi, buying some hard boiled eggs, at least I just can't rely on the convenience stores because that's just not, that's just not what they're for. Like they really are for if you're just like desperate. If you just really do need to just go get a quick solo bite, it'll have something the same way as you might feel about eating at a convenience store in North America. Like when I visited Japan, I mean 90 straight days where I went to convenience stores every day. If you did that in North America, you'd have a pretty underwhelming time. So I mean, essentially, that's kind of what I was trying to do here. It's like, of course, going to the convenience store every day is an underwhelming experience that starts to wear off real fast and you prefer not to do except in Japan. In Japan, it's like actually awesome. It's completely realistic to do that. You know, people who live in Japan who have been there for years, of course, they don't feel that way about convenience stores. But as a visitor, believe me, dude, those convenience stores, you can easily eat there several times a day for months on end. It's no problem. Just imagining it now, I'm just like in my mind, I'm walking the aisles and I'm thinking of all the stuff I still didn't even try in a Japanese convenience store. There's so much stuff. Anyway, that was my big, big realization, my big revelation of the day.

I also did some research about the mountain here, the volcano, Mount Halasan. And I was pretty sure it was dormant, but I didn't actually look it up yet. About 5,000 years ago, it went dormant, so that's good. I was looking up information about the volcano, and I'm really thinking I don't think climbing up to the top is in my future. But I'll talk about it next, but I don't need to do that right now. I'm just so hot.

And I'm flagging a little bit.

So I'll tell you some crap I learned about walking up the volcano in a moment, but let's fade away. Let's fade out right now. I'm actually just walking around in a loop, so I'm at the good old view, where you can see down into the grotto of the waterfall. So here, I have some waterfall ASMR, as I stare at the peak, staring at the peak of the fucking Mount Halasan right now.

Alright, it's the next day, and yeah, I'm still just floating in the middle, where I mean, I guess this is pretty common when you're sick, where it seems worse at night, or like maybe it's because you're sleep or something, and your body is less active in fighting the sickness, where... 25:00 Like, at night trying to go to bed or in the morning when I woke up, I thought I was getting sicker. Like, ah, I definitely feel worse than yesterday, but then once I'm up and about and doing stuff and today, big bad laundry day, doing some laundry, standing outside the laundry mat right now. I feel pretty good. I feel better than yesterday, so it's like, am I getting more sick or less sick? I don't know, I'm both. Still just floating, still just floating in the midst of minor sickness, so yeah, I can't deny at this point that I got sick, I finally did get sick, but it's so minor compared to, you know, the very first episode of this podcast was about the first time I went to Japan in 2019, and how incredibly sick I was during that whole process, but that I had no choice, because everything was pre-booked.

And how totally weird that was, that it was the amazing excitement of going to Japan for the first time, where at the same time I was in a just a brutal sickness nightmare, one of the sickest I've ever been. I mean, compared to that, this is like a 2 out of 10, this sickness, it's like, ah, fine, I mean, I'm definitely sick, but I would still count this as incredible travel look. It's like, hey man, if you're going to get sick, this is the kind of sick you want to be. No biggie, and yet for the last few days I have barely left, I haven't really left my neighborhood at all, a little bit, I guess, going to the hill of storms, but even that very close, not that far. But if you're going to be stuck in your neighborhood, while you're a little under the weather, this is a good fucking place to be, I mean, there's palm trees, there's fucking multiple waterfalls, it's beautiful ocean views.

You know, hot as fuck, but on the plus side, you know, sunny and amazing, and looks like a bounty commercial, bounty the chocolate bar.

It's actually, ah, it's cooling down a little today, today would have been, ah, nice and breezy too, it would have been an alright day to go on a little stroll, but eh, whatever. Got to do laundry, I'm literally wearing my last shirt. I have no choice, it's nice though, this laundromat is really nearby, and every time I've walked by it's always totally empty, and it is today too delightful. Man, I love being by myself, a couple days ago I went to the, ah, the communal kitchen area in the hotel I met, and it was late at night, and nobody was there. I was like, ah, I love it, I love it when I'm just by myself, where last night, it was like damn near midnight, and it was just full of people, and then even more people came before I left, and it was like dude. I guess this ties into the thing I heard about how, ah, something I'd never noticed myself, but that apparently coffee shops don't open until like 10 o'clock, the only one that opens early is Starbucks. And it's just that brutal heat in the afternoon, plus now additionally, I'm on an island, I'm on island time. Yeah, I guess people just don't get up in the morning, fuck getting up in the morning, people after my own heart, man. It's nice too, I think it too, I have this hotel, like the more I walk around the more hotels I see, I was guessing that there were like 30 hotels in this neighborhood, and I think actually I undershot. I think there's more than that, there's so many hotels. And I don't know for sure if mine is the cheapest one, mine could just be the only one that's actually doing Airbnb stuff, I don't know, but, ah, but 20 bucks a day is pretty cheap. And I was thinking how awesome that is too, I mean obviously I'm in circumstances, everybody else can't necessarily follow. I know you got to be home because you got a job or you got a family or your own property or whatever. You can't just transplant to somewhere else, but in the event that you can, like 20 bucks a day, like I've definitely had apartments in little crappy rooms, like that I've rented that were less than that, but I've also had many that were more than that.

600 bucks a month, I mean that's totally just basically comparable to whatever things would cost, even if you're trying to be cheap, and you're in a crappy little town in eastern Canada. I don't know, I was surprised how the rent was just not, not as cheap as you'd like it to be, no matter where you go in North America. If you can just transplant to somewhere else, like it's just, it costs about the same, it's crazy, it's so delightful.

Again, God bless you, my dear deceased dad. I wish you'd gotten to spend a little more of this money yourself, but hey, I'm taking up the mantle.

I'm the next generation, who lays is about with the family fortune, but yeah, I mean it's just that it's not that much and it seems so nice here. But I guess I've felt this many places with like Busan, I'm like, oh yeah, I'll stay in Busan, I don't even want to leave. Here I'm like, yeah, you know, maybe I should just stay in Jeju, I do have a little more time on my South Korea visa after my six weeks here, but I'm sure by six weeks here, maybe I'll be just ready to go somewhere else, but that's the feeling I get for now. 30:00 It's just nice, just casual, just relaxed, I could see staying here, fuck it, it's just nice.

And the pollution level, actually this sickness I've got made me think of the pollution, it's like, yeah, that's kind of what the pollution's been like. There's been very few actual like, everything's fine days, everything is a little polluted generally, but it's not bad, it's like fine, it's doable, it's dealable. I do kind of get the sense though, I don't know, it seems like Busan had those occasional spikes that were awful, but on a day to day it actually seemed like Busan had slightly better air than Jeju, but I can't say for sure, that's just anecdotal. And yeah, I mean, by the local standards, this ain't so bad, it's the two out of ten, the same way I'm two out of ten sick, the air is two out of ten sick around here. I don't know, just being a small island, surrounded by ocean, be nice if it could just blow away all the pollution nice and easily, but I guess I don't really understand how pollution patterns work, apparently that is not how it works.

While I'm waiting for laundry, what do we got here? Step inside, laundry ASMR, 21 minutes, and then I got to switch over to the dryer.

I thought I might yammer a little bit about what I learned about hiking up the big volcano here on Jeju Island.

Because it's quite an incredible sight. Just when you're walking around this island, you can see it from all over. And I looked it up. It's 2,000 meters, which I have not crossed beyond 1,000 in any of my various adventures. Not even really close to 1,000. I don't know. I know I passed 700 at one point. I'm not sure if I got to 800. But also, some of my suspicions about how mountaineering works, it turns out are kind of true. As far as measuring these heights, since it's from sea level, and there'll be times when I'm at 275 meters, and it feels crazy high. And then other times where I'm at 400 meters, and it doesn't feel very high at all. And there is a term for that. I don't remember the term now. But it is like the relative height is kind of the more relevant one. Distance from sea level, kind of doesn't mean anything. You know? Because if the surrounding area is at sea level, then great. Then you really high up. But if everything else is also relatively high up, then the peak you're on, it's probably not that relevant, you know, what, meterage. But everybody just measures from sea level, because, you know, it's a universal measurement. And I guess I don't know, maybe because it sounds cooler. But it really isn't the relevant measurement. If you're a real mountaineer person, what really matters is how high up did you go based on everything around you. Like, for example, Everest. You know, Everest is insane. It's like, you know, 9,000 meters. But it's actually sitting on a 5,000 meter plateau. So yeah, it's 9,000 meters from sea level. But realistically, it's, you know, between 3 and 4,000 meters. No, I'm not saying that small. That's really big. But you're not, you're not climbing 9,000 meters. Just fucking not. But in this case, Mount Hallison, it's called this non-active volcano in the center of Jeju. It really is 2,000 meters because, because I mean, the sea is right there. It's a small island. You can walk from the sea to the volcano. I don't know, probably a couple hours. Maybe a few hours. But yeah, you can just see this thing in the distance. And it's really impressive and huge. So I was just kind of thinking like, I wonder. It's also shield shaped, which means it's not tall and spiky. It's like laying flat. It's quite a gentle ascent. And it just seems like, could I do that? Why not? You know, I've been doing all this hiking. Like, this would be, say, triple what a lot of my hikes were, height wise. I mean, that's a bit crazy, but sort of doable, maybe.

But a lot of it is just the sense of adventure or the sense of, like, oh, that seems like it would be a cool thing to do when you're looking at it from the ground. But as I did some research, more and more, I don't think I will be hiking up the volcano. So I'll tell you what I learned. So there's a few different options to get up, but some of them are smaller hikes that kind of cut across the, like, diagonally across the edge and don't go to the very top. 35:00 There's really only two paths that go all the way to the top. And none of them are super easy to get to from Segwipo. Got to take some buses, maybe take a transfer much easier to get to from Jeju city, which is the bigger city to the north. I'm down on the south. There's not really southern approaches to the volcano.

So that's the first problem. I'd have to get up way wicked early and take transit for 90 minutes or two hours to get to the beginning and be all set. It's hard to get up early for me anyway. And then that on top of it, it seems like it'd be better to be situated in Jeju city. But then I was thinking, like, yeah, I do have more time after my time here. I mean, I could just do that. I could just go to the other city on Jeju Island. Why not? But there's the entrance from the north and then there's one on the east. So a lot of people, you know, go up one, come down the other. But I was looking up people on YouTube and online and I found a guy who was about my age who hadn't been hiking in 10 years. And I was like, okay, that seems like a good, like, let's take him. Because I'm doing okay. I think I'm doing all right, hiking wise. But I also know the reality of my, like, I'm impressed with my own ability to hike because there's so many ways it could go wrong. I try to be fairly active, but I only ever realized that exercise is important. I don't know when I was in, like, my mid 30s. You know, it's not like I just grew up doing this stuff. And now that I'm in my early-ish forties, it's starting to, like, I just have so many things I was worried about. I got a bad shoulder, I got a bad knee, I got flat feet, I fucking toes, or I have to always wear spacers so I don't develop bunions. All of these things that it's like, man, I'm just so thankful none of these have been a big problem. I've been able to overcome all of these and go on big hikes and everything's been fine. So I think a guy who hasn't been hiking in 10 years, I'm like, let's, let's take him as the equivalent. That seems all right. And it took that guy nine hours to go up and back down. Just man, that is a long trip. That's a crazy long trip. Even just to walk across town for nine hours. I don't know the last time I've ever, if I've ever done that, let alone go up a fucking mountain and back down.

But then I found this other couple who were more fit and did more hiking type stuff. And it only took them eight hours, not a huge difference. But they did describe the thing I've been noticing this whole time, how coming down is worse than going up. And they said the same thing that going down was the problem because it's four fucking hours, four straight hours of going down the mountain. And these two paths as is usually the case in South Korea are really well developed. Like they're really good about making their hiking trails really well delineated. And if there's ever a tough section, they will build like literal walkways and wooden steps and stuff. And it's the same here. It seems like the entire walk all the way up and all the way down the other side is really well developed, really well labeled like not physically a problem. But you're still just stepping down for four hours and there are some parts where it's kind of somewhat more natural, awkward steps you do have to be mindful and careful the whole time. And they were saying these two fit as a fiddle people. They both had very sore knees by the time they got to the bottom. They wish they had brought painkillers. That's how bad it was. And that definitely made me very uncomfortable because of all my various ailments. My knee is probably the worst one. And as long as I'm careful about it, it's okay. But even just going down, you know, 600 meters, it makes my knee hurt a lot.

Going down 2,000 meters. That's so fucking crazy. That's so much. And yeah, I haven't had any huge knee problems since this, but I guess initially when I first started developing knee problems and I didn't know yet that I did. It's only on my left knee. My right knee is great. It's just my left knee. It's all a scoliosis thing. My left knee is connected to my right shoulder and it's a whole curvation. It's extra pressure on my body, bullshit. But there was a time in Montreal before I realized that my knee was had gotten bad. I used to run up the subway steps, like the metro in Montreal is really deep underground. So I used to always, instead of taking the escalator, I would jog all the way up these steps just as exercise. And I whacked out my knee. This was way back before COVID. This was like many years ago. But it was so injured and so fucked up that I could barely walk for like the next two weeks. I could barely walk. I was like an old man walking upstairs was just death. And it just put the fear in me of like I have to be so mindful of my knee. I cannot let that happen again. 40:00 And how is that not going to happen if I go four fucking hours of walking downhill? I just think that's a terrible idea. So I mean that's probably the big thing. But then there's many other little things that I mean I'll still go through it all because maybe you're interested in doing this. Maybe you want to come to Jeju and do this. I can give you the basic layout of how it works, but even beyond that one big problem. There's lots of smaller problems that I think just wouldn't work for me so well. They have a system which I think this is a good idea. You do have to register. It's free, but you have to register a day that you're going to go and pick either really early morning or a bit later in the morning start time. And then they send you a QR code. So I think the idea is just so there's not too many people on the mountain and just so they know who's there. You know, if you don't scan your QR code at the end of the day, they know somebody's up on the mountain. It's a good system. It's a good thing to do. But the trouble with that is not only just the getting up early, which is a big problem for me in general, but having a specific day where you have to go do this, that is so tough for me. Because what if, what if it's a bad pollution day? What if it's one of these just awful days all of a sudden where the AQI's above 100? That's not the day to go hike up a mountain, but then you're stuck. What if even it's just raining? What if the weather's just bad? That's still that today. You know, you might not be able to set up another day. I'm not sure how busy it is. I mean, presumably it's pretty busy. It's pretty popular. And even just because of my bad sleep schedule, what if I just have insomnia? What if that's the day? What if the day before that I can't fall asleep till five in the morning? Like, what I really need is I just need a day for everything to line up. I need a day where it's like, wow, I slept really well last night and the weather's good. And everything's just feeling great. I'm going to go do this right now. And that's just not possible. This mountain is too big, too prominent, too popular, too famous, too organized. Again, none of that's a bad thing. I think it's very good. I like the QR code system. I think that's a really good idea. They don't just let people go up there and just cross your fingers that everyone will come back. Okay, that's great, but it's awkward. And for my fucking slip shot life, it's not feeling of like, oh, geez, I got to go do a presentation tomorrow or something. You know, it's like, oh, no, tomorrow's the day. Like, I cannot have insomnia tonight. I need to get a good night rest. And then I got to get up early in the morning because you're also, you know, it's like, I also go crazy slow. That's, I guess, the trick to making sure my knee doesn't hurt is once you get into a rhythm of just really slowly hiking, you stop realizing how slow you're going. It's just the pace. And then it feels way better because I don't get out of breath and I could just get in a little Zen mode and they just hike, hike, hike, hike. I'm pretty confident I could do that to get to the top. The 2000 meters up, it would be a lot, but I'm pretty sure I can do it. But I don't think there's any good way to come back down without injuring my knee. And I don't know that, I mean, surely, I don't know, nine hours, you know, surely I could reach that pace. Maybe, but I don't know. Maybe I'm even slower than that. Like, maybe because there's all these regulations of like, you have to leave by X time. And then there's markers on the way up the mountain. You cannot pass further than here. Like, if it's 130 in the afternoon right now and you're only getting here now, go back. You can't keep going. You know, like, they don't want people to get stuck up there in the middle of the night. So you have to reach a certain pace. And I'm still relatively confident I could do that. I think going up, I could probably do that. But then I would want to go even slower on the way down just to not fuck myself up. And I just don't think that's possible. I don't think this just, I think it's just not for me. This is not meant for me. It's just too much. It's just too big. It's too organized. It's not just to go a fun exploratory hike. And then I also realize like, like, what do I care anyway? You know, it looks cool from the ground. You look at it and the idea of going up there is some epic shit. Like a Lord of the Rings journey. That sounds really cool. But the reality is I don't care about getting to peaks. I don't care about getting my stamp that I did a thing. I don't care about, like, saying I did a specific thing. I don't care about seeing a specific landmark. I mean, on the top, there's a Caldera. I bet it looks pretty cool. You get to look down and there's like a little lake in the divot at the top. I bet that's pretty rad. But again, I'm just going to stare at it and wonder how long I'm supposed to stare before I can keep going. Like, things like that just don't mean that much to me. Saying I ascended the mountain doesn't mean that much to me.