#142 Breaking up with the Olle trail

Transcript

Holy moly, I'm back at the Fortress where I ended last episode. It's a couple of days later. It's like almost 430 in the afternoon. What the fuck? Cuz I actually woke up early today, like unpleasantly early. Too early, whereas I was like, oh, I'm pretty tired. But whatever. You know, if I go back to bed, then that's it. The day's over. So let's just push through. But then I did stay in the hotel a bit to edit.

The podcast, and by the time I finally got out here, yeah, man, I mean, it's a long-ass bus ride. I did get like a little mini catnap on the bus ride. So that's a bonus. Maybe I can get used to that. Maybe I can start adding that in. You know, try to make a positive out of this super long bus ride, cuz I was even thinking like, I wonder if, I'm not sure if this will ever really happen. But as I get closer to Jeju, is there gonna be a different bus route that cuts more directly across the center of the island that might make this less of a total circumference journey on the bus? But if there is, I'm nowhere near that yet. I mean, I might be at the, the technically farthest point right now, although it'll still keep getting farther and farther. As the bus flies, but yeah, no real choice, but around to the outside edge. Very, very long trip.

And thank God, I found a washroom on this end. I didn't notice it the other day. But there is one here. I was like, ooh, cuz yeah, I didn't eat anything. All I did was drink coffee this morning. But yeah, then by the time that bus ride's done, like, it's beyond the like, God, sure would be nice to find a washroom. It's like physically painful. Like, oh man, what the heck. But also, even though I didn't eat anything before, had enough today.

By the time I get out here, and it's fucking four in the afternoon, I'm starving to death. So, so I stopped in the last convenience store, cuz yeah, I don't know when the next one's coming. So I just grabbed the only one between the bus stop and the shore, and just bought a bunch of food. It's like, I am fucking starving to death, but I still needed to use the washroom. And I'm like, oh, no, I'm just, this is only gonna make things worse.

But I found a washroom, took a pee. Any future bathroom problems, we will see. But for now, basically it's a weird start, a weird start to the day.

But once I saw the shoreline, poking through, poking through the buildings, once I saw the ocean, then it's like, ah, there we go. Like, you know, it does start to, it's starting to question a little like, what am I doing again? What the heck? This is getting tricky to do this fucking walk around the outside of the island. But yeah, once I see the water, then I feel way better. Then it's like, oh yeah, cuz that feels amazing. That feels awesome. Oh, there's the spooky windmills way in the distance that I saw last time. There they are. And luckily, it's quite overcast today. That's another reason why I was like, I really do wanna get out here today. Let's get some travel in under my belt. Cause on the sunny days, now that I've circled around the island, I am walking, I believe, into the sun. And that could be a real problem, because it's gonna be a long time walking along here. Cause like, once I get to Jeju City, it's not over. I gotta keep going across the other half of the fucking island. So, yeah, I don't know, it's a cool idea to just do this all as a loop all together, all joined up. But I don't know if that's realistic.

This time of year, especially the dead of summer, walking straight into the sun, not just for a day or two, but for like weeks. It just cannot be the right thing to do. I might have to just go pick up the journey somewhere else at some other point. And you know, I'll do all the segments all and all, but maybe not together.

But luckily, I don't have to have that reckoning yet. Cause today's nice and overcast, I got my weather resistant jacket and I might even need it. I might even need it if it gets cold. I might even rain tomorrow, but again, I don't know if I'll do two days in a row. Probably not. Probably take a day off tomorrow.

Yeah, this is nice. Now that I'm here, now that I'm finally here, back on the trail, this is fucking very nice. Man, nothing like a cloudy day in the summer. It's the best. It's the fucking best.

Another reason to why I took a day off. I mean, I generally just take a day off in between anyway. 5:00 But last episode, I was all like, oh, look at this little 400 meter mountain. This is nothing. I could walk up 2000 meters. I'm a Superman. I could do all this blah, blah, blah. Well, yesterday I had like a really bad pain in my shin. All I did yesterday was walk to go get something to eat, although I did take the most circuit as way possible. I really am feeling like I'm getting to know that neighborhood really well of going up past the waterfalls. And definitely that second waterfall that you pay two bucks for. It is, it's just way better looking from the top. Seeing it, the preview from the top from the distance is way better than the $2 close up view. But I walked up through there and snaked around through some little trails. And you can follow that river farther up. And it brings you right to Central Seguapo, where all the fast food and stuff is. So I was only walking around for a couple hours, but it was really starting to hurt by the end. It's like, fuck me. So I think, again, my hubris has gotten the best of me. I think, I mean, it had to have been from hiking because I haven't hiked up in a bit, not as much around here. And it really hurt, but luckily today everything's fine. Everything's coming up Mill House today.

And I have nothing on the horizon that is standing out. Did a lot of touristy stuff recently. Did a lot of hiking up little mountains to see views and things.

Now, if something comes up, that's great. If it doesn't, that's great too. Just a walk in day. Just a day of walking. Get in some distance while the sun's not beating down. And who knows, man, maybe those... Maybe those windmills aren't as far as they seem. Maybe I'll just be walking and walking and walking, and suddenly I'll be at the windmills. Who knows? But I'll propose of nothing. Isn't it weird when you realize you don't know how to spell a word? You know, when you're a grown person who's just had a misunderstanding about a word for your whole life? In this case, the word is voluptuous. I don't know how this even came up. I guess that's the point is that it doesn't come up that often. I don't think I've ever said that word once on this podcast, so nobody would have been able to clock that I didn't know how to say it. I never talk about the voluptuous mountains or the voluptuous ocean. But yesterday I found out that I always thought the word was, I thought it had an M in it. I thought it was voluptuous. I guess it must be because of volume, you know, if voluptuousness is like a thickness, it's not though. It's not voluptuousness, it's volupt. Huh. Again, I don't know. I has nothing to do with anything, but it's just such a weird thing of just like, wow. How many more of those? They're like little landmines in your brain. I mean, the English language is a shit show. You know, you just have to memorize everything. It's fucking horrible. But I wonder how many more of those are hiding away. Little fucking hidden spelling bombs. Because, you know, you see that all the time when people, you know, you hear people online just pronounce things weird. Say some word wrong. And I guess it's important not to judge because you've got some of those words, too. I bet, I bet dollars to donuts. There's some random ass words that just stuck right through the net. Voluptuous. Voluptuous. Oh. Anyway, that really couldn't have less to do with anything.

So let's turn off the fucking recorder and just walk.

Yeah, maybe this doesn't seem as bad today with these windmills because it's not the end of the journey. And I was pretty wiped when I saw them last time. Now that it's the start of the journey, I'm like, oh, it's not that bad. Looking down the shore and there's a lighthouse and just some buildings and shit. And then the first of many windmills doesn't seem that bad.

And just a little further on, I got to Saywa Beach, SEHWA Beach, where there was good old washrooms and little shower facilities. And it's like, ah, because I bet there's surfers and there they are, surfing away.

And there's a couple little convenience stores here and it reminds me quite a bit of that awesome beach in Busan that I love so much. Young day, I think that was.

But yeah, just having a beach and having surfers just to observe and having public washrooms. It's like, what could be better than this? What do you need more than this? Maybe some mountains. Just some mountains within a walkable distance you could go hike up. 10:00 And I look behind me and you know, they're not super close from here, but they're there. That's like in North America, man, we really got boned as far as fun, cool environments, you know? Like the fact that I never learned how to drive just completely fucked me in North America. What the fuck am I supposed to do? You know, there's big, cool national parks you can go hiking.

There's grand canyon-y type stuff you can see, there's mountains, but everything is like a million miles from each other. And you cannot get there on foot and you cannot get there with transit. You just need to get a license and get a car. And cars are so crazy expensive and then you're paying for the maintenance of the car and the gas. And just you have no choice but to get some awful job and it just spirals down from there.

It's just like, man, it's too many levels of, like blocks my entry at like many different points. It's not like one little issue, it's just an array, it's a whole lifestyle that I just don't like that I get nothing out of. As far as just walking around and enjoying the awesomeness of just the environment itself, just the world itself. I mean, I'm not saying I haven't had cool times walking around cities and stuff in North America. But compared to this, are you a fucking kid in me? Compared to beaches and mountains? No fucking way, my friend, no fucking way.

I was also going to say how when I first started I noticed that I wasn't on the official Ola trail. And I was like, yeah, whatever, you know, especially since this is, I believe still section one, which is one of the wackier sections. But then I saw the ribbons and I'm like, hey, look at that, I'm connected up again. But just as I was about to say that, it's like, there's no ribbons now. What happened? It's getting weird where it's like you really got to pay attention. If you want to follow that trail, you really got to be eagle-eyed, you really got to make sure you don't miss the next ribbon. But luckily, since I'm only doing that as a secondary backup plan since the main plan is just to walk along the coast, it's alright, it doesn't matter. But yeah, that thing is getting squirrely, that's for sure.

Like, where the heck did it go? Where would it have wanted me to go? Like, I'm turning a corner right now. There's a police station I'm walking past, and there's the shore. There's the path along the edge of the water. I just don't know, it's so weird. Like again, I guess it is just that the Ole trail, it's not. The intention is not just to walk along the shore, the intention is to walk. Whatever is the most scenic notable thing as you go around the island. But if you are just more or less taken to the shore, sure is weird sometimes. I'm like, where could it have possibly gone? I don't see shit around here that looks like anything. And in fact, here by the shore, like here's a monument, and like a seawall handmade with rocks. I guess that's what I find weird when the Ole trail takes you off somewhere else. I mean, obviously it's good, obviously it's taking you somewhere neat. But the other thing that it's not taking you to is fucking neat as well.

Maybe that'd be the thing if I ever, because if I come back to Jeju someday, which I'm sure I will, assuming I finish this whole circle, that will make it a little different to come back without having such a distinct goal.

But I suppose if I wanted to, I could always do this again. You know, I did read on the little website that a lot of people do it. Do it the second time in reverse, you know? I'm going counterclockwise, so go clockwise next time. But if I do this the second time, I will like absolutely follow the trail. I will follow the whole goddamn trail, make sure I don't miss anything.

Because that's a whole different discipline, dude. That's like a journey in and of itself. And apparently, double somehow the fucking distance. Yeah, this is cool as shit. It's in Korean, so I can't read it. But man, here's a test of the translator. Can you read lettering that's carved into what looks like a giant tombstone?

Now this is some Dark Souls. Again, I keep saying Dark Souls 2. I don't know why, it just gives me the first area in Dark Souls 2, like where Medulla, I think it's called, where the emerald maiden or whatever is waiting to level up. It just feels like that, I guess, because that is the coastline part, the cliff sides and stuff. 15:00 I guess it makes sense why I keep thinking of Dark Souls 2. But yeah, there's a little rock. It's like a little mini fortress. Like if a fortress was only like three by three meters with a little thing of incense in it, just little waste high walls, but it's still really cool. And then there's this big tombstone out front that says, Dragon King's Hall. But then it's like a poem, so it really makes no sense in English. It's Bina, but dang always coming. Only the king believes in comes. If there is wind, where are we going? Not getting hurt so that your body doesn't die. Because the yard material has been around for a long time. I'll eat it with my strength, so let's eat it. Take a look and take a look.

Yeah, even that is fantastically Dark Souls feeling. I mean, Dark Souls 2 isn't even like the good one quote unquote. It's like got a lot of significant weaknesses compared to the first one. But it's paying off right now. Yeah, I mean, the more I look around, it's like, oh yeah, and then hides tower and all this shit. These little sea bugs scurrying away from me. Even just this black volcanic rock, man. Man, if I didn't know better, I'd feel like Dark Souls 2 was based on Korea. I don't think it was. I think, you know, Asian Korea are just similar. But it fucking feels like that.

So I got to another beach, this one's smaller, but still real nice. And I saw the Olle Trail markers again, and then literally like as soon as I noticed them, they must have just dipped down this way just so someone could see this beach and then immediately bail out. Like I'm starting to understand why the distance around the island is 200k and the distance of the Olle Trail is 400, because yeah it's like become cartoonishly sawtooth at this point. It's ridiculous. I think I've officially turned the corner now, instead of like oh the arrow knows what to do. The Y's arrow, I will follow the arrow. Like the fact that I just got back online with the trail, and there's this beautiful coastline right in front of me. And the arrow says no go this way, go up here to this. That's like you know what? Fuck you, fuck you arrow. Like somebody who was whoever was laying out this trail, this is what you call being an overachiever. You need to calm the fuck down, cam the ham. There's no fucking way. There's no fucking way. There's nothing up there dude. There's nothing up there. It's just residential, nothingness. What are you talking about? Because I did watch you know a fast forward of Trail 1 on YouTube just to see, and it always like some fields and stuff. It was okay, but none of that shit's as good as the coast. The coast is the is the host with the most, who boasts the most roast. It's the fucking coast man. It is the best. It's so beautiful and it feels so good. I mean this could just be me speaking. Maybe I'm just a coastal man. But yeah like fuck right off trail, fuck right off. Now I'm officially breaking ties with the OLA trail. You can suck my dick, you fucking orange arrows. If there's a coastline and there's an arrow pointing somewhere else, I'm not listening anymore. You have reached and breached your level of whatever fucking level of faith I had in you. It's getting ridiculous. Stop sending people away from the coast. Are you fucking crazy? If it ain't the coast, then I don't know. I don't know man. Of course I'm saying all this without actually, you know, again, following the trail. I don't actually know where it's going, but this is fucking so good man. It's so good. Those windmills are getting a lot closer. There's a bunch of people here, I mean this is like kelp or something that they're sorting out. But this one weird little thing I wanted to bring up is one of the things I heard about J.J. when I did my initial quick research were these divers that people go and dive for edible sea life without equipment. They just dive in. And it was women who did this, but I didn't know why. So I think it was at Ciancent. I saw a thing about that down by the little inlet beach that's there. They had a little thing about these divers. And I was like, I don't know, I wonder like maybe physiologically. Maybe there's something about being female that makes this work 20:00 better. I mean I have no idea. But they said no apparently men used to do this job, but way back and like I don't know the 1700s or something it was so weird this had to be a translation issue where it said men used to do this, but then around 17 whatever whatever the year was.

They started going to the mainland in order to shirk their responsibilities. And I was like, what? This is supposed to be a historical account. What are you talking about? Like this sounds like somebody like, oh my no good husband. He never wants to go oyster diving anymore. He's so lazy. It's just going off to the mainland. It's like, like how can you refer to a such a large large scale event so many hundreds of years ago? Like it's just like, yeah, they just were getting, they're getting so shirky of their responsibilities. They all just fucked off. Like that can't be. That is not a good explanation. That is fucking weird. Anyway, yeah, I just wanted to hop back in because I just could not believe it. I could not believe the audacity of that era. You got to be fucking with me at this point. I feel like I'm being punked.

I'm being pranked. Because the seaside is the right side.

So this is weird timing. Right after my little rant about the arrows, I immediately got to test it out where the sawtooth came down to the waterfront again. The ribbons briefly showed up and then immediately started, you know, winging people off to the left where ahead of me was just the beautiful shoreline. And I was like, yeah, it's kind of nice to have made this decision. Like, fuck it. Fuck the arrow. I'll just keep walking on that beautiful coastline. But then I glanced over to the side and I saw that I'm lined up now with the windmills. I got there. It's only took about two hours. There's a mountain, too. I keep seeing in the background. And I'm like, is that Jimmy Bong? Jimmy Bong, Jimmy Bong, I think it might be. I'm not sure, though. But yeah, I glanced over at the windmills and I was like, ah darn, if I stay on the coast, I will bypass all the windmills. So in this case, let's give the arrows one last hurrah. I went back. I backtracked a bit to go on this trail because I was like, maybe it'll take me like right under a windmill. And not quite. I am a lot closer, though. This is cool to be able to see the windmills up close. They're smaller than I thought they would be. They really stood out on the coastline, I guess, because it's just a really flat area here. It's not cliffy at all. So they really looked big from a distance. Now that I'm close up there, they're not small, but they're not like massive. So it is neat to see the windmills. But if it weren't for the windmills, the rest of this walk is just a walk through some random field. Although this cactus is here, that's new. I've never seen a cactus here before. But yeah, it's basically just a walk through a field. You know, it's fine. It's nice in its own way, but I do like the coast better. So so yeah, I mean, I guess if there's special events, you know, like I guess that's what I said about Jimmy Bong too. If there is a big cool mountain or in this case, these very distinctive windmills, if there's a real good reason to diverge, then yeah, I might diverge, but but besides the windmills, I would have preferred to be on the coast. The coast is nicer than this random ass field. So not to say I won't do this someday. Like I said, maybe if I do this walk a second time somewhere in the future of my life, you know, if I'm doing it the second time, why not? Why not try to follow the arrows? But for this walk for sure, I think that that seals the deal. I just like the coast better. The coast is a breezier, prettier to look at. It just feels nicer on the brain. But you know, who knows what weird cool stuff maybe isn't visible that I might be missing out on. But if there is something huge, mountain huge or windmill huge, yeah, I'll diverk to go see that. Any other hidden mysteries, those will have to be saved for someday in the future.

For now, coast time. Coast to coast.

coast.

All right, this is cool. So on this side, sojourn, there's a uh, a smoke signal station, which unlike the one in Busan, I went to, which is way up on a mountain. Obviously, it's very flat here, hence the windmills. So this one, I think it's a more or less man-made mound, so it's not super high up. I am higher up than the buildings around here. So I'm like two stories up, so I can see a bit. And that mountain I was seeing is not Jimmy Bong, because now I can see Jimmy Bong, it's basically behind me, and it's very easy to tell which one it is because just next to it, and behind it is Sianse, super distinctive. Whereas Jimmy Bong looks the same as this other mountain I'm seeing, and then there's the third one I can see. I think they're called volcanic cones, where they're just this specific shape of a mountain that just looks like a cap.

So yeah, this is like, this is neat. You know, this is undeniably neat.

So I don't know, is it better to take the, uh, the Ole trail and see stuff like the smoke signal station, or is it cooler to just stay on the, uh, on the coast? I guess there is no clear answer. I guess it's safe to say that they're both good in different ways. But yeah, I'm still, I'm going to trend toward the coast. My personal take is that I like the coast, but, but I got to omit this little trail. It's putting up a good fight. It's like, hey, see, see? Look at this stuff you wouldn't have seen. It's like, yeah, okay, alright. But everything's a trade-off in life.

To go one way means you can't go the other way. So yeah, I guess the only solution, the only true solution is to do this whole insane walk twice in your life instead of just once.

Alright, my continued tiresome rambling about the Ole trail. But, uh, I was going along and, uh, there was like a paved road, which in fact, I'm on a paved road right now. So it seemed totally normal. Came out of some wood, saw the paved road, started walking in the road. And then the paved road became a, uh, a gravel road. And then the gravel road became very overgrown. And that's when I realized like, I guess I haven't seen a marker in a while. That wasn't paying attention.

So I had to go back and I had to go back like quite far. And that's where, you know, it's like quarter to seven now. It is getting darker. That's definitely a nice bonus to staying by the coast. Is if you do have a late start to the day and it's getting dark, just like who cares? Whatever, there's lights by the, uh, by the coast and you can just get to a bus relatively easily. If I was stuck out here when it got dark, if I got lost somehow, it's to be a serious problem. Like definitely, I guess that's why this is all so surprising to me, is that I misunderstood what this trail was. Just because of where I happened to start. When I started from Segwapo, heading counterclockwise, I went like a quarter of the way around the island with really none of these deviations, nothing like this. Anytime there was a deviation, it was like very small and always helpful. You know, it'd be like a part, uh, near the coast where maybe there was cliffs or something or businesses or a factory that I couldn't quite get around. And the arrows would just sneak me through. So I guess that's the thing. I just came at this with the wrong expectation. I had no idea that this is what this trail really is, is, uh, the king of all meanders. Because I finally went back, you know, and like I said, it was far enough that I was getting slightly concerned of like, geez, if I don't see, wherever I lost the trail, what the fuck it was like, where even am I right now? I haven't seen a person in some time.

But I found it and then it's like, oh, it told me to go over this way on this strange obscure rock path. It's like, what the fuck? But then I did get my wish. I did get my wish to walk right by, basically right under one of the windmills. And now they look big. From a distance, they look big, from up close, they look big. For some reason at a middle distance, they look small. Weird. But anyway, pretty cool. Like it is cool to walk down the main road again, or whatever, whatever I'm on, and walk toward the big windmill as it slowly spins. Then it does feel pretty cool.

But in order to do that, not only is it sending me away from the coast, it literally started sending me backward, and then I looped around. But yeah, these side trails, these things are no joke. Like I guess this makes sense of when I first became aware of this with trail number one, how my version of that walk was like, you know, not a big deal. 45 minutes or something, and then when I looked it up later, it claimed that that leg takes people like four to five hours. I was like, that's fucking wild. But now I'm starting to understand, because this one little side thing that I took, like, let's just back up a couple hundred feet and go back into that little side thing that I skipped, because I don't want to miss the windmills, and Jesus Christ. It is so windy and so weird, and it's taken me all over the place, but to be fair, I'm seeing the fuck out of these windmills. I'm right in the middle of them, right?

Now they're all around me. I'm the king of the windmill. But particularly with the sun going down, and it getting darker and darker, I'm okay with the windmills now. Take me to the coast, please. That's enough.

So yeah, there we go. It's solidified in my brain now. I just didn't know what I didn't know. What I now know is that, yeah, the Ola trail and walking along the coast. They're just two different things. They're not attempting to present the same experience. And this super windy, super security experience. You know, the whole impetus for this journey was, man, could I walk around the whole island? I never knew about the Ola trail at all. I've never even heard of it.

There's a dog somewhere, but I can't see them either. I feel like I'm in a conceptual world where I'm the last person alive. Even a dog, I can hear them, but I still can't see them. I see no one. There is no one around.

But yeah, I mean, I guess I did see the little dots on Google Maps. That was what first clued me in. So I guess in some vague way. I was like, oh, okay, there's a trail.

But yeah, my plan was always to follow the coast, not to follow this fucking weird thing. I'm breaking up with the Ola trail. But for our last, geez, are you kidding me? Now I'm at the road. And the arrow, again, it's just pointing the wrong way. It's pointing away from the coast. Like, yeah, dude, man, once this thing finally leads me back to water, I'm never leaving you again, water.

I say, although the student is something interesting happens. I'm sure I will. But yeah, this is just beyond weird to me. I'm just, I'm fighting the flow way too much. What I want and what this, what the Ola trail wants are two different things. But now it's like, even though I'm quite sure that to my right is the coast, but the arrow is pointing to the left. But I just don't know. Like now, see, that's, I guess, what is difficult about this is you're truly at the mercy of these fucking arrows. Because I could be wrong. I could be wrong about going the other way. Maybe this is the best way to get to the coast, but one way or the other. If it gets dark, things are going to get a lot tougher around here. So I think the best thing to do is just follow the arrows because they will eventually saw tooth me back to the fucking water. And let's just hope that happens before it gets dark.

Man, this is nice though. It's so nice to have a day without the brutal sun. And it's nice too that even starting off really late in the day. Just not that big a deal. Like now what the fuck is, what is this? Now it's like, I'm not even on the, I was on the major road for a second. And now the arrows are like, now go this way.

Go in this obscure, weird ass fucking field between these fucking waste high man-made rock walls.

Next to some fucking communal, I don't know, must be like a, a share house. Because I think that music was coming from a shower room.

And now I'm just walking through a weird random field again. Yeah, I guess, I guess it's safe to say I don't like this. I don't like being led into these fucking completely random places that I would not normally go. 35:00 And I mean, I feel like I got a pretty good history of going random places and just checking out random shit. But none of these feel like, oh, that's a place you could go. That's a logical place. They all feel like that's, that's not, that's absolutely not where you go. What are you talking about? What kind of fucking weirdo would go down there? But here I am because of the goddamn arrow. What the fuck man? Okay, there's the coast. I was right though. If I had turned right back there, at least the coast is where I thought it was. But let's take the long way. Why not? Why not, Oley Trail? Why the fuck not?

Alright, I made it back to the coast. How nice. And final irony, there's a bunch of windmills right here. If I had just followed the coast, it goes right by a bunch of the windmills I would have saw them. No problem. See, I was in there for a little over an hour. Part of that was my fault for getting lost. But it started making me think of, I think it was the family circus. I'm digging way back into my memory banks. But there was a comic strip that would do like Sunday comics, you know, the big ones. They were like, follow the dotted line, you know, like the little kid would go over here and then go over here and then go do this and then go do this. And at the end, the mom's like, I told you to come straight home. And the kid's like, I did. But he did, and he went everywhere. He went everywhere he could possibly go. And that's the vibe. Absolutely. That's the vibe of the Oley Trail is like, how twisty can we make this? I'm surprised that that first batch, if you start at Segwapo and head east, I'm surprised how straightforward that was. Because that is definitely not the MO. If they could have found ways to make that ship more confusing and twisty, they definitely would have. The idea that this doubles the distance to walk around the island is not surprising anymore. Because yeah, I did not make it very far down the coast. And it took a fucking hour.

So yeah, I'm definitely not the audience for that. I for sure have the wrong attitude because I was just getting annoyed. Like I felt like it was like when you're a kid and somebody steals something from you, you know, and like keep away. They hold it above you and throw it away and like, nope, you can't have it. That's what I felt like that trail was doing. Like it was getting absurd. Where at least I did see a couple of people. But it's like, all right, go down this weird back road. And next to this guy who's farming, he's just trying to ignore you because he's just trying to do his thing. And so that you don't get in the way of his property, scramble up on these rocks and walk through this weird fucking thing. And it's like, why don't you just fuck off? Why am I here? Nobody wants me here. This is ridiculous. Send me to the coast. So yeah, that is that. Fuck that. Fuck all of that. And yeah, kept thinking that too. Like, oh man, I could have been on the easy breezy beautiful coastline that whole time. But instead, there's no particular wind as too far inland and it's just like, luckily, it's not a very hot day. That would have made this miserable. But it's still nicer down here by the water, like a lot nicer and just visually nicer too. Yeah, I'm not a fan of that. I don't know. I just, I don't quite get it. That is an excessive level of serpentine weird shit going on. And I gotta assume that wasn't unique, you know? I guess you don't turn a 200 kilometer walk into a 400 kilometer walk by fucking accident. You gotta be dedicated to that idea. And yeah, for me, I think that's best avoided.

Alright, I've been walking down the coast and I saw another arrow again just shockingly quickly. Another arrow pointing me inland. And I was just like, bye bitch. See you later. Have fun. You go do that. Sorry, I'm still talking about this, but this is that I'm having a reckoning.

I'm having to come to terms with something. This is how it goes. It's tricky. It takes, it takes a little mental wrangling.

But basically I'm walking along the coast and ahead of me is Wal-Giangry Beach.

W-O-L-J-E-O-N-G-R-I Beach. And I don't necessarily want to stop here, but it's just so obvious that, you know, it's a beach part. There's a bunch of buildings and everything's lightened up now. The lights are turning on. 40:00 That it's going to be easy to get to the bus from here. It's just an easy spot to bail out and to start again from tomorrow. If I keep going, I can even just see now that the lights are turning on further down the coast. There's a lot fewer lights. You know, it just becomes less populated and moves away from the major highway. And you know, my legs are probably more tired than I think they are. It's probably good to stop, but it's a little bit of a shame. I kind of want to keep going. But this is just, this is clearly the place to stop, but also with the lights turning on now. And the red, just the red in the distance of the sun going down. And it's just fucking beautiful. And this particular view, you see in the bay of this beach and then behind it, perfectly framed right in the center. But just a little off center is Mount Hallisand. Like imagine all those views of Mount Fuji people always, you know. It's like, oh, look at this view of Fuji. Imagine that just only two-thirds of the size, you know. Hallisand is not as big as Fuji, but it's still this big mountain in the distance right behind this beautiful beach front view. It's amazing. So that's the other thing is I just couldn't stop thinking that not only if I took that other arrow and went back inland again, it would just be more of this weird wandering through people's backyards and shit through these weird back alleys for no apparent reason. But it would get rid of the breeze and it would get rid of this view. I wouldn't have seen this. So I'm really starting to think like even if I do come back to Jeju and do this walk in the reverse order, you know, go clockwise instead of counterclockwise someday in the future, I actually think maybe I just won't do the Ola trail. It's just not worth it, dude. Like you're giving up. Like where does it come back in? I mean I can guarantee it comes back in ahead of me because there's a beach. It seems like at this particular part in the northeast of the island, it only cares about beaches. It's like, hey, come down to the shore to see the beach. Okay, nevermind, get out of here. But the shore is so fucking beautiful. Everything, every single part of it is so fucking beautiful.

So yeah, what you're giving up is, it's not worth it. I think this is, I think this is that reckoning I was mentioning. That come into terms. I think I've come to mental terms with the fact that, yeah, I just want to be on the coast. Wait, wait, fucking more than whatever the alternatives are. So yeah, no, I'm afraid not to Jeju trail. I think I might never do you in my whole life. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, at the coast. Fucking excellent. Can I possibly say the word of the coast? Another time I've run out of rhymes. I've run out of pithy phrases to describe the coast. But anyway, yeah, I feel like this is probably where I'm done for the day. It seems to be the logical spot. It's, I guess, too. It's not even that I want to keep walking so much, because yeah, my legs are a bit sore and stuff. This is okay. It's that I'm really just not ready to get back on the bus.

An hour on the bus, at least, probably more than an hour. And it's only been three and a half hours that I've been off the bus. Oh, and then to get back on the bus for another hour plus. Damn it. That's not enough downtime before getting back on the bus. But I'm afraid there is no choice. I don't have any other option. But my original wild thought of like, wow, wouldn't it be cool to set up hotels all around the island? And then I was like, yeah, no need. The bus. Because early on, it was like incredible how efficient the bus was. The bus is still cheap. That's nice. It's cheap as fuck. What do you know? There's the arrow. There's some random fucking back road going to nowhere that I would have come out of just before the beach, right before the sand of the beach. But yeah, that whole stretch that it makes you skip. Not a good deal.

I'm not quite, I don't know. I find the philosophy of the Ole Trail, a little peculiar.

But I suppose now that I'm realizing this, the nice thing is, yeah, you don't necessarily need the arrows so much when you're by the shore. If you want to walk on the shore, let the shore be the guide. And I shall. But alright, from this beautiful ass beach at dusk, I'll bid you a dear. I promised next episode I won't make the entire fucking thing yammering about the goddamn Ole Trail. I'm just gonna walk along the coast. I'm an independent contractor now. Oh yeah, there's also speaking of the windmills. There's a lot more windmills than I thought. They really keep on going quite quite a bit. They're still more ahead of me. But there's also some way out in the water. Just looks cool.

That was very much. I know a lot of things remind me of Breath of the Wild. But there's these windmills in a canyon in Breath of the Wild in the Zelda game. That are, you know, it's a little tough to climb up to the top of them and get to them. That's what this reminds me of. There's no windmills in the water in Zelda. But there could be. That would totally be like, hey, figure it out. Man, get out there. Get up to the top. Get a fucking Korak seed.