#137 The Jeju Olle Trail - Namwon to Pyoseon

Transcript

So, since I started my plan of walking around the outside of Jeju Island, I guess one thing about it is that, I guess one thing about it is that now, you know, that seems, that's the exciting thing. Get on a bus. Go to the point I have not gone beyond yet and keep going. But the other side of that is that now, you know, just my little neighborhood, as nice as it is with all the waterfalls and stuff. You know, I would just kind of wander around here. There are some times, but now it kind of seems like, yeah, you know, I've explored this neighborhood enough. I want to go to the new neighborhoods. But maybe not every day, you know, day after day after day. So I'm kind of falling into, I was in this pattern in Seoul of taking a day to adventure and then taking a day off. And I'm kind of doing that again, but in a much better way. In Seoul I did it because, you know, the pollution was terrible and I didn't initially like the city anyway. So now it's a, it's all a lot more positive. This time, but it's still kind of nice to take a day off in between adventuring every day. Where's you out in Japan? I, uh, adventured like crazy. Anyway, the point of all this rambling is tomorrow. I'll get back on the trail. But today, just took the day off, edited some podcasts, you know, hung out at the hotel. But I went to McDonald's and it was real busy. Big lineup for the machine. So I was like, yeah, let me just go check out KFC. Let me try because I couldn't navigate the machine in Seoul. I couldn't get it. I didn't take my credit card. But amazingly, it works here in Jeju. I thought if anything, Jeju, uh, so far has been a little tricky for touristy stuff ironically, despite being such a tourist place. KFC worked though. And the thing that every little kid has always ever said or every adult or every everyone. Why doesn't KFC just sell the skin? Why isn't that an option? Well, that is an option in South Korea. And I got this shit. And it was like, pretty cheap. Under two dollars, it looks gross. I mean, it's exactly what it is. It's the skin with just the herbs and spices. So let me try one. Oh, man, it's not even hot. It's like lukewarm. I'm sure it's not supposed to be though. But it's not hot.

Hmm. I don't know. Maybe this is a little more like pork rinds. I've only ever had pork rinds once. We don't really do that in Canada. I got them in New York once. Maybe it's a bit like that. It definitely doesn't taste like the skin. The delicious warm hot greasy skin. This is more just kind of dry. And unfortunately cold.

Hmm. Anti-climax. But it's just such a crazy thing. Again, like how things that felt a lot more normal since I left Seoul. But I do want to go to Seoul. Seoul in particular seemed like I was in a VR unit that was kind of fucked up and wasn't working right. Like everything was just so crazy and weird and so. And this felt like that, you know, like I can't believe this dream item that every eight year old would want is a real thing. So I just felt like I had to try it. I had to report on it, but it's pretty bad. It's not good. Because I mean, it is what it says it is and it's not, you know. I mean, I guess it is chicken skin or some approximation thereof with the KFC stuff on it. But yeah, it's just dry. It's stiff. Even if it wasn't cold, I just. Hmm. So, keep the dream alive.

Keep the dream alive. But the reality. The reality. I mean, it's a good thing that it's not good. Imagine if this became my thing and come here every day to get chicken skin. And then when I leave South Korea, I'm dreaming of the chicken skin. What a nightmare. That would be for my own health and sanity. Okay. Anyway, there's the chicken skin update. Stay tuned. Tomorrow we'll get back to adventure.

Wow, the song even ended at the perfect point. Amazing.

Alright, it's the next day. I'm back on my journey to walk all the way around Jeju Island. A somewhat time-consuming task, but one that I've learned is super easy. It should really be no problem, just a matter of time.

So I'm picking up where I left off, which is Namwon, N-A-M-W-O-N. And I was kind of doing a day-on-day off with this mission, but that's not a hard and fast thing. Because maybe tomorrow I'll hop back on this plan right away, because I have a feeling today is going to be a pretty small journey.

Man, it's nice today, though. It's like just a little bit overcast, just enough to keep the sun away. I'm not even sweating right now, which is pretty fucking remarkable. It's real windy. It's nice, just a nice coastal breeze.

But yeah, I opened up with that eating the chicken skin from KFC. I looked that up a bit. Like, is this just a career thing? It seems that it is. It started real small. There was only like six KFCs in the big cities that did this, and now it appears they all do. And apparently, fried chicken skin, I think they said Thailand is where I read. There's somewhere that does this where it's like pretty good. It's just like a traditional food. But yeah, the KFC version, it's not good. It's fucking shit. Because I was having a little bit of a tough time falling asleep last night, and it's like, yeah, I wonder why? What's the culprit? I mean, maybe there's no culprit. It could just be insomnia. It could be anything. But then my stomach in the early hours of the morning was like, oh, I'm washroom time, my friend. And I mean, was it a coincidence that I ate chicken skin in whatever other big, gross KFC meal that day? I mean, also, I was getting over. I still, I guess, getting over being sick. I have a feeling it's probably both. It's probably both things, but the KFC shouldn't fucking help. But yeah, I didn't get all the sleep I would have liked to get. But that's the beauty of this, this plan, circumnavigating the island by just going to the bus. Just taking the bus to the previous, whatever bus stop I stopped off at, is even though I woke up pretty late, and I was a little wiped. That's all right. Though I can make this happen. I just really wanted to today. I was very excited about it, because not just for the walk. But this is the spot where I found an idea coffee, and I ended off the adventure last time with a coffee, and it's like, fuck, yeah. I've been on Jeju Island for weeks, and I haven't been to a coffee shop even once. It's like, oh, shit. I missed this. This is great, and an idea is my favorite. The latte I got, I just got it because it was the most expensive one on the menu. It's like, you know, since it's so rare that I go to coffee shops while I'm on Jeju, let's just get whatever you got. Whatever the best thing is. Something called Toffee Nut Surrup that seems like it's just toffee and caramel, and I don't know, sugar. Just sugar. But it is pretty good.

So instead of finishing off the journey with a coffee, I thought I could start this one, because unfortunately, an idea is my favorite chain. Again, because it's just got English menus. It takes a card, and it's so super convenient. I love it.

And it is just good as well. It's like a local Korean chain. But the one idea that's supposed to be in Saegwapo is closed. It's kind of remarkable, because this one is like, this is the middle of nowhere.

It's a very small coffee shop, the one I was just at by South Korean standards. Usually, the coffee shops are numerous, and they're huge, and people just hang out there all day, and it's kind of nice, because you really don't feel bad about hanging out there all day. That's what they're for. It's like a study room in a library almost. And this one's no different. The people that were there were hanging out there all afternoon while I was there. There was a little group of us that was basically there the whole time. But it still was only like a little smattering of people. And I'm just sitting at this coffee shop looking at the window, looking at the coastline. It's just like this fucking rules. I love this. So yeah, I wanted to start today with the coffee. Because unfortunately, this is the last idea until I get all the way up to the north to Jeju City, which is the significantly larger city than all the other cities main city.

So it's like five o'clock now. And the little signs on this route around the island say you should stop around six. I'll probably go a little farther than that because the sun will be up for a while. But it does seem like last episode that walk I did. It kind of like wasn't coincidence that it all worked out so well. That that walk from the river I started at to that information booth like it's all set up to be like that is a distinct discrete walk that you're intended to do as it gets own hike.

So I have a feeling this whole walk like it might be even more easy and prescribed than I thought it was. I could probably chain together like walk from information booth to information booth, you know. It seems like for just like a reasonable afternoon hike, I don't know that there are more information booths. I'm just guessing. I'm assuming that there is. I didn't look it up because you know it's just fun to see what happens just just to go into the wild blue yonder figure it out. But if there are information booths in the more major neighborhoods, you know with like bus exchanges and stuff. Those do seem like the easiest most optimal place to cap off the journey for the day.

But I'm pretty confident that again I just don't think it matters like if I only do halfway today or a third or who knows what will happen. You know it might be a little less convenient to get to the bus route to finish off the day. But I just don't think it'll be a problem.

I think I can just walk till it starts getting dark and just bail out. I think I'm far enough now on the bus to quite sure it charged me a little extra. How the base fair is only a buck 50. But then you tap the card on the way out and I didn't see specifically but I think it gave me a tiny little additional charge. So I make it slowly. The distances are adding up.

One unexpected thing though. You know last episode I ended with like the beauty of transit. I love it. It's so easy to travel in South Korea. How wonderful. Just had a little bus stop and everything was la la la. And I mean I know this podcast is a lot of my various ailments. And that I'm just kind of pleased that none of them have become a problem. Because you know I don't want to overstate it. Everyone's on a spectrum. So many people have it so much worse than me. I've managed to like keep juggling any little problems that I have physically. Keep everything in the air. Nothing has been a problem. But there are a lot. I mean fundamentally I'm just a big dumb nerd. I got big toes that for some reason are always just desperately wanting to point inward and cause bunions. I got flat feet. I got a bad knee. I got a bad shoulder.

But one thing I hadn't thought about in a long time because it kind of went away. It's like when I was a kid I was not scared to heights. Not at all. Me and my brother used to literally repel down cliff sides with just like work gloves and a rope that we tied to a tree. And then when I was a teenager I remember it specifically. I was like 17 or 18. I think I was 17. We were on a family trip. Our final family trip to Florida. Before I don't know. We just stopped doing that kind of thing. And I was at Universal Studios and I was on a roller coaster and I distinctly remember that feeling of like that was not okay. I can't do this anymore. I'm not a roller coaster guy and then that turns out was part of a big fear of heights thing. Whereas in reverse as I developed a fear of heights one thing that used to be a problem that went away was motion sickness. I mean maybe these things are related. Inner ear problems. I have no idea. Balance stuff. But I used to get really bad motion sickness when I was a kid. You know if I was on a boat or even just in a car. And I used to have to you know it really helped if I could sit in the front seat and just stare forward out the window. But if I was stuck in the back again just have to stare at the window like I could not read a book or play a game boy or anything in a car. I just got horribly nauseous. But that mainly went away. I don't really notice that so much as an adult. And then big stuff like buses generally. It's not that bad. You know they're pretty big and stable and I just never really noticed it being a problem. Man it's a problem on South Korean buses. This came out of nowhere. I have no idea why. I mean they are very rattly and rumbly. I don't know. I mean I just I don't even because I don't know what causes it in the first place. So I don't know what the culprits are here. But I noticed right away heading back home the other day. I was like oh I haven't felt that in a long time. Fuck. This is queasy feeling. And I think it was exacerbated because there's Wi-Fi and all the buses. So I was on my phone fucking around. 15:00 And then today that was confirmed for sure. I was fucking around on my phone and I felt the queesiness but I just kept pushing it. I kept fucking around on my phone. And then I had to stop because I was like holy fuck. I feel like I'm gonna puke. I feel like I'm gonna throw up. What is fucking happening? So I put my stupid phone away and I just stared at the window and it went away and it was okay.

But it's like whoa okay. That's an unfortunate thing. For whatever reason the bus rides here in South Korea I just need to look at the window. Or I'm legitimately gonna fucking barf. I couldn't believe how bad it was. It's like shit. I was like what am I gonna have to do? Am I gonna have to emergency tell this bus driver let me off. Oh my god. That's how bad it was. But luckily staring at the window made it go away. So because I was like it was so bad that I was like is this gonna totally fuck up all of this?

Can I not take a bus? That's a problem. But anyway looks like I just gotta be careful. I just got to be mindful.

But yeah, also, I guess because I had so much gastrointestinal distress last night into the morning. I'll just say it like it is. I just had diarrhea. I had the shit. To make sure I didn't put undue pressure on myself, I did not eat before today's adventure. I got a couple of just granola bars tucked away in my pocket. All I had was a big-ass, which is kind of an appetite-suppressant anyway, good old caffeine. Because yeah, I noticed this the other day, too, that that's the only downside to this plan is just not a lot of washrooms. So between whatever's going on in my stomach and my terrible decision to eat KFC fried chicken skin and whatever else I got, some kind of weird, you know, I don't know.

It was just like chicken tenders with some kind of like mysterious spicy sauce. But yeah, it seems like this is the best plan in general. Just hike a little hungry. Why not? It's a lot better than the alternative of like, oh, I'm so nice and sated and I have hiking energy. First off, I don't need hiking energy. This is the easiest hike of all time. I'm just walking along the shoulder of a road right now. Maybe it'll turn into a bit of a little packed earth path. Nothing about this is going to be hard.

I don't need the energy. I'm not hiking up a big mountain. I'm not going on a jungle trek. And yeah, just why put the pressure on the belly?

But yeah, I'm still very distinctly in volcanic rockville, although it's a lot flatter now. It's not all crazy. So anyway, yeah, I'll just walk. I'll just walk till I can't walk no more and see how far I make it today. Hey, doggy. There's a dog not on a leash. I think there's a, oh yeah, I see there's some people.

Again, I don't know what they're gathering, you know, there must be something. Some seafood type stuff that I guess you can gather when the tide is lower. But I don't know what it is. I'll tell you what is down there though that I've seen every time I've been on the coast. The little, little black insect things that again, I don't know if it's counts as an insect or if it counts as a sea creature or if it's some amalgamation of the two. But man, they're everywhere. These big black, kind of like super black cockroach looking things, but bigger. They are everywhere. Get her in a round down in those rocks.

Oh, hey, speak of the devil. A washroom. I only have one more stupid pointless anecdote. But let me just hold on because I'm going to pee. You shall not join me.

Fade out. Fade in. What a nice pee. But anyway, at that idea coffee, the whole reason I haven't been to a coffee shop on Jeju is that what I love about idea is the touch screens.

Any business with a nice touch screen that takes a foreign card. I love it. It's my fave.

Oh, here's the map of all of Jeju. Does it say where I am? Well, I can figure it out.

Trying to figure out how far east have I been. The Jeju Teddy Bear Museum. I think it's roughly that's close enough to how far east I've been.

And there's the falls. City Hall. The city hall where I caught the bus, I think it is. The Seguapo Intercity bus terminal or thereabouts.

There's Seosokak River. That's the first endpoint. Over here, Namwon. That's the second endpoint where I started today. So yeah, I'm just somewhere east of there. And yeah, it doesn't look like it does seem like based on this map that just has various stuff. You know, there's way more stuff down by Seguapo, obviously. At this point, not as much.

Piocian Port. The Jeju Folk Village Museum. Piocian Beach seems like the next major area. Will I make it there? Who knows. It is a bit late in the day. And it's very hard to judge distances. I'm gonna say probably not though. It looks pretty far. Geez. And then after that, maybe just nothing for a while. But hey, that's okay. Again, I'm not doing this to actually see stuff. I'm just doing this to do it.

But yeah, generally speaking, in Japan, I was very surprised right from the first time I went back in 2019. You know, I knew that the English level wasn't great there, but still just in my arrogant North American way. You know, I just assumed, you know, I've been to the Netherlands, everyone could speak English. I've only been to Mexico and a cruise, so clearly that doesn't count, but everyone could speak English. America, Canada, of course, everyone speaks English. Yeah, no, I just arrogantly assumed. Like, oh, yeah, I know it's not gonna be perfect, but everyone's gonna speak English. Everyone just speaks English. And then I got to Japan and I was like, whoa, they actually weren't kidding. A lot of people basically don't speak English, functionally don't speak English. You know, they could speak a little bit English, but they're highly disinclined to try.

And I don't know, I guess the closest thing might be the more rural parts of Quebec outside of Montreal. I guess that's probably the most I had previously run into people that it's like, oh yeah, they kind of don't really speak English.

But be it arrogant or not, I was pretty surprised because, you know, I got the, I just rolled the dice lucky on that one that I grew up principally speaking English. Because English is just for all of its faults and for what a stupid language it is and how none of the rules are consistent and nothing makes sense. And you functionally just need to memorize the thousand fucking stupid things.

For better or for worse, English is the thing is that the world uses. So I was just surprised that it's like, wow, Japan really has, I was surprised just because they're such a famous country. I mean, maybe they're, maybe they're more famous to me because of video games and anime and, you know, manga. Maybe on the world stage they're not actually all that super famous, but to me they are. Japan is best in class, it's so many things and they're so super disciplined about, you know, things that they care about. So I guess I was just surprised to get there and it's so clear like, oh, English, the English language, that is not something they care about. That is not, that's not a high on the hierarchy. And yeah, I mean, that's one reason why I never did go to McDonald's. I wanted to go just once just to see what it was like. And now, you know, I said, Korea is taking care of that for me. I'm very familiar with what it's like to go to a foreign McDonald's now. But I was like, I should just try to go once, I guess. But without a menu with like combos with a number, I just wasn't willing to do it. Like I had enough experiences at that point of going to coffee shops or going to, or even just convenience stores, or just running into people that I'm just making their day. A lot harder than it needs to be because I didn't learn any Japanese and I'm just expecting them to know English. And I was like, you know, I just don't want to put people through this and I don't want to put myself through this. You know, this is my own fault, but I can at least not exacerbate the situation. Whereas South Korea, I didn't feel that way. And Busan, especially obviously the bigger cities, but just really didn't seem to be a problem. You know, you could just roll around and be a big arrogant English speaker. And just, I'm just speaking English. Is that cool? And you know, you can, you'll run into some people that it's like, oh jeez, I wish I didn't have to do this. 25:00 But they can and they do. And it's like, it really felt different. It just didn't, it felt like, I guess how I expected it to feel in Japan. Like it's going to have a little friction, but it's going to be fine. That's how it is in South Korea. It's fine.

The point of this whole ramble is that this random ass of Dia coffee in the middle of nowhere. It's the first time in quite a long while. I can't even remember the last time this happened in South Korea if it ever has happened in South Korea. Where I was talking to somebody who, like I'm really not sure if they can speak English at all, you know. Or if they can, there's so unsure about it. Like they're just really, really just like not wanting to do this. And it really brought me back to Japan. It's like, oh yeah, that's that feeling in Japan. That's that feeling that really does just cause me to avoid stuff in Japan. When I could just do so much easier to just go to a convenience store or something than to navigate a menu at a real restaurant or whatever. You know, I'm not saying that my crappy way of traveling is the right way to go. But I'm realizing more and more. Like I just, I kind of can't hold it against myself because it really, the feeling is very palpable of like these people wish I wasn't talking to them. You know, they wish an English speaker wasn't making their day tough. And I felt that so clearly today. It's like, oh yeah, I don't know if that I've ever felt that in South Korea. But yeah, this girl at the idea, you know, I still ordered my coffee just through the machine. And I don't know, I made a point to say thank you. Same thing when I was here the other day. Even though it's just spitting out a ticket and they're just getting a number on their end of the counter. And I want to say thank you. And I always thank the bus driver when I get on and off the bus because you just do that in Canada. But I don't think anyone else does. But I get the vibe that the bus drivers seem to like it. They seem to be pleased that I'm thanking them.

But anyway, yes. So I mean where this came up because I didn't even order the coffee from the person I just ordered through the machine. But at Daiso I bought these little instant coffee things. Just little little packets of powdered coffee and they've been pretty nice. Boyle up some water in the hotel room. Just make a little, make a little cup of instant coffee in the morning. Feels very nice.

And I bought some Adia brand and it was almost gone. I was going to go to Daiso just yesterday and get some and I just didn't get around to it. So I saw they had some for sale here. A kind of, I didn't even see the other time. It's like mocha, special mocha coffee, whatever. It's like 30 of these little tubes for like 13 bucks. And I was like, oh, sweet, awesome. So I picked that up and was just like, hey, can I buy this? And it was no problem. You know, she scanned it. My little card worked. That was fine. And I bought it. And it's like awesome. Perfect. But that's where I felt the vibe of like, that I really don't think she knew what I was saying. Like we were going entirely on pantomime. Because I picked this thing up and I sort of like, hey, can I get this? And just the look on her face, it was like the deer and headlights look. And then I reached into my wallet and took out a bank card. And just like, yeah, let's do this. Let's do this thing. And I was thinking about that from the other side. Like I was a barista for many years. And I never had this experience, but it's very easy to imagine. What if I was working in Vancouver? And somebody came in who didn't speak English. And they held up an item like that. Now, presumably, they probably just want to buy it.

But, but what if it is something else? What if they're saying, you know, hey, does this have like, I'm allergic to this. Is that in here? You know, what if they're saying, hey, are these free? Can I just take this? You know, like things that, why would they even say that? But you just don't know. You know, it's so easy for me on my side to take it for granted as the customer. Like, I'm just picking up a thing. I just want to buy it. But when you're on the other side, when you're the clerk, you know, what if, even if it's a 99% chance, they just want to buy the thing. What if that presumption is going to cause a big problem? Because you're assuming that, but they actually want something else. And if that is the case, then, then, oh, then we got, you know, it goes from a quick pantomime to a whole fucking game of charades that we got to play. And that's just the feeling I got from her that look on her face was just, I don't want to do a game of charades right now. I don't want to have to guess what this guy wants. 30:00 And it's just a little moment, and it's just a little thing. But I guess it's like, because I'm always kind of, I don't know, given myself a bit of a hard time about this type of stuff, that even if it is just a little bit of a difficult situation or a little bit of friction, you know, 5% of friction, it's enough for me to not want to do it. But I see that in other people. It's like, yeah, I think everybody feels like that. Nobody wants these situations. Nobody wants to have to do these things. It doesn't matter that it's not that hard. It doesn't matter that it's not that big of a deal. It's a bigger deal than not having to do it. You know, and that's all it takes. It just has to be friction. It doesn't matter how much it is. And you can just feel that. You can feel like, oh, why is this guy putting me through the friction right now?

And that's where I'm kind of in this weird spot where it's like, it's like I recognize this stuff. But I'm okay with it, and I'm not really doing anything about it. Like, yeah, I could try to learn Korean. I could try to learn Japanese. But realistically, that's not in my future. I'm not fundamentally interested in learning another language. And really, all it's going to do is make it a little bit easier for me to go to coffee shops and fast food places and stuff. You know, I don't have any grand ambitions.

So I think it's fine for things to just be a little frictiony. That's what happens when you go to a country where you can't speak the language. But I still like being in these countries, and I like exploring around them, and I like being in them. And in a weird way, many parts of the day, I like being illiterate. I like looking around at billboards and signs or having people walk by and just not knowing what anyone is saying or what anything says. It's like a nice media cleanse. I don't like over here in conversations. I don't like seeing signs out of the corner of my eye and just seeing an advertisement or a slogan. I don't like any of that. I like having it just like I like being illiterate.

But I do recognize that once in a while I'm making the day a little harder for somebody and I just say, you know, at least I do try to recognize it. I know that's what it is. I'll do my best. I will do my best to make this go as smooth as possible. I will do my best to make things as unawkward as I can, barring actually learning the words. That's a funny thing too, though, where I, you know, I know so little about these languages that I don't even know what I don't know. So I was saying to my friend Brad who took a language courses in Japan for some time. I was saying like it would be kind of funny if there was a series of YouTube videos that were just based in the convenience store. Like what if all I could do was speak, you know, learning conversational Japanese say? What if my conversational Japanese was based entirely around convenience stores? What if I could only talk to a person at convenience stores? That would be like kind of perverse and kind of funny, but actually kind of useful to my shallow life. But he brought up something that I mean this, this never could have occurred to me because I just, I don't have even the capacity to know this because I just know nothing. He was saying that it would actually be maybe kind of tricky because the kind of Japanese you would need to learn at the convenience store literally kind of is only useful at the convenience store because the tone that clerks take in Japan. You always forget about this that there's like different polite ways to talk and impolite ways to talk. I mean we have that to some degree in English, but it's not formalized like it is in other languages where you speak a specific way to your boss and you can speak a different way to your underlings, that type of thing.

And apparently the convenience store talk is like the definition of servile, like it's almost from a different era. It's like, hey I'm the lowest of the low. I'm below your boots. I'm here to serve you master.

And not really, that's not really what it means, but they just have adopted that idea that if you're in a customer service industry in Japan, you just, I don't know what would be an equivalent. I just spoke like ancient English, but only to customers. Like if I just talk like this, but then I got to my coffee shop job and I'm like, oh for Suthmasturb, you know, I'm million thanks for your patronage, my lord.

He's have the finest of days, my leege. If I only talk like that at work, he said it's kind of like that. Like even if I learned convenience store Japanese, I like kind of why bother. It's not useful in your normal life. It'd be better off just learning some normal Japanese. And of course it's all theoretical because without a larger goal, you know, without some kind of like, oh I'm going to move to Japan or I'm going to work in Japan. I'm going to get married to someone in Japan. None of those plans are on the horizon.

I'm just, I'm just a wanderer.

That's one of those big, creepy bug things. Yeah, I'm just just here to soak it in. I'm just literally here to visit.

These little teeny crabs, what are these? These are different. Hey, yeah, they're little crab guys. They're little crabs. And they're meshed to crabs.

It's weird too though. I mean, there are these like polyglots on YouTube who can speak like a zillion languages. And it's impressive on the surface. But it's also weird where you'll see these videos of like, I was in an obscure area of China. They couldn't believe it when I understood what they were saying. And I just started talking to them fluently. And it's like, yeah, it is pretty cool in that first moment. There's that little moment of delight of like, oh jeez, you can speak this language in your accents pretty good and stuff. What the hell? But then in the next moment, it always immediately turns into the most boring small talk you could ever imagine. And that's what I hate in North America. I don't want to talk to random people about nothing. I hate that shit. I want to get away from that shit. I love going somewhere where I can't talk to anybody because I can't talk to anybody. It's nice. It's just so strange to be like, to see these people on YouTube. But it's like, yeah, I'm at the obscure area of China. And I'm talking to the Chinese person in Chinese. And all I have to say is like, hey, so you live around here? Good weather, eh? This place is nice. Like it's so fucking weird. What was the point of that? What was the point of learning these languages just so you can chitter chatter with somebody? You know, it's not like you're learning the deep dark secrets of an alien species from another world. It's just somebody on Earth. It's just somebody who probably went to McDonald's yesterday. What the fuck is the point? I don't really get it. I'm less, I don't know. The more I look into it, it's just funny. I guess I'm like, I guess I always feel a little defensive about it because it is like, why aren't you learning? Why aren't you trying to learn? But just the more I look into it and the more angles they look at it from, I'm like, why would I though? Why the fuck do I care? Why do they care? No one cares. No one wants to talk to me about nothing. It doesn't matter. Man, it's not important. And I mean, I'm not saying it's not nice when it does happen. Those occasion a little times. Like I'm thinking in Busan, the guy that I met on the top of the mountain by where they used to do smoke signals. And he was very delighted to get to break out his English.

But ultimately, we just chit-chat it a little bit about the weather and about his why he used to live. And that's the thing, too, he learned English because he was like a high-level science guy who lived in America and Canada. He had a good reason to learn English. But then beyond that, it's like, oh, you're like Korean food. There's a market over there. You could go get some stuff. You know, real nice guy, very nice conversation, but not about anything. Conversations are never about anything. What's that? The Julian Hatfield fucking lyric is like, there's no such thing as pleasant conversation. It's all just drowning victims gasping for air. Conversations aren't deep. They're not about anything. And if you meet someone who thinks they are deep and they have some big thing to tell you, that's the most annoying person you're going to meet that day. That shit sucks. That's even worse when people try to get all heavy on you.

So yeah, it's just not going to happen. I'm just not going to dedicate hundreds of hours just so I can chit-chat with somebody and have small talk. I'm not going to do it.

Lucky I learned French when I was a kid. At least I got that one under my belt.

Whoa. This car just went by that is like, it's like a cool sports car, which is not common here. I don't remember ever seeing one before on this island. 40:00 But it's also really weathered and old and like the paint is all chipped off. What a weird combination of like super cool and old and shitty at the same time. Anyway, what a yammer. What a fucking yammerer I am. I was like, yeah, you know, especially today because this is going to be a shorter journey. You know, I'll just stop in a little yadda yadda and then I'll, you know, this won't be enough for a whole podcast. I'll fucking have to just tack on the next bit of the journey. Then next thing, you know, I've been talking at length about fucking nothing. It's easily a podcast.

I really, I mean, it's weird to say this now all these episodes in. But I just really don't know about this podcast. There's times when I listen back when I'm editing them where I'm like, dude, this is about nothing. Either this is really about nothing or it's really boring or you're just describing something in such minute detail that it can't possibly make sense to anybody. What the fuck is the point of this? You know, but then there's other times where it's like really cool or interesting or something neat happens or listen back and I'm like, man, I'm glad I captured that. That actually is kind of useful. It's very 50, 50, but I guess all I can think is like, I remember Conan O'Brien saying that like with late night TV where he just did an episode every day. And obviously some were better than others, but you can, you just can't keep it all in your mind. Like it's impossible to have perspective on what you're even doing, especially after you've done hundreds and then thousands of these episodes.

And he said that the best way he had it described to him that he felt like was the best way to keep it all in mind was to think of it like a big tapestry is the wrong word. It's like a tapestry when it's made out of tiles. You know, it's like a giant tile artwork where each day you're laying down a tile. And today it's a blue tile and tomorrow it's an orange tile and the next day it's a yellow tile and the little specific tiles don't look like anything. They don't suggest anything. They don't mean anything. It's just a little tile. It's just a little color. But someday when it's all over and you pull back and you look at the whole thing, then it's a big picture. Then you see the whole thing and you're like, cool. So that's what I was working on all this time. That's not bad. And I just got a hope that that's the case here as well, like that the totality of this is interesting and is useful to somebody and has some fucking purpose. Because like the individual episodes, the individual parts, the individual moments, who the fuck knows dog and this shit might mean nothing.

But hopefully the totality adds up to something.

All right, that's enough. That's enough yammering.

Let's fade out again and then we'll fade back in when we see how far I got.

Oh, wait, one last little thing just because I'm seeing them right now. I did mention last episode that those tetrapods that are all over Japan. That there's not that many of them around here because I think the volcanic rock of the shoreline, it's kind of its own. It's a natural tetrapod. Right after I said that, I saw some last episode and I forgot to mention it. And here there's a whole bunch. I'm on a little walkway that's going out to a lighthouse or something. And there's tons of these tetrapods, the big concrete tetrapods. Yeah, there's still far fewer of them than there are in Japan. But they are around. There are some in South Korea. And once they hit, they hit hard. There's a shit ton of them.

I met a nice little place where there's like a little mini river that goes under the road and out into the ocean. So it's only like 620. It's not super late, but I'm thinking this little mini adventure should probably wrap up. Because basically, yeah, this stretch that I'm on, it is all just a nice rocky shoreline, quite low to the ground, not like big cliffs and stuff. 45:00 Quite a few fishermen. And in fact, I think most of these buildings I'm walking by, I'm like walking behind fishery type places mostly. I think. And yeah, just random fishermen just standing on the rocks casting their lines. And you know, I was thinking with seeing that map and there's not really anything on it. Even though it's just, you know, it's a tourist map. But tourist-wise, it's like, hmm, not much, not much coming up. And you know, the end of the idea coffee and whatnot. But then I did have this thought, I think, because I didn't eat today. So my mind's on food a bit. I was like, yeah, you know, when I do get back, the place where the bus drops me off is not that far from McDonald's. I'll probably just do that. But I thought, hmm, what if is there Wi-Fi here in the middle of nowhere? And amazingly, there was. The Jeju free Wi-Fi totally works. Hey, there's a rooster and a chicken.