#143 The war caves of Seoubong, Jeju, Korea

Transcript

Alright, last episode. I didn't make it super far. My bailout bus stop is Yong-Dianmul, Y-E-O-N-G-D-E-U-N-G-M-U-L. Near the Gimnyeong Yacht Tour, G-I-M-N-Y-E-O-N-G-Yacht Tour. I guess this is the, uh, not a ton of landmarks around here. Pretty much just bailed out at a random spot, but it was nice. How did a nice little, uh, nice little stroll. Then it took the next day off because, uh, because that was a lot of walking. Though it was a nice, overcast day, if I could have done three days in a row, wouldn't have been the worst idea. And then the day after that was my weekend, gotta be home early, so I can phone home day. And part of me was like, oh darn, it's still kind of overcast. I'm missing, I'm missing all my overcast days. But then it started raining, and holy fuck. I don't know what's worse. Like when the sun is just straight up, beaten down on you, or when it's a rainy, humid day, it's just crazy. It really is not like weather. I mean, I don't know if you're from Florida or something. It's probably pretty normal. But for Canada, it's just very rarely if ever like this, where it's all wet and rainy and so humid that it's just like you're in a shower, like a shower that's currently on. All the time, all fucking day. I only did my normal little loop up around the waterfall uptown to grab some food. You know, it was only outside for a couple hours and it's just like holy fuck. This is crazy. I'm dying. So it was technically cloudy, but I think actually that would have been a terrible day to go walking. So now back on the trail, the weather said it was supposed to be overcast all week. And as I thought, that would be awesome. And it was this morning, but unfortunately by the time I got my shit together and got outside, it was clearing up a lot. And this bus ride is getting crazy. I think it's got to be nearing two hours maybe. I don't know. I didn't actually time it. But I like did everything I could to distract myself and not pay attention and focus on something else. And I was like, all right, that feels like a pretty good chunk. Let me check my GPS. And I was like a third of the way. I was like, oh fuck. Oh shit.

I wonder though, I wonder how strictly regimented the buses are or how much individual style each bus driver's allowed to have. Because I did notice coming home the other day, the speed bumps were like excessive. It was like really, really fucking with my motion sickness. And I was thinking about this driver like, why? Why are you driving so fast? And then you still have to slow down at these many, many like there's just like hundreds of speed bumps. But this guy would zoom toward one and then still hit it uncomfortably fast. I was thinking like, is this worth it? Why don't you just drive slower? I mean, you're just going to have to keep stopping at these speed bumps. I don't know what you're doing. But then today's bus ride, I didn't really notice the speed bumps. So I was thinking maybe this bus driver's doing just that. Maybe just going at a more chill pace. And it's definitely better. Because yeah, it didn't feel nearly as, you know, that stuck in a washing machine feel. I didn't notice the bumps. And it's like, I like this driver a lot better. But maybe that's also why it took so long. It's like, wow, really long. But then once I got here and I got out, now I'm walking along the shore. And it's just like, it's fine. This is so good. It feels weird when you start the day and you spend the first couple hours on a goddamn bus. And it's like, man, this doesn't seem fun. What the fuck is this? But then you get here and it's just like, ah, there we go. It's easily worth it. I mean, it's unfortunate that these bus rides are getting so long, but there's really no way around it. And yeah, the shore is so fucking beautiful and so awesome. And it cleared up like crazy today. But it's also really breezy, really windy. Pretty fucking nice. I think this is better than the crazy humidity days. And I'm also happy to report that the walking into the sun doesn't seem like it's going to be a big problem. Because yeah, it's very clear now. Just blue skies. But the sun is, you know, I've got enough of a brim on my hat if I just push it down a little to cover my eyes a bit. It seems fine.

So that's cool because my other plan was just maybe the umbrella thing. Maybe I could again use the umbrella, but it's just way too windy. I do see there's quite a few people with umbrellas today. Of course, all ladies. I'd be the one guy doing the umbrella thing, but I guess I won't be doing it anyway because it's so windy. It's just like I can't. My little diso umbrella cannot survive the wind. But yeah, I'm really pleased that because I think this is my first really clear day since I started walking just east to west straight into the sun. 5:00 And yeah, it really doesn't seem bad.

I guess it'll get worse as the day goes on. It's a little after five o'clock now. Like, I mean, I was slow to get started, but five o'clock Christ, it took me forever to get here. There's a lot of people here, even just the bus stop I passed has a lot of people and I'm passing the London Bagel Museum.

Huh, apparently this is a pretty popular spot, the London Bagel Museum.

But with the joy of what I'm doing, I don't stop for nothing. Fuck you, London Bagel Museum. I'm walking right by. I wonder if it is an actual museum or is it more just a place you can go buy a bagel. I'll look it up later. It's an interesting thing.

Well, the sun is definitely getting a bit trickier as it gets later in the day. I'm having to, I guess it's like I can't pull the brim of my hat as far down as I'd like to because I'm wearing glasses. My damn glasses are getting in the way. And this hat does have quite a small brim, probably smaller than a ball cap, even. This hat has been great though during the winter because it's got these little clasps on the side that I guess you can use to, there's one on each side and I guess you can use it to loosen or tighten the size of the hat. I've never touched them. It was super handy because you could hook the masks around these little clasps on the hat, get a little extra torque on the mask, you know, get it a little closer to the face, but also not have it around your ears because my ears would hurt if I had to wear a mask a lot on them.

So it's been a real handy hat, but ever since I got to Jeju, I've rarely used the pollution masks. I don't know, maybe, maybe twice. And again, it's not that the pollution's gone, but it's just not bad enough, you know, just today actually again after the rain. It's so nice. It's in the green. It's like, oh, that's nice. But you know, it's been in the low orange. It's just kind of, it's just kind of okay. It's not really worth, especially in the heat doing this hike with a mask on who I'll take a little bit of pollution. So maybe I just need a new hat, you know, maybe this is the time I should keep my eyes peeled because the main function of this hat, which was just a hold a pollution mask, I just don't really need that right now. What I need is a longer brim on this hat. And I just passed somebody in a field doing some field work and they had a wider brimmed circular hat, but that also had a, like a cloth hanging around it to hang down around their shoulders and cover their neck. So I mean, that's a little severe, but actually technically that is basically what I need. I probably should have that. I don't know. I'll keep my eyes peeled. We'll see.

Because yeah, I think this is not a big enough problem for me to completely change up the routine. I think I can just continue along circling the island.

But it is getting a little trickier, and especially when, if I get to a point where the sun is reflecting off of the water, you know, that's rough.

And man, I mean, obviously I gave a lot of shit to the Ola trail last episode. And yeah, I decided that the trail that takes you away from the coast have decided like, I'm good on that. I'm not going to do those ones. And in fact, when I started today, I did notice after a bit like, oh, I'm definitely not on the trail. There's no signs here. And it just kind of makes me wonder, like I wonder where that ghost version of me, you know, like the time trials in Mario Kart when they show the ghost version that's taking a different route. If there was a ghost version of me off on that other trail, like where the heck is that guy? I can't even guess where it was taking someone off to, you know. But yeah, that aspect aside, overall, the Ola trail is super duper useful and awesome. Because any of the other parts, the parts near the shore, man, talk about useful. There's so many times just today. I've counted like five already where the obvious looking way to go is not where the arrow pointed. And it's like, oh man, I would have gone there. I would have gone there. I would have gone there. Because this is a really complicated part of the shoreline where there's a lot of marinas and docks and lighthouses and fishing stuff.

So I would have gone down to a dead end like many times.

And I got to assume eventually you'd just give up, right? You'd just be like, never mind this. I guess I'll just walk on the main highway road because it's the only way to actually be sure that you can continue forward without just constant problems.

So yeah, the trail overall is so useful. So good. So cool that someone set this up.

Because yeah, like that was, man, I'm looking back at it now. What a complicated tangle of stuff. I would have just kind of missed the whole thing. Like I would have just had to stay on the road.

And then I'd only be by the shore, like in those points where the highway and the shore kind of go one to one, which happens sometimes, but not that often. I think you'd be missing out on a lot without those arrows. They are, overall, they are super handy.

Because I was thinking about like in Toronto. I spent quite a bit of time walking along the shoreline and like in downtown in that area. It's a huge pain in the butt. It's very hard to walk along the shore for any amount of time.

And then as you get further out into Atobaco, it gets a bit easier. And I remember looking on maps at the time and being like, oh, here's like, I think it's Mississauga next and you just keep going around the lake. Farther and farther and farther. And I had those thoughts. Like could I walk to like Windsor or something? Could I do that? And I bet technically you could, but I have a feeling it would be similar where you just get stymied so many times and it would be so difficult. That you just find a major road and walk on that and you'd be walking on like some kind of highway and it would suck. Because I really like this as a concept. It's so cool to see stuff ahead of you and be like, well, what's that? And now I'm kind of going up onto a more cliffy type area so I can look back behind me and just be like, oh, yeah, there's all that stuff. Look at all that shit that I just walked past. I think I'm finally passing the windmills. I guess we'll see. There's still a bunch of them, but they seem mainly behind me, but maybe when I crest this hill, they'll be a bunch more.

But yeah, this is so neat. This really is so much more directed than what I usually do. Or I'm just finding mountains and hiking around it in general. So let's see if I can get in there.

This is really fun. So should I go in here? I guess I'll go explore. I'm gonna go check in this way.

There's this little opening that goes down to the shoreline and there's some people looking at a map but I guess they couldn't really help me if I should go in here or not. So before the lack of conversation got awkward I was just like yeah I'll just go and I'll just go see what that is.

But yeah, this is also making me realize that I'm starting to piece together that the trail stuff I saw on the coast of Busan is clearly another Olle-type trail, because if I remember right, Olle-O-L-L-E just meant walking trail. And it had identical signage, the blue and the orange. And I would just bump into it once in a while. Like the most particular part was when I was on that mountain. Where I met the guy who used to live in North America up by the smoke signal area, the ancient smoke signal point on the mountain. As I was coming back that way, I started following the coastal trail without quite knowing what it was. And it looped me around in this cool way through this mountain.

Nice, this is leading me out to the shore. Beautiful. But yeah, if it follows the same philosophy as this trail, because I definitely was taking little stabs at that, or I had that notion of trying to walk up the coast and I didn't do it very distinctly in Busan, I just kind of did a bit here and there.

But I'm thinking it's probably I'd have to look it up, but it's probably a more distinct trail the same way this one is. And there was a part of me that's like, oh shit, I kind of want to go back to Busan and try that properly. And that one has subway accompaniment, which would be nice. I was already doing that, you know, I took the subway all the way up to Ulsan. So if I could just walk it in bits and pieces, why not? But I'm finally out of time, because yeah, I booked the rest of my time here in South Korea all here up to the very last day in Jeju, because I just wanted to make sure I got plenty of time to do this particular fucking walk with no worries of running out of time. 15:00 And my my mere six months in Korea already up, no time to go back to Busan. And yeah, for that type of thing again, it wouldn't be good to go back for just like two weeks. That's one of those go back for ages. So years down the road, next time I'm back in this part of the world, that's what I'm going to do. Go to Busan, do that coastal trail.

I feel like this island is just set up better for it, more natural. But I bet the Busan one is still pretty cool.

So down here on the coast on the shore, there's one fisherman away in the distance on the rocks, fishing away. But I'm going to go back up and take the other route on this trail.

But yeah, my hotel person confirmed my stay, because it seems like so long. I was just like, I wonder, could there be some problem with me staying for this long? You know, just like two months in this one hotel, but nope, it's all good. More than two months actually, two and a half.

And there were cheaper options, but yeah, it started realizing like for the extra, you know, it's about $200 more than the cheaper alternative for me to stay at this hotel. About 700, where I could have stayed somewhere else for 500. Well, here's a cave.

Risk of collapse, no problem. Not going in there.

Japanese cave encampment, at Seoul Bong Peak in Jeju, SCOU, B-O-N-G.

Built by the Japanese for suicide attacks against the fleet of the Allied forces during the Pacific War, this encampment consists of 18 cave-type mines and two bunkers. Of these mines, that is the form of the character.

And the English really went to shit, all of a sudden.

Something about how certain of these were built in a more thorough and systematic manner than others, I guess. This is a historic site testifying to the physical and mental sufferings of Jeju residents and others who were mobilized by the Japanese military to build the facility.

It's funny because I see this cave and the first thing I thought was like, I mean, I don't think there's bears. Jeju, but I just think like, what if there's a bear in there? I don't know how far back that goes. I mean, I guess nowadays some animal being in there is the more likely thing. Did not occur to me. It is a Japanese war bunker, Jesus.

But yeah, rather than go the cheaper method, I was like, let's just spend the extra $200 just for peace of mind.

Oh, and just a little ways to further down. Another opening, so yeah, I presume these two openings must connect. Caves must go together. Yeah, and it's lit in there, so that must be a collapse, a hole in the ceiling that lights coming through. Yeah, I bet there's some dumbass teens in shit that go in there, but no fucking thank you. I don't need to go in any ancient caves.

But yeah, now that I'm at this hotel, instead of talking about the horrors of the past, and the terrors of war living in a goddamn cave to do suicide attacks, let's talk about my fucking hotel, like the dickhead that I am, and there's yet another cave, three of them. Wow, this was a weird thing to find out I didn't know where. Man, that's pretty cool.

Pretty scary. Of course, if this was a video game, I would go in there and find special items.

But anyway, yeah, now that I'm at a place where everything is just basically okay, that my only problem is that mosquitoes keep getting into my room. It made me realize how I've just been getting a little worn out by my cheap life, you know. Where I still think it's generally the best plan if you're traveling for long amounts of time, like I am, you know, just kind of swap what you would have paid for an apartment into a long term place to stay in some other country. And then the prices are kind of comparable, you know, they're not that bad.

But you gotta go with whatever's cheap.

And basically, I had those couple of times that I splurged. Naka Itabashi was pretty nice.

Fukuoka was pretty nice because they were proper apartments, you know, everywhere else in Japan. Something difficult or weird or strange happened. And then here in South Korea.

That first share house, surprisingly good, that first day I did actually like that one. But then I moved to even just a different room in that same complex and that's what I had all the problems with the heat. 20:00 That was down very miserable.

Busan wasn't the worst, but even just that constant mildewy musty smell was getting to me. So the fact that I'm just here and everything's fine. And I just know everything is okay.

Even if I went to another hotel in the same neighborhood and it cost less, who knows what I'm walking into. I guess that's the thing. I'll be back to that soon enough. If I go to Taiwan next, who knows what's gonna happen. I'll try to find somewhere cheap, who knows how it'll go. For now, I'd rather just not have another, because you know, it's so exciting to go to a new neighborhood and see a new place and a new part of the world. Not necessarily that exciting to go to a new Airbnb when you're just trying to get a cheap place. Because chances are something weird's gonna happen. Here's another cave, but this one has like a gated entrance, speaking of Dark Souls 2.

There's like this wall here with these holes that kind of look like a socket for a plug, except really large, but they also kind of look like the keystones in Dark Souls 2. You insert stuff into it. I'm really starting to wonder if the team who made Dark Souls 2 came to Jeju. It's starting to get like, there's a lot of stuff that looks a lot like Jeju stuff in that game.

And yet another one. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of these. Wow. Glad I went down this little, geez, I'm actually kind of glad I bumped into those people up by the map. Maybe I would have gone down this little path, but it's a little easy to miss. I didn't necessarily see it right off, not till I stopped to say hello because the guy said hello to me. Then I saw the little path and it seemed like a great escape. I was like, hey, look, before this gets awkward, it's nice to say hello, but hey, let's not pretend that I can talk to you. So, oh, well, look at that. A little trail. Hey, that's what I was looking for. I'll go down the little trail. And it works out really well. Let's say I definitely recommend this. Saubong Peak, S-E-O-U-B-O-N-G Peak. Tunnel fortifications of Imperial Japan on Saubong Peak. National Registered Cultural Heritage. Definitely worth coming to see. This is cool.

And this one also has, maybe they all had more proper entryways and walls than they just aren't there anymore. This one also has a little, just a little door in the cave. I wonder, I mean, did they dig these caves out or were they somewhat naturally forming? Man, if they dug those out, like from scratch, that's fucking crazy. There's two things I can look up later. I can look up the Japanese caves. And I can look up the London Bagel Museum. The weirdness of the modern world, man, the textures, the layers. War atrocities next to bagels. It's just as I would fucking is. Damn, glad I came down here. This is really, really unexpected.

Well, that got a little weird and uncomfortable.

Again, I feel extra stupid complaining about anything after I see Japanese war caves. However, I will. I don't know if there was a way up and out of here that I missed. Or if I was just intended to go back, hi. Yeah, this is what I thought. I don't want to super recommend that. I mean, it's okay, but suddenly I was on a cliff side with nothing. Yeah, imagine that with no sign, then. Yeah, on the other side, I did not see that or a way out. I don't know. You went out the other way. Like I can open it around. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I just saw people in this way. So I was like, okay, this must be the way to walk. So I guess you got to reverse. But however, when you get over there, it's worth getting to, because there's these Japanese caves from back in the war. They did Jeju people dig these caves, and it's like military-based stuff. It's really cool to see. Yeah, I saw on the translations of some of the caves. That's why I just walked this way. So I mean, you could do it, but it's not great. It's probably better to go up and around. It's probably the hardest walk through this way. It's just like a little eerie, because it's like literally on a cliff side. Yeah, it's just nothing. You don't know where you're going to fall off on the side here. Yeah, and there is a path, but it's overgrown. Yeah, it's a little overgrown that way too, but not as bad as that. That was like, I guess my journey ends here. Yeah, that's funny. Maybe English, and I was like, huh? Yeah, I'm also recording a podcast. That's why I talk to myself. Oh, but yeah, I thought you were on the phone with somebody. 25:00 All right. I didn't think it's like bumping anybody. No, yeah, I was like, I hope that guy is okay. You should be saying, even lost in the caves forever. Yeah, I was literally just pulling out this recorder just because I've just been updating. Oh, it was what I'm doing today. It was just case you fall off the cliff. What was your last recording? Yeah, because I just recorded a thing about these cool caves. I just wanted to add a bit of like, this has gotten extremely uncomfortable. Don't walk this way. What's your podcast about? It's just about traveling. Oh, okay. It's called roaming holiday. Oh, okay. It was a service about hidden caves. Yeah, no, just decided after COVID, since I hadn't been traveling that whole time. It's like something that's a lot of us. Yeah, and then went back to Japan first. And I was like, you know, I should just record while I'm in Japan. Yeah. But then my Japan time ran out, so now I'm here. Yeah. Yeah. I just teleport right to Jeju Island. So I mean, I've got like, you know, 20 listeners or something. It's like just brand new and going nowhere. But it's just fun to do. It's fun to do. Yeah. Yeah, we got to do. Yeah, shoot all the time. Even though technical and professional, it doesn't mean I got a lot of you residue. Yeah, that's myself. But that's something I thought might be kind of neat is obviously to be better to have video and stuff. But I was like, I don't know that anybody really does just audio. But it feels weird too at the same time because it's like, I'm just describing stuff. It's like, it seems so dumb. I don't know. People read books, don't they? There's lots of audio books that have described the scenery. It's a difference. And I figured out like a lot of this stuff, if people want to see it, you know, they can like, look it up and a lot of it is there. I think I'm going to do what you did, but without my actual body, just fly this around the corner. Oh, you have like a drone? Yeah.

Oh, that's fucking red. It's allowed in some areas. But it was allowed at the beach.

All right, well, that was pretty funny. So I just met a guy named Louis from New York State who, uh, so basically as I was walking, like I was trying to say, there must have been a trail or an off ramp, a way out that I missed. Or maybe I was just supposed to go back, like maybe the past just wasn't maintained anymore, and I was just supposed to go back. But I kept going, I missed whatever. I mean, there had to have been a don't keep going sign somewhere that I missed.

Because I was suddenly walking along this really narrow path, like right by the edge of a really steep fucking cliff. And it was really overgrown. It was a distinct path, but it was really overgrown. And it was like a fairly long ways that I was going. And it's like this is eerie as hell. Like if I fall off this thing, I'm in big trouble. I'd be really, really hurt. So I was pulling out my recorder to just yammer about that. Now let's switch, switch focus to Louis. Imagine from his perspective, he came from the other direction, and he got to a point where there was a distinct like end of the trail. Like it was blocked off. Don't go here. And a very distinct like people do not enter here sign. So he was just kind of there like, oh, I guess maybe my journey's done. Maybe that's it.

And then suddenly he hears an English voice yammering to itself. You know, he assumed I was on a phone. He said, and then where it says do not continue a guy comes out of the woods. And that was me.

So yeah, we had a little yammer. He's 10 years younger than me. He's a photographer. He's here for his friends wedding. And yeah, we just talked about Korea a bit and about visiting Japan. And I told him about when I got lost on the golf course. And he told me a story where he was at a Rio con. The guy who had the one key, they got separated from him. And the lady wouldn't let his whole group back in, even though they were all functionally naked, you know, they were only in robes. But rules are rules. And if you didn't have the key, you weren't allowed in. So you had to go out into the woods at night and try to find this guy. And I was like, wow, that's way worse than what happened to me. But anyway, we had a delightful little time. Oh, and he had a drone. So you know, I've said like, hey, wouldn't it be neat if I actually did video on this podcast once in a while?

Maybe someday. But I've always been curious about that kind of stuff. And I've never really gotten to mess with a drone up close. So he fired up his drone. And we flew it out around the corner. And he got to like see the path I was just on. He's like, that was it. That was the path. Like, that's nothing. That's just a weird little creepy path on the side of the cliff. And I was like, I know, I shouldn't have been there. That was a big mistake.

Wow, this music really loud on this beach that I'm on. But anyway, delightful. And I told him about my podcast. So he followed it on Spotify.

One listener at a time, you know, if I just tell people as I walk the earth about my podcast. Now, this kind of eerie. I don't know where that music's actually coming from.

Anyway, delightful. He showed me how to escape back from my, because he said he was a bit curious on the map about this cave. And I was like, oh, yeah, it is really cool. These Japanese war caves and stuff. But his friends were, we're summoning him. So he didn't have time to go see him. And I was like, yeah, you know, you could go that way, but you shouldn't.

You know, you had to go up and around the long way. But yeah, that was pretty nice. And now I'm in wherever I am now. Super tourist,ville.

Music playing on the beach. Tons of people around. The sun's getting distinctly lower. So I guess I'll just keep walking till I can't walk no more.

Yeah, it's actually past seven o'clock. It's quarter after seven. It's getting pretty late.

But yeah, I'll just keep on a walk in and see where I get to. But yeah, that was cool, man. That was nice.

I told them it would be, you know, many months before I finally got around to actually editing and releasing this episode. But hey, Lewis, if you made it here, if you heard the episode, I hope you dug it. I hope you dug it. Got a little chronicle. Chronicle of the day that you were just at the dead end on the cliff side. And some fucking guy just came out of the do not enter area. Definitely weird. Oh, yeah, but I was saying to him too. It's nice to know though that if I had slipped, if I had fallen off of the side of the cliff, probably I was close enough to him that he would have heard my tortured screams. And then since he had the drone, maybe he could have flown the drone and saw where I landed. And been like, there he is. There's the guy with both his arms and both his legs broken. I'll call for help. Maybe he could have rescued me. Luckily, he didn't come to that, but I'll give him credit for it anyway.

In some alternate reality where I fell off the cliff, like the Mario Kart ghost, the Mario Kart ghost of Lewis, he used his drone to rescue my mangled body. Cool. I'm gonna keep walking.

All right, I think where I am is called HamDiockHMDEOK. Yeah, like I said down at the beach, it's clearly a pretty big touristy type area. Oh yeah, and there's where I just came from. So with sobong, apparently the other thing I could have done instead of going along the coastal trail with the caves is that there's a marking here for the peak.

So I could have done that too. Could have hiked up that mountain.

I wonder. Maybe when I pick this up again, you know, I could either come exactly back to where I am, but if I just stop one, two, three, four, five bus stops earlier, I think I might do that. Because yeah, if I go five bus stops earlier, I could go do that again and go up and do the peak instead, do both versions, and that'd be a good excuse to walk across that beach again because that beach was gorgeous.

HamDiock Beach, super nice.

However, yeah, so the sun's going down and it's always good to, good opportunity to catch a bus back when I'm at a more populated area. But this one's so especially populated, but this one's so especially populated that, you know, I'm getting closer and closer to Jeju City. This is definitely the most populated place I think I've been. If not since Seguapo, then since the first big beach that I came to, but yeah, I think even, yeah, no, this seems, I don't know, who can say, who can say. But this was big enough that my fingers started Twittering away on my map and I was like, hmm, if I were to grab some food now instead of when I get back to Seguapo, what if, what if I were to write Burger King, sea locations. So sad, so lame. But I haven't had Burger King the whole time I've been on Jeju. I haven't had Burger King since Busan, and I mean, who cares, it's fucking Burger King. But because I've been, you know, as an alternative, just McDonald's, and I have gone back to KFC a couple times, but I have not gotten any more of the chicken skin. But I was like, yeah, fuck it. Let's keep being the low brow, living the low brow life. I'm going to switch it up because I do like Burger King better in South Korea. 35:00 And then the other fast food. But I mean, it's not like a lot better, but it's a little better. So fuck it, dude. Here it is. It took a little walk. And not only is there the Burger King next to it's a dye cell. And I don't think I ever mentioned, but I have two phones. I got like the good phone, and I got a super crap phone that one of those like brand new costs $100 Canadian terrible phones that I just used for playing podcasts and music.

But I dropped that bad boy back in Seoul and cracked the screen. And I bought a screen cover from Daiso, which was fine with me. I just wanted to make sure that the screen didn't crack worse. It actually looks kind of cool. The cracked screen I think looks cool. And this phone was garbage anyway.

That's the whole point. That's why I bought it. It's nice to have garbage stuff because then if it breaks, in fact when I was talking to Lewis about, uh, about drones, his was a $500 drone, which he was saying, you know, it's all relative, but you know, mid-level, a very good drone, but not crazy expensive. But he was saying if I wanted to mess around with one, you can get little like toy ones for like a hundred bucks. There's a lot too that goes into drones I had no idea about. You need to get like a little, uh, permits and stuff. And like, you know, little flight permits to show that you know what you're doing. And it's like, wow, I had no idea that it was also elaborate.

But anyway, the little phone covering is starting to wear off on this phone. They only cost like two or three bucks. But I keep forgetting whenever I go to Daiso to get one. So this is perfect. Gonna go to Burger King. Gonna see what the latest special is. Which let's see. What do we got on little menus and maps? Anything new? When I first got here, it was a black ink burger, you know, like the, uh, the bun was black. And then they switched it to, I don't even remember. There we go. Avocado Jack. Well, that's what I'm getting then. They always have like one special weird cool burger. It was some kind of, uh, some kind of spicy burger in the middle. I'll get the avocado burger. Fucking delightful. Then I can go to Daiso, get a new phone screen and the Everlast socks that I bought. I'm glad to report. I mean, my expectations for socks are pretty low. I just don't want a hole to develop the first time I fucking wear them. These Everlast socks I bought have had, you know, two or three runs with them and none of them have holes yet. Pretty good. So maybe I'll buy some socks. So exciting. Burger King, phone screen, socks. This is gonna be quite the evening. Then a super long bus ride back home. But yeah, I think that's what I'm gonna do next time. Next episode, join me where I, uh, do this, this route, the end of this route. Again. Yeah, I'm gonna go up to the peak of that mountain rather than on the coastline. But that was cool, man. Fun little adventure. Walking into the sun's not that bad. Met a guy. Have a new Instagram friend. Oh, do you remember anyone who's been listening to this the whole time from way back at the start of this podcast when I was in Montreal. There was a guy from India named Ranjit who I helped because he got locked out of his, uh, his Airbnb room. I say, I helped. I didn't really help at all. I just, uh, gave him company, I guess, just so he wasn't alone and is trying day. But then we hung out a bit while we were both in Montreal. And I'm just, I think it's just neat to report that all this time later, like, you know, we're just Instagram friends, but he gave me a like the other day. I wanted my pictures. I gave him a like I wanted his. We're still just going around doing our thing. Hey, that's just nice. It's just cool. These little people you meet along the way. Maybe I should have tried a little harder with some of the other people that I met to, you know, get them on the Instagram train and stuff. But I guess it's a little tricky because, uh, because I don't have a data plan. Luckily, just today, uh, there's so much free Wi-Fi on Jeju. Even though we were just standing in a random spot on the side of a freaking mountain, I was like, oh, let me see. Oh, yep, I do have, uh, I do have Wi-Fi nice. Let's be Instagram friends, you know, it's a lot easier to do when you can connect right there. But anyway, it's neat. It's just kind of cool. Who knows if I'll ever bump into these people again, but doesn't matter if I do or I don't. It's still just fun. Just neat. And it's cool to just kind of keep tabs. See who's doing what? See who's traveling around the earth.

Instagram's so nice, too, because it's so, uh, you know, I just like don't even use Twitter anymore. A lot of my families on Facebook, but, you know, I observed from a distance. I like Instagram because it's just, here's a nice picture. Here's a nice picture of a cool place that I was, a thing that I did. It's so pleasant. So drama-free. Anyway, this couldn't be more perfect for my low-brow life. I mean, I'm standing next to the Burger King. I'm looking at the dice, though. They're next door to each other. 40:00 Amazing. The best. All right. Well, I'm going to hop in Burger King unless the avocado burger is incredible in some way. I don't expect I will be reporting on the avocado burger. Just assume it was pretty good. All right. Thank you once again for listening. I'll see you next episode where I continue my journey around Jeju Island, getting closer and closer to Jeju City, which I don't know how that's going to go. Am I going to spend some time wandering around there? Or am I just going to skirt right past on the coast? I guess we'll see. So I'll see you then, Adios.

All right, well, that's the nice logical end to the episode. What a nice little episode. Just nice little, although, geez, I read more about the war caves. Maybe I shouldn't say nice little episode because it's, yeah, the stories of, it's not just Japanese invaders that did atrocities here. It's also the Korean government. I guess specifically when the South and the North were splitting. So there was a lot of concern about communism and stuff, and that's where, you know, and I would see stuff earlier about signs and things. What I wasn't understanding, I guess, is that the numbers seem so radically different. I would see just these huge numbers and then specific signs at different places where it's still, you know, terrible. But, you know, 200 people is not the same as 30,000 people.

So yeah, it's that the smaller numbers are specific incidents, and the 30,000 number is, unfortunately, seems pretty accurate, pretty horrifying stuff when you read about it. That was also kind of being suppressed by the Korean government because it had so much culpability in this stuff. So apparently, they've only really been open about stuff like these Japanese war caves and these different memorials and stuff that pop up around the island. I mean, I think it's only been since around the turn of the century. Or later, even, it is still just one of these things that a lot of people just don't want to talk about. But yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff that happened here on Jeju. Again, pretty much outside the purview of my dumb podcast, but if you're ever curious, I would say just the information's out there, but it is surprisingly not out there. It is kind of a little bit of digging you got to do, which is kind of, I mean, obviously I'm not a good researcher, but it's a little bit evident even just in this podcast. That I had such a hard time figuring out what the situation had been here, and it's only finally starting to become clear, you know. Definitely it's one of these cases where I mean, it was always like this though. It's really interesting when you read about World War II. We take that for granted, the Nazi atrocities against, obviously against many types of people, but we'll just say the Jewish people to keep it streamlined. You know, we just take it for granted that everybody knows about that, that that's all common knowledge, but I was researching, there's the graphic novel mouse that won a Pulitzer Prize. It's really good, and it's about this guy, Art Spiegelman, his dad survived a camp in World War II, and just the strange relationship he had with his dad after that, you know, like his dad was never a normal person after that. And I was reading about that, and Spiegelman was talking about how, as far in as the 70s, it wasn't always easy to find information about concentration camps and about World War II. They really had to push this information to make it known to the world to really like this happened.