#139 Learning the secrets of the Jeju Olle Trail

Transcript

Alright, waterfall time. I'm approaching the waterfall I hadn't seen yet. There it is. There's the waterfall. Imagine it. We'll look up a YouTube video. What is this one called? All of the names are so similar. Cheonjiyeon Falls, CH-E-O-N, J-I-Y-E-O-N. And this is the one that I saw from up above. It's like in a grotto. You pay two bucks to go into the grotto down a path to see this waterfall. But you can see it from the park up that's in circles the grotto. You can see that for free. And I didn't even know this was here. So I just spied it through some trees. And I was like, holy shit, look at that. And then I saw little people down here. And I was like, what the heck is going on with them? Now I am one of those little people. Now I'm in the spot. I think the other waterfall is more impressive. The one that falls directly into the ocean just because it's so cool that you're right at the ocean side. And it's a little bigger. But the same bad. Oh, I just realized too. Yeah, because I went to see the last waterfall after it rained. And if you heard last episode, it rained like hell yesterday. I didn't even think of that till just now. But I accidentally got here on a rainy day. That's fucking perfect.

So yeah, this might even be more epic than it normally would be. But it's not bad. Pretty good waterfall. It's worth two dollars. I wonder what this looks like at night. This is the one that's open until 10 p.m.

And it might look really cool lit up. But will I get around to coming back at night? Who knows. It is across the street from my hotel. So maybe. Maybe we'll see.

Yeah, taking a day off from my circumnavigating. And I was saying last episode how I was surprised that the rainy weather didn't improve the air quality. But it did. It just took a day. Today, we were actually in the green, which doesn't happen all that often. So yeah, it's a nice air quality day. It's actually pretty overcast still. It's actually would have been a good day to keep walking around the island around the outside.

But hopefully, I don't know, maybe it'll still be overcast tomorrow. It's weird that I want overcast, but overcast it's so, man, it's just nice. It's just nice. I guess all you miss out on is that, you know, that super bright look where the real world looks like a picture from a magazine. You know, like sometimes things are just so saturated and colorful. It's like, wow, how is that real? That only happens on sunny days. Today, nothing looks like that. But the environment is just so much more comfortable. It's so much better.

So yeah, there we go. Waterfall. Oh, the bridge, too. There's a bridge near here that goes to an island that early on when I got to Jeju, it was blocked off for renovations. That's what brought me down this way. It's open now. So I went over, did a little walk around. It would have been a perfect, like I just got to Jeju Island. You know, it's a nice little walk around an island. It's pretty cool. But now that I've been circling the entire island, you know, I kind of went backwards. It's like, okay, well this is all right, but I've seen a million cool coastal views at this point. But yeah, I mean, hey, these waterfalls, they're for sure worth two dollars. Why not? But I think the directly into the Ocean one, it's the cooler one. If you somehow only have two dollars total, you don't have four dollars, and you don't want to go to both, and you got to choose, the Ocean one is the one. But this is still, this is good. This is not bad.

All right, it's the next day. I'm back at chicken point. Pretty windy today. It really is cool to just be back at the same spot. I'm just like, oh yeah, I fucking, I recognize this from two days ago, except today it's not raining. Today it's all nice out. I'm sure it would also feel cool if I did this hardcore style. I mean, which again, I couldn't do this particular walk hardcore style. There's no way I could set up tents and stuff. Here, it's all just way to, just people live everywhere on this island. It's not, there's no woods or anything. But I'm sure that feels cool too. You go to bed, and then you wake up the next day, and maybe you're just waking up in your little groggy, and you come out of the tent, and you're like, oh yeah, this place. You know, that's where it was last night, except now it's daytime. But this really is like, it's the soft version, but it's awesome. 5:00 Just taking the fucking bus back and chilling out for a couple of days and then coming back.

Although this bus ride is getting long, man, it is getting long. I had a real hard time sleeping last night, so I got started real slow today. So it's literally 5 p.m. It's like, whoops. But that's kind of a good thing too, because, you know, I was saying how yesterday it was overcast, and that would actually be a nicer walk. And the weather said it was supposed to be overcast today, and that's like the weirdness of summer. That that was a good thing. I was excited to see that. I was like, fuck yeah, alright. But unfortunately today, it is gorgeous. There's a few little clouds in the sky, but the weather's beautiful and perfect. AKA hot, and making me sweat my dick off. But getting started late really helps, even just like leaving my hotel at like 2.30. It was hot and unpleasant, but now that it's 5 o'clock, it's nice. So I'll just walk till I can't walk no more. Till the sun goes down.

Alright, speaking of chicken point, which was just a funny name on the map that seemed like a good place to stop. Here I am right back at. There's a literal statue of chickens. It's like a big brass ball with two chickens on top.

And there's a sign, but it was raining when I was here the other day. So let's actually fucking... Let's try to translate this bad boy. Let's see if we can determine the legend of chicken point.

It was a long fucking sign. Oh, fuck. These words are a mess. The topography of Sinsanri. Oh, yeah, it's icy. This must be written top to bottom. So it's spelled out that way in English.

This is a mess. This is impossible. Sloping to rain, shape of a flower. Well, I'm afraid this particular sign, that's actually the first time that Google Translate has utterly failed me in Korea. In Korea, generally, it really works well. It works way better than in Japan, but that sign. Okay, here's the second sign. Let's try this one. That sign was just laid out in an unusual way. Here we go. Here's some normal phrases that I can easily read. This place was formed by a small bay and was called all things because it was a place where high-quality spring water rose. The front of it is a village fishing ground, rich in fish. All right, spring water, fish, freshwater eel. None of that explains the chicken. And then it's just the standard, don't be drunk here. Don't make a fire, collect your garbage, yet, yet. Boy, though, one thing with rain. It hasn't really been very rainy this whole time between Japan and Korea. The number of days that it has rained have been pretty fucking rare. So I didn't think about... Well, I guess I haven't really had these boots. I haven't gone for a big walk through the rain, I don't think, since I got these boots. They're water proof-ish, but not enough. So my socks were wet. They got the whole inside of my boots wet. I had to just throw away the insoles because they smelled so awful. I think I still got to go get some deodorizer for these boots. They just smell gross. But yeah, I was, man, I was just dicking around on YouTube. And there's a guy who has a little travel channel. I don't remember his name off the top of my head, but he's like, your friend in Korea. And he had a series about Jeju Island. And I saw that he had it split into four sections. So one of the sections of things to see was the southeast quarter of the island. That's exactly where I've been walking. So I was like, oh, that's cool. Let me check it out. And I saw a bunch of the stuff that I walked by. And I saw that if I did go inland here and here and here. There's other stuff I could have seen or whatever. But I spoiled myself a little. It's like, oh, I guess I shouldn't check these things. It's more fun just to walk down the street and just see what happens. I did hear about some kind of a hike that people do that's supposed to be the best place to see the sunrise. Just something I came across when I was doing general Jeju research before I came here. So I had no idea what it was or where it was or whatever. But it turns out I'm approaching it since I'm later in the day and these distances are always longer than I think. I suspect maybe I'll get there, but I don't think I'll be hiking up it today. It might be a good place to start next time.

Because I guess it takes like an hour. But yeah, it's basically like a big peninsula off the eastern coast of Jeju. 10:00 That has like a crater, like a caldera. So even though I never did make it to the top of the volcano, I get to see a smaller crater.

And yeah, I mean, you can't really miss it. It's this big thing on the map. So I guess it's not like I would have just approached it and been like, wow, where did that come from? Because it's like, you can't miss it just on the map of Jeju. I'm sure I would have noticed it before I got there.

But now I know it's coming. And it's like, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think I'm not going to check the other stuff. Because it's just more fun to just go, to just go like whatever, just walk and see. And if there is anything that I miss that's particularly cool, it's easy enough to go back.

But so far, you know, anything that I missed was just the kind of stuff that I tend to not do anyway. It's like, you know, museums and weird little exhibits and stuff.

What I like about walking around the island is the walking. I just walk right on by. I just keep on walking.

But that's coming up. And it seems like that's going to be a pretty cool, because it's just looking at the overall map of Jeju. It's the only thing like that. I think it's going to be a one off.

The only island big enough to show up on the map. And that is not actually an island that you can actually walk out to.

That's pretty cool. But yeah, it's probably farther than I think it is. And since I got started so late today, I don't think that's coming today. Today, I think I'm just a walking. Yeah, this is nice. The sun's just kind of behind me. I'm not feeling, you know, I still got suntan lotion and stuff on because I fear the sun. But it doesn't feel too bad. It's nice when the sun is not directly above you. I mean, it's on the way down. And it's nice and windy. Yeah, it's just nice. This is just nice. Let's just do a little stroll. It's just build up more gross bacteria in my boots. It's a shame that there's no more dyesos on the route. You know, I stopped in some convenience stores on the way here, grabbed some energy bars and some fucking a little coffee and stuff. And just stuff like that, like insoles and shoe deodorizer. I feel like there's a good chance that Japanese convenience stores would have those. But the convenience stores here in Korea, they're not as large.

And they did not. Dysos so handy for that type of stuff. And, you know, it's not like some kind of big problem.

There goes a guy in a little tractor. It's not like it's some kind of big problem to detour to Dysos. It's just especially now that these rust rides are getting longer and longer. And I'm getting a bit used to it. But I still definitely feel some motion sickness whenever they go over speed bumps. I'm just like, oh, my belly. By the time I get back, it's just like looping around to Dysos just a bit too much where I'm just like, oh, fuck it. I'm just going to go home. So it's surprisingly easy to just not be able to squeeze this stuff in.

It'd be nice if it was on the way. But that's the one thing with this walk, I guess. You know, evidenced by the fucking guy in the tractor who just went by. Yeah, you just really cannot. You can't expect general stores and dollar stores or convenience stores or even washrooms. Sometimes it happens. But the main event is this coastline and that's all you can guarantee. The coast is going to be here. And the coast is going to be beautiful and the coast is awesome.

But yeah, it's just that, well, you know, it's probably even just that I'm not quite on the main road. Because like I was saying, this is all very populated. There's people all over and stuff. But I'm just glancing through some trees and I'm like, oh, yeah. But the main road with the bus and everything is over there. I can see it from here, but I'm just not quite on it. So even if there are like handy convenient places on this route, I am missing them. I'm a little bit off the trail.

Now there's a rock wall here. But I can barely see over the top of, over to the ocean. I wonder what that's all about. Maybe for flooding, the water is coming up pretty high and it's really flat down there. So yeah, this must be to stop the water. It's the first time I've seen one of those. Oh yeah, and the road on the other side here is down quite a ways. Yeah, I imagine this area must flood real easily.

But all right, let us take a break while I get a walkin'.

This is Andy since I was just talking about that stone wall right after I stopped recording as I was walking along. I was thinking like, what a stone wall actually stop the water if the water rose up. I mean, you gotta be pretty fucking water tight for water not to get through. It seems like it would just seep through the rocks. That can't be what it's for then. But here we go.

These like plaque things that actually has an English section. So this is clearly more important than chicken point. I apologize chicken point, but this is Sinshan Hwanhaejangseong Fortress. This stone fortress was built along the 120 kilometer-long seashore. When Mongols invaded the country in 1270, a unit of troops named Sambial Cho resisted them at Youngjangseong Fortress in Jindo, the southern tip of the mainland. However, they were defeated. Later, the central government sent Young and Magistrate Kim Soo and General Goyeo Rim to build the defensive fortress on Tamna, present day, Jujedo Island. This was the origin of this fortress. The fortress was repaired repeatedly in order to fend off Japanese pirates. Parts of the fortress, okay, you know, there's just so many names. None of this is, you know, whatever. This is not how my brain works. My brain's not gonna remember any of these details. The point is, these fucking stone walls since 1270 have been fending off multiple people, fending off the Mongols, fending off the Japanese. This particular patch is 600 meters long made from natural stones found on the seashore. Cool. So that's what the wall is about. The wall is about stopping motherfuckers. Which, man, what a wild thing to think about. Like, I was saying a lot when I was in like Bukhanshin in Seoul, just imagining being in those mountains, imagine, you know, being a guy back in the day, just walking up across those mountains. That's your life. Like, it's so crazy to think about. Now that I'm on this island and all this coastal stuff, it's like, I mean, I guess a bit of this happened also in Seoul. There was that mountain that had the Big Long Wall to stop North Korean invasions.

But yeah, here, just looking at the ocean, looking at the water. I don't know much about the Mongols, but I very much know that historically the Japanese were fucking insane. Yeah, there's no question those motherfuckers would be showing up and showing up on these shores. You got this beautiful island? We want to take that shit. Presumably the Mongols were the same. Presumably everyone in history was the same. You got some awesome stuff. We're gonna come take it.

And yeah, along those lines, I mean, a five foot wall, you know, ultimately it's probably not gonna do the job. But I mean, it can't hurt, right? It's not a can't be a bad thing to have. It's got to help a bit.

But yeah, ancient warfare, man, what a shit show.

Not that modern day warfare is a fucking wonderful wonderland either.

But man, that always scared me to just that idea of the ocean. It's scary enough being out on like I only took a cruise one time, but that was the first time I was ever so deep out into the ocean that I couldn't see anything in any direction. And it's like, what the fuck? But at least then I was on a cruise ship with, you know, a dance floor in the casino. I'm just looking out at the water and it's like, I know Japan's out there somewhere. But I can't see it. Just imagine back in the 1200s being on a fucking boat out in that shit. That's fucking crazy, man. That shit is insane.

I just turned the corner and saw the big mountain in the distance. And it's called Siong San, I think. I'm pretty sure that's it.

Anyway, yeah, I totally would have turned the corner and gone, what the fuck is that? Absolutely would have because it's really big. And it's just like right on the horizon, just like, boom, what the fuck? I haven't seen anything like that at any point on this walk. So yeah, I kind of spoiled myself for sure with YouTube. I mean, who cares, whatever. But I don't know, that's kind of an interesting thing too. The balance between being prepared and being unprepared. I don't know. Again, it's probably not something that matters to most people because if you only have limited time, of course you're going to watch the YouTube videos and check the top 10 lists and be prepared. 20:00 You know, why the fuck wouldn't you? It's only because I have all this time to just mosey around that it's even a question for me. I'm like, oh, maybe I'll just wander. Maybe I'll just wander and see what happens. But in my specific case, I definitely think I prefer just wandering and seeing what happens.

Like for example, that guy with the YouTube videos where he's got the stuff set up by zones, like it's still really cool after the fact to go watch those and see what was there and what I might have missed and what not. I just didn't quite wait long enough on this one. I didn't actually finish. This part of the walk. So for the other ones, I'll just got to make sure I actually do it.

Oh man. That's fucking far away. I'm going to try to make it there today. But things are always farther than they fucking seem and that is far away. That seems far. So the reality must be really far.

Oh, sweet. Internet. What are the chances? Cause yeah, I just want to see.

Like what kind of bus stop should I be aiming for?

All right, bus 201. Where do you go?

Yeah, bus 201 does seem to go pretty much right there.

So I mean, I guess that's good. There's no reason not to just go walk as far as I can. But there is a little loop with the bus. I don't know what that means. A strange. Yeah, there's only two areas where the bus has a little divergence and that's one of them.

I don't know what that means, but hey, whatever. Yeah, I guess that's today's mission.

You can see this great big ass fucking mountain. I mean, you know, it's all relative right behind me is the volcano, which is way fucking bigger. Let's see. I mean, hey, if I got internet, how big is this bad boy? It looks pretty fucking big though. In the distance.

Iconic volcanic cone with a bowl like crater popular hiking route. Oh, paid entry. Well, hey, that's fine. This seems worth it. Whatever they want. I will pay them. Five dollars.

Yeah, that's for later. How high up is this mother fucker? A mere 182 meters, although it says the peak is quite steep though. There is a well built series of stairs leading visitors to the top with ease. Awesome.

Yeah, so I mean, under 200 meters, that's not huge, but that's not bad. I mean, some of those mountains I was on in Busan were only that big. And yeah, just because there's nothing else anywhere near it, everything else is just the coastline, just flat as fuck. So it looks fucking big. That's beautiful, man. That is fucking nice.

You know, I just saw two fellow foreigners go by on bicycles, and then I saw a local go buy in a bicycle. But it made me realize I haven't really seen a ton of bicycles in general on this walk. But I think that's not a terrible idea. I think you could do this walk as a bike ride as well, but it would be like 50-50. There are definitely lots of parts. I mean, I think walking is better because there's tons of parts where you can't take a bike, you'd have to stay on the main highway road the whole time.

And that highway road definitely dips in and out, you know, like sometimes, or not even the highway, but the road that the bus is on. You can just, you know, take a gander at the 201 bus route and see that it curves down toward the shore and then it curves back out and it curves back toward the shore and it just snakes its way along.

So there's a lot of this journey you wouldn't see, but there's a lot that you would, you know, there's like still, you know, roughly half of it, like where I am right now. It's a semi-major street. Just walked by a bus stop, but it's right by the water. All the beauty of the shoreline and of course being on a bicycle would make this much, much faster.

So that's an idea. That's the thing you could do if you don't have the time to just amble like I'm doing.

Oh, also I'm walking by a cafe with just a Korean name, but that reminds me as far as weird cafe names, over by chicken point, right by the bus stop. There's a cafe called She a God. She a God. It's like, whoa, I don't know who the she is, but she sounds pretty fucking red. Apparently she a God. 25:00 That's a pretty intense, that's a pretty intense fucking cafe name.

It's a weird too walking along these parts of the coast that are way more curvy, where I'm still, you know, right on the coastline. There's one of the little ribbons. I'm totally still on the path, but I realize like at one point where the sun has been behind me the whole time I was walking into the sun. It's like, how did that even happen? And right now it's like to my left. Got a big long shadow cast to my side. And I can't actually see the mountain I'm heading toward.

It has disappeared in one of the curves of the shore.

Huh. Here's an arrow pointing me away from the shore, orange arrow saying, head inland.

It's so weird because it's like, but that's the road. The road's continuing ahead of me along the shoreline. Why would I not want to do that? But the arrow's never wrong. The arrow's always right. But if that arrow wasn't there, for sure it would keep going.

But I'm looking on Google Maps and it's like not only, not only does this road seem fine to follow, but there's a little photo spot called Jan Hanpo.

Famous last words, but I'm not going to follow the arrow. I don't understand. That's the only time I've ever seen the arrow point me in a weird direction.

Maybe it's like a flood thing. I guess there has been that sometimes. There's been a couple of detours due to potential floods, but there's no flooding right now.

That could be what this is. Maybe it's just like, hey, just in case. Don't go this way. But I'm going to go this way and see what happens. I mean, the shorelines right there. That's the other beauty of this. As a backup, the gigantic ocean shoreline is a pretty good fucking indicator that you're going the right way.

Or maybe it's one of those things. The way I noticed that the arrows don't take you along the coast in Segwipo. They actually take you up into the city. Maybe that's what's happening here. Maybe there's just a local town here. And the arrows are just making me go up that way to go see the town. And like I said, the arrows have never steered me wrong.

It's probably cool, but it's quarter after six. Oh, and there's the sea on saying back in the distance. So yeah, no scenic seaside village fucking detours today. I'm afraid. Quarter after six. Way too late. Way too late for this type of stuff. And in fact, one of the little placards I saw earlier on in the trips said that in the winter time, you should bail out by five o'clock.

And even in the summer, they're like, yes, should stop by six. So technically, I'm off the clock now. But yeah, here's Jan Humpo here already. There's a big stone monument here that's like just a just a rock, but it's got lettering chiseled into it.

And there's a beautiful view of the coast. And see on sand on the horizon. Pretty.

See, that's just where my natural curiosity now. Like this totally is fine. It's fine to just stay on the coastline. Every time the arrow points to somewhere interesting, it always points to something useful. Ah, fuck it. I'm going to go back and follow the arrow. I mean, I could just keep going along the coast. This is fine. But I have to know why was the arrow pointing me that way that makes no fucking sense. I have to know. I have to know. I'm going to go back and find out. The arrow's never been wrong, man. You got to check it out.

This way, it's always wrong. I always get lost. But in this case, that is quite confusing. It's not a big deal, but I don't understand what that arrow was trying to teach me. At first, I was like, did some near Duel as a joke or something? Change the arrow? But there were ribbons up the road that I was following. So it's like, no, no. It meant to send me this way. But whatever it was sending me to, whatever I was supposed to see, I did not see. It was just the definition of a residential back street. 30:00 And then, I lost the fucking ribbons. There's always, whenever the feeling hits me, I'm like, okay, I'm not totally sure which way to go right now. Do I go this way? Do I go that way? If you stop and look around for a bit, there's always a ribbon. Somewhere visible. It might be down the road a bit, but it's there. Someone else has anticipated that you might feel that way and set up a ribbon. In this case, I don't know what happened, but I just lost the ribbon. I'm like, okay, well, whatever. I just walked and circled around through this neighborhood. And now I'm back to the shore. In fact, it's called Shore Road. There's a big sign. Back to Shore Road. So I'm just back to the shore, just down the street from where I would have been if I just kept walking along the shoreline. So yeah, that's all I can figure. Is there were some parts earlier where they gave you an alternate route in case of flooding? Maybe because this is, I mean, the beach here, it's very flat. It's not very high up to get to the road. I could totally see there being flooding around here. So maybe this place just isn't set up as an optional path. Maybe they just thought, like, let's just make, let's just make that the main path just in case. That's my only guess. But yeah, man, a double whammy. For the first time ever, the arrow was wrong. I don't know where the fuck it thought it was sending me because this is beautiful.

Now that I'm back on the shore, big wide walking slash biking path. A nice fence. The rocky shoreline.

See on sand in the distance, slowly getting closer. Everything about this shoreline walk is perfect and awesome. Everything about that sidewalk I just did was nothing. It was just a pointless detour. Very strange. But yeah, I don't know. I guess if you're taking meticulous notes at Jan Hanpo, Y-E-O-N-H-O-N-P-O, just before there. Feel free to ignore that arrow and just keep walking on the shore because I don't know what that was all about. Yeah, and I just passed a bus stop like nothing about that made any sense. All right, Sally Forth.

See, this has been really weird. I'm still just walking along the shore and it's super gorgeous and beautiful. And the Sunrise Mountain is noticeably closer now. I think I could make it there today, although the Sun is getting real low, but I think I'm not going to quite go there because there's another island, a flat island, Peninsula-type island in front of it, with Aqua Planet J-Jew on it. And there's a photo spot called C-O-P-G-C-O-G-S-E-O-P-J-I-K-O-J-I. I'm not sure what the name of the island proper is, but it's got like a lighthouse on it and whatever. If I got time, I'll do a little walk around there, and if not, I'll just stop at the bus stop before there, and that's where I'll start. Next time, but it seems worth taking a little wander around. Yeah, it's a shame I've lost Wi-Fi because I really want to check this J-Jew Olay Trail. It definitely was meaning to send me somewhere else because along this whole stretch, which is like, I mean, I'm walking along the coast. That's the point, right? That's what I'm supposed to do. And there's been no markers. It definitely was intending to send me off somewhere else. Where could it have possibly been sending me? That's better than this. Like, this is perfect. Not only is the walk perfect, I stopped at a 7-Eleven, and there was a hip-young man working there, and he had really good English, and I paid with a T-Money card, and he mentioned that I had $69 left, or in there money, $69,000 left, which no one ever brings up how much money you've got left. It's obviously because it was $69, so I just said nice, and we both had a little goony laugh. That was my first $69 joke in Asia.

Like, I'll bet dollars to donuts. That guy who lived in North America at some point. He's just so, that's the most casual, not only when your English is good, but when you just make 69 jokes. That was a comfortable fella, and I got a melon ice cream bar. I think melon is my favorite, like, really common flavor in Asia that we just don't have in North America. You know, here you can get melon sodas and melon popsicles and melon ice cream bars, 35:00 and melon bread, melon icing, and like, it's all so fucking good. It's like a fairly subtle flavor, and in fact, sometimes in Japan, I find like, multi-melon, where it was like bitter melon, and the sweeter melons together. I don't know, just I've never had a melon thing that's bad. As far as artificial flavors go, melon is very fucking delightful. And we just don't have that shit in North America. So yeah, that's where I just can't imagine. Not only is this walk more direct, it's also along the beautiful coastline. I've got a constant beautiful view of the Caldera crater mountain in front of me and this other island and just everything. And I went to a 7-11 and had a dumb joke with a guy. Where could that trail have possibly been sending me that was better than that? I can't even imagine. It just makes no sense. So when I find some Wi-Fi, I'm going to do some research, because this is weird. Something is a foot. Something strange has happened with this particular stretch of the trail.

I was also noticing that my foot was hurting a bit, which is definitely not a coincidence that I had to throw away the liners of my boots, because they were so disgusting smelling. Not a coincidence that suddenly my foot hurts, but now it's feeling better. Maybe it'll be okay, but it would still be nice to find some some insoles somewhere, just to be on the safe side. Man, I also need to find some better socks. It is getting out of control how I'm just eating through socks. Weirdly, some of the best socks that I had were just these stranger things branded socks. I got it a family mart in Japan that I didn't even realize were stranger things socks. They were about four bucks, which is kind of a lot for a pair of socks, but they're really sturdy. They were really good, but I finally wore through the heel of one of those, even those. But all the socks have been picking up at Daiso. I'll get the $2 for a pair of socks, and I always get there hiking socks or their sports socks or whatever, and they're not the worst, but they don't last that long. But when I was at the other Daiso the other day by the beach, all they had was $1 pair of socks, so I just grabbed a couple. And literally in one day, in one day, I wore through the heels of both of them. It does, it's so fucking weird. It's like there's like a meat grinder going on in these boots, but I don't notice it on my skin at all. So it's not, it's not like a scrappy thing that's irritating my skin. I don't feel shit. Just somehow, it's just wrecking my socks. Now, my socks are just, I don't know, I need to find some like, like this is a case where I don't want cheap socks. I want to find the most expensive socks in the world. If someone had an $18 pair of socks, I would buy it. Just give me socks that are not going to fucking give me socks, man. I need some for real heavy-duty socks, and I don't quite know, I don't quite know where to get them.

But yeah, that was a new, uh, a new absurdity, and it was yesterday. I didn't even walk around that much. It's not like I went on a big hike. I just walked around my neighborhood, went to the fucking waterfall, and it's like, see you later socks, fuck you socks. I don't even know why I put you on. Fucking ridiculous. Oh, here's a walkway. Now, just this walkway go out to that island. I don't think so, but let's check Google Maps. Let's see what's going on here.

Nope, that's handy. Just appear. Still got to walk around to walk around this little bay.

And there's some bus stops at the entrance to this island. So yeah, then we'll see, will I walk around the island today? I feel like I'm probably going to save it because yeah, it's 10 after seven now. That sun is getting real fucking low. And this is a great place to just start, start next time, right by the Aqua Planet J.J.U. fucking aquarium, which as is my tradition, with also the human art to Nouveau collection, the J.J.U. glass house, whatever that might be, is to not see any of these things, but just to walk on by. My mission is just to walk around the island and do nothing while I'm there.

All right, I'm about to bail out to the bus, and then I'll try to figure out what happened with the trail for next time, which may be this very episode. I'll probably just fade out and come back in.

But before I go, there is a beach on the way here that is pretty deserted, not much of a beach.

Doesn't seem like the most amazing beach of all time. But it's interesting that just way at the other end of the beach, I could see a little figure in black and a little figure in white, and a third figure in non-descript colors. And it's so interesting that even though I can't make out anything, except the colors, how easy it is to tell that like, oh, that's a bride and a groom and a photographer, you know, just those specific colors, just color coded men, little splotch of black, little splotch of white, extra little splotch guy standing apart from them. Bride groomed photographer. I think that's interesting, how incredibly easy that is to identify.

Oh man, one last little thing, just left the beach and just one of those things I hadn't, like again, how it's so hard to recognize the absence of something. You don't think about how you haven't seen something till you see it again. Somewhere off in the distance, I'm definitely approaching a way more populated area of the island because there's an LCD screen. Those are fucking everywhere in Seoul. It was so eerie to be up on the mountains during the really bad pollution days and look down in the only signs of color where those fucking LCD ads down in the town squares and stuff. This one isn't as big, but you know, big enough that I can see it from eight blocks away. And that's the first time I've seen one of those, unless I passed one without realizing in Jeju City. I'm sure Jeju City has a bunch, but Lord knows Seguapot does not, and none of these places I've walked by have. So it's just kind of neat to see it and be like, oh shit, I haven't seen one of those in weeks. Nete. Okay. End of this day, fade out.

I'll ride them back in Segupo. Let's actually wrap this episode up today. This one doesn't need to be a multi-day epic. It's a quarter after nine. Yeah, those bus rides are getting longer and longer. I made it to Daiso. I went to Daiso, closes at 10. I thought that place that I was at when I saw the LCD screen.

In the distance, I was like, man, this seems like a pretty major area. It really seems like there should be a Daiso here. But I couldn't find any Wi-Fi. To check. But then when I did check, once I was on the bus speeding away, there is in fact one. But it was a ways deeper in, probably farther than it seemed. And that one actually closed at nine. This one closes at 10. So it would have been a little tricky. But there's that one end one more before I get to Jeju. So there actually are some Daisos on the trail. I don't know how I missed those the first time. Maybe I was just, sometimes when you're not zoomed in to Google Maps at the exact right distance. I don't know anyway.

There's definitely some dollops of civilization still to come. And I saw the socks that I said were dollar socks that only lasted me one day. I saw them in there. Now they were $2 socks. They were the same. Just terrible socks. But anyway. Today, they're still $2 socks. But I found ever last brand ones. So we'll see. I mean, that's a reputable brand. But I'm still buying $2 socks from Daiso. I don't know. I don't know if ever last will have its normal power. Maybe these socks are still going to suck. It's just so much easier for me to just go to Daiso. Because even there, I mean the guy who rang me up, there's no self check out at this one. He didn't speak any English. He asked me a couple of things that I don't know what they were. I mean, one of them was about a bag. But I have my own little bag. The other one who knows, maybe he's asking if I had a points card or something. I don't know. But I've done the Daiso dance enough times that it's like, yes, no problem. We can get through this where, you know, they have like the North Face and stuff. I could go in like a hiking store and buy some socks that might be better. But it's just so much easier to go to the place that I understand already. But is it going to work? You know, my hopes are not high. Somehow, I just, like my boots, they're just, they're sock grinders. It's fucking crazy. But anyway, we'll see. At least it's like a real brand name. That's cool. This is my last best hope to get socks from Daiso that don't just fucking fall apart.

Well, yeah, I got an umbrella because my umbrella turned inside fucking out the other day.

But anyway, I did some research on the bus ill-advised to be looking at my fucking phone screen on the bus, makes me a little nauseous. But I wanted to look up the trail and I learned some strange things. So that section of the trail I was at is actually section one, which is kind of odd. I'm not sure why they decided that was section one rather than one that starts from Jeju City. But it is pretty much the only part. There are some parts where the trail drifts away from the shore, but that seems like the most major one. Besides, there are some like optional parts. They call them like, this trail is split up into like 26 parts or something like that. But there's some like, you know, one-dash one, which is like an actual island. You got to take a ferry to stuff like that. There's optional trails. But on the main trail, this seems like the most significant deviation. And I watched it on YouTube a bit and it seems nice. You know, you go through some fields and some low mountainy stuff. But apparently it takes like four to five hours. Like you really go away from the coastline. So I thought that was kind of weird just because I guess that confirmed to me that like, what I'm trying to do is not to do the Jeju Ole Trail. Ole, it turns out too, is just a word that means a walking path. Because apparently the person who set this up, they were doing a pilgrimage and you know, some country in South America or something, one of these like, walked to all the different temples type of things and thought it was really cool and thought, hey, when I get home to South Korea, maybe I can set something like that up. And there was already trails on Jeju. They just weren't fully complete. So they had this idea in 2006 and they got it rolling in 2007. So that's when this whole thing started. So I mean, it's an excellent project. It's super cool. But this made me realize what I'm trying to do is walk the coast and the trail is definitely helpful for walking the coast. But if the trail deviates from the coast like that, then that's fine, dude, you go ahead. What I did today is stick into the coast. That's what I want to do. I just want to walk the coast, not the trail. And that's where I also learned something interesting is about the distance of this walk. This seems a little confusing. So the idea that I've had in my head that I saw somewhere was about 200 kilometers to go around the island. And it turns out like the road takes 181 kilometers. The actual shoreline is a little over 200. So that's what I was thinking. But this trail, the Ola trail, if you do the whole thing, is like 430 some kilometers. It's double. And I don't understand what that means. Like it definitely does deviate here and there, usually wisely. And it seems like only at really in trail one, where it really takes you off on a wild goose chase for some strange reason. But it doesn't seem like it could possibly weave back and forth enough to double the distance. So are they somehow counting both ways? I mean, it's just so perfectly doubled. And that's just way too much extra. This just seems weird. It doesn't make sense to my brain.