#150 Breaking the orbit of Jeju City - to Wolyeong Cactus Colony

Transcript

All right, I'm back at where I ended off last episode. I still love this feeling of coming back. This is three days later, because I took a day off. And then yesterday it was raining a bunch. So now it's the third day, still nice and overcast, and in fact it's been so overcast and rainy that it's actually starting to cool down. I think it's only 23 degrees today, which is that's insane. That's so temperate. That's so nice. It feels nuts. Yeah, the water is higher now. Yeah, very nice, but man, this uh, journeying. The journeying to get here is starting to get totally crazy. So I woke up a little before noon today, which for me, that's not so bad. And you know, I mean, I guess I lolligagged a little at most stages of the day, but nothing's severe. Like, you know, I got up, I took a shower, I downloaded some podcasts, I examined the route I was going to, and it's like, oh, I could take a different bus route. There is a bus route that cuts through the center of the island. It seems like the best way if you didn't just take these direct routes is to find the bus depot sort of the bus transfer areas. So there's a bus transfer kind of smack dab in the middle of the island, more or less or to the, uh, in the western middle that I could have taken a bus there, then transferred and taken a bus here. And I went and tried to begin that journey, but, uh, when the bus was supposed to show up, it didn't show up. So I was like, yeah, I don't know whatever. Let's just not fuck with this today. But you know, I spent 15 minutes there. Then I took the wrong route because, uh, even the good old 181 bus that I've been taking from Saquipota, Jeju. I just thought I'd get on it at a different stop just for a change of pace. Got a little turned around there, took a little longer than I needed to. Then I just happened to be timed out wrong, so I had to wait for the bus. You know, just little things though. But from starting at approximately noon, it's fucking 4.30 now. What the fuck, dude? That's out of control. Like what the hell? This travel is getting ludicrous.

And I really just don't love the idea of going back on that same route when I'm done today. Just psychologically it feels bad. And the 202 bus around, you know, kept, I've been mentioning it, but it's still true that it's always busy as hell. Unpleasantly busy.

West of Jeju City.

So what I'm going to do today is just walk for a while. See what I see, but then I'm just going to take the 202 continuing around the island. I'm going to take the bus along the route that I'll be walking. And the only trouble there is it doesn't technically go all the way to Saquipota. I mean, it might stop halfway the same way it does on the east side. Hopefully I just won't be late enough that I bump into that. But regardless, it does stop at, again, one of these bus transfer depots.

Not quite in Saquipota. There's this other town just a little bit west of Saquipota.

Where the stadium is. So I got to get out there and transfer, but if something goes wrong there, if I'm too late, it's like a, an hour, probably more like 90 minutes, but you know, it's very walkable from there. If I just have to walk back, no big deal. I've done it before.

That's as far as I got when I was exploring this idea of walking around Jeju. That's as far west as I made it from Saquipota.

And also, since I'm at, you know, I'll be at a bus transfer spot. There's probably a bunch of little local buses and stuff, since I only have to go a short distance. So it's probably multiple options that I'm just not aware of. So yeah, I think that's my plan. And then maybe I'll just start doing that in general. Yeah, I guess this idea of kind of getting off in Jeju City and exploring Jeju City each time, that didn't necessarily happen because I just realized the best thing to do once again is the bus depots. Just go to the bus terminal and transfer there. It's just so much easier. I mean, you know, again, these trips are already taking forever. If I start adding in variables and doing stuff that I'm not sure about testing out new routes every time, it's just not enough time for that shit. It's not a big island, but it's not a small island, and I'm going all the way around it at this point, you know, like all the way across every day, every time.

See, I do kind of think I wonder if, you know, how my initial idea was, wow, 5:00 it would be so tough to organize walking around Jeju Island. You'd have to set up all these different little places to stay. And then I realized like, oh, no, the buses are actually pretty good. You can just take the bus to where you stopped last time. But I bet a happy middle would be really cool if you really did set this up ahead of time. And just had like four places, you know. Instead of always starting from the south like I do, what if you had one in the south, one place in the east, one in Jeju City, and one in the west? That would be really good. So then your specific daily bus journeys could only get so, so brutal. Like just for some random mass plan that I just came up with on the fly out here, it's been fine.

And I am really going to miss my little hotel in Saegwapo, even just having a shower that I can jump in many times a day during this humid summer. When I get to Taiwan, it's going to be, I do have a little washroom, but it's a communal shower room. Just little conveniences like that. I will certainly miss. And yeah, the little bit of research that I've done finding a hotel, like a fully fledged honest to God hotel for 20 bucks a day. That's not the easiest thing in the world. Outside of Jeju, I have not stumbled across that, so I'm glad to just be staying in Saegwapo for way too long for over two months. It's just nice.

Again, like I just, I can't complain at all about my stupid life. It's so easy. I'm just so lucky I get to do this traveling.

But I do think there's a certain amount of just staying at the cheapest place. Stuff that has been building up a little in my brain of just like, oh man. Every place is always like, alright, what's the to-do going to be here? So just staying at a place where it's just basically no problem. Even the mosquitoes haven't shown up lately for some reason. It's still totally baffling. I don't understand what's going on with them at all.

But yeah, this bus is getting wild, man.

I do feel though, like even though I only stopped in Jeju City here and again, I still feel like I got an okay lay of the land. I got an okay sense of it. But as far as this adventure goes, I think I've passed along, passed it already. It's time to just start taking the coastal bus.

Oh man, this is nice. So I got off the bus just before Hyopje Beach, H-Y-E-O-P-J-A-E beach. That's where I stopped last time because I was like, hey, that's a good place to start.

Right by a beach. The beach was pretty nice, but if you're not going to the beach to hang out, they do pass by real quick since I'm just circling around. Crossing across a beach doesn't last that long. Still nice though. But then it was just kind of second-verse, same as the first. Same thing that's been happening the whole time on the northwest corner of Jeju. Just kind of walking along streets and roads.

And I was starting to get a little concerned. I hope the whole west side isn't like this. I'm like gearing up my recommendation to say, hey, if you ever want to try this, if you ever want to do this, but you don't have all the time in the world, just do the east side. The east side is way better. But now that I've gotten a little beyond the beach, I'm back to a nice big open coastal area. There's a bunch of windmills. It's just beautiful as fuck. And I'm like, oh god, that feels good. It really has been a while. And of course, you know, the terrain keeps changing the whole time. I'm sure there's going to be more road-type stuff coming. But maybe I'm out of the woods in general. Because I think maybe it's not east versus west. It's probably more a north versus south thing. Just because, you know, the entire southern half of the island, if I remember my numbers, right, has about 50,000 people, whereas Jeju City by itself has half a million. You know, the north is the developed side. And the northeast was developed as well. But it had like lots of beaches and was just really pretty. It's just that the west side, not as much so.

But I think perhaps that's really what was going on. It's just that the stuff adjacent to Jeju City is just way more developed, way less nature-feeling, way less pretty. 10:00 Like, god, this is so, this is so, god, this feels good. This big windmill in front of me, and a bunch in the distance, like these windmills out in the ocean, and then more on the shore ahead of me. And the road is like way over there, you know? I can see some little cars, but I'm nowhere really close to them. This is gorgeous. Like, this is the part that I like. This is what's so good about this.

Something about the windmills, too. Maybe it's because I'm from Eastern Canada. I mean, it's not that we have a ton of windmills. I kind of think of PEI more, you know, Prince Edward Island, like, uh, and a Green Gables land. But it just keeps reminding me of that. It's just such an interesting feeling. It's a coastal stuff, I guess. I have a lot of, uh, relatives that live on Campabello Island and St. Andrews, New Brunswick, both right by the ocean. So I guess I've just spent a lot of time on coasts. So it just feels like that, except I'm also in Asia. And it's so cool, you know? It's not dreamlike in the same way that, uh, like I still think the high watermark for that were those mountains in Seoul, Buchansen, all of that stuff, with the snowy mountain tops, with the wild dogs and the temples. Like, that shit felt like an actual dream. Signs warning you about getting hit by lightning, you know? The little stickman being struck by lightning, which is a sign I've never seen before since. It's not that kind of dream. This is like, uh, I don't know. This one, it still feels unreal. But it also feels real. Like, it feels like something I'm really familiar with and something I've seen a lot of times, but it's just got a twist on it. Yeah, just I love the coast, man. I love these coastal parts.

Oh, man, it really does feel good, because yeah, that was, uh, that was many, many days that, uh, that the old coastline of Jeju was just, uh, not necessarily appropriate for walking. Though relatively speaking, it's still a pretty small, you know? Less than a quarter, that's for sure. Like a six? Yeah, probably about a six. Of the, uh, of the island was not my favorite, but even that had beaches and stuff. There were also awesome.

But yeah, this is a shit, because it does, too. I mean, I guess like, you know, I generally wake up, not feeling at my tip-top best, because I'm such a bad sleeper. But then do immediately start off with all of that travel. Instead of just leaving the house and going and doing an adventure, it's like, ooh, we've got to go, wait for the bus and then sit on the bus and then transfer to another bus for the entire afternoon. So instead of like shaking it off, instead of getting your hike on and fucking waking up, instead, it's like, geez, I really, I'm more tired than I thought I was. I'm just like, blah, you know, kind of got my eyes closed, half of the time on the bus, but I can't really properly nap, and it's just like, like yikes, this kind of blows. And I guess because I haven't had any coffee either, because I don't want to make those bus rides even less pleasant than they need to be, with a coffee in my system. Yeah, I got to the other side. Got some little snacks to Naushon, but still the by-two get one free coffees. I got little teeny ones this time. These little bottles. So even though it's three bottles, it probably adds up to like one and a half coffees. But I drank those. A couple of plum popsicles. And everything is suddenly fucking gorgeous. It is nice that little like spring back, because I mean, I guess I've had this feeling a few times during this circumnavigation that it's like, is this still worth it? This seems like a lot of effort. But it's just that the journey to get there is just not that, not exactly amazing. But then it pays off once you're here.

And the windmills are really going today too. And notice the other day, they weren't really turning, even though it seemed pretty windy. Like it does seem like it needs to be pretty windy, because it is like a giant metal monstrous device. It's not like a quaint Holland fucking Netherlands windmill, you know? This thing is a huge metal super windmill. Must take quite a bit, but yeah, that's nice too. If anything is just getting colder out, nice and windy, nice and overcast. It rained a little bit earlier, but not much. That's I guess, that's a nice thing too. I was concerned about that walk, walking west along the northern side of the island. I was like, oh shit, I'm going to be walking straight into the sun. This could be bad. But it was overcast like a lot of that journey, like half of it at least. Good timing, good timing weather. 15:00 If you're going to get the sun out of my way, that's the time to do it.

I feel like I just got so lucky. I need to bow down and thank the God of, you know, if you're playing the drinking game, finish your drink as I talk about toilets, the God of Toilets. Saved me just now. It's only about 7.30. I don't really feel like stop in the walk yet, but I'm at a bus stop now waiting because I'm taking this new route now, taking the 202 south down the coast. Back to Seogwipo, where I'll have to transfer just before Seogwipo, but if that happens, that's no big deal. I'm mostly just concerned about how on the east side of the island, at night the bus only goes half way, and I don't know if that's the case on the west side of the island, and I don't want to risk it since it was around this time. It's like if I didn't get on the bus by 8 o'clock, I was fucked over there, so unfortunately I just got a bail out. I'm at Dumo Retown office. Bus stop. D-U-M-O-R-I. But I additionally was thinking I should bail out because this has still been really nice. I like this stretch. I'm feeling a lot better about this part of the coast. Still right in the middle of Windmill land, and it's real nice. But I hadn't seen a washroom in a while, and I don't know, I guess slamming all those coffees back-to-back-to-back maybe. I mean to be, I don't know, I just haven't. I don't know if it's Korean cuisine or fast food that's to blame because I've still been eating way too much fast food while I'm in Korea, but but it's just my poops are a lot less solid in this country. I don't know if everybody's going through that or again if it's just me, just me living an idiot's life. But I was like, man, I really need to find a washroom. I'll just keep walking until I find a washroom, and then I'll hop on the next bus after that. And I was just walking and walking and walking, and it's like I don't know when a washroom's going to happen. This could be a while. Maybe I better just go up and catch a bus. But then I got up to the bus stop, and I'm just standing here. I don't know when the next bus is going to come. There is a chart in here, but it's all in Korean, and it's like, you know, just like, roughly a bus comes every 20 minutes. No, it's more than that. It's, uh, yeah, I guess some of these weights can be pretty long, half an hour. And I couldn't really tell anyway because all the stop names are in Korean. It would take forever to even figure out. And this one is small enough that it doesn't have the digital screen to say when the next bus is coming. So I was like, geez, I don't know how long I'm going to be waiting here. And then even once I get on a bus, it's quite a long ways until the end of this ride. And I presume there's probably a washroom at the bus transfer, but I don't know. I just walked by it the one time I was there. I never explored that zone. I wonder what that's called so I can stop calling it the bus transfer zone. Maybe it still counts as Seguapo, because there's a hotel there that has Seguapo in the name. Maybe I'll just call it Western Seguapo. Oh, here's the bus. I'll continue my story about the washroom on the other side.

All right, back in Seguapo. Man, it always feels good at night to come back to Seguapo. It just feels good to walk through this neighborhood. It's like past 9.30 now. It was a solid two hours on the bus, but I mean, I guess that's not that bad. And that actually went pretty well. The cool thing now is even though it's still a long ride, if I start going on that 202 bus around the curve of the island where I haven't walked yet, this will be for the first time where the bus rides will start to get shorter as opposed to longer. But yeah, when I say in just how I like how chill it is in Seguapo and that bus also, nice and chill, not that many people on it. It's like, yeah, this feels right. This feels better. This is back to how it's been the whole time. And we did reach a point where the bus just stopped and took a distinct break where the bus driver got off and went off to go 20:00 do something or other. Probably take a pee. So it's definitely the west side equivalent of where the bus stopped halfway on the east side. So I'm sure if I got on the bus too late, that's where I would be abandoned. But I'm also almost there. I think probably one more day of walking, which will be just be later this episode. I'm just going to stretch this out and do another one. To another day, I think I'll probably reach that point. This very episode. So no big worries there. And then another bonus is I distinctly remember when I checked that bus, it's stopping at the bus terminal by the stadium. Like I was saying, like, you know, probably an hour or so's walk from central Segwapo. But this bus went straight on through. Just, you know, just that extra little bit. And that does make a lot of sense because where it stopped, I mean, it's just wildly inconvenient. Now that I think about it, just like a weird spot for it to stop there. But I guess what must have happened is when I was checking that route, it was late enough in the day that I checked it, that it did stop there. Just stopped there for the night because it is a bus terminal. So that knowledge was hanging heavy in the titty of me. But throughout the day, it doesn't stop there. It keeps going. It goes into central Segwapo and drops me off right here right at the rotary next to the McDonald's. Perfect. Just like, just like all good buses do. So win, win, win. It's all going well. That's the new route for sure.

But yeah, it always feels good getting off in this town, walking down through it to go back to the hotel. Because you know, there's like a little bit of stuff going on. It's a Friday night, you know, there's stuff going on. There's people doing stuff, but not a ton. Really, I guess like I said that when I first got here and it still feels that way is, is it feels similar to jet-john? Except it's a beautiful tropical fucking island, you know? It's like near the ocean and stuff. It's like jet-john plus. But it is that same kind of size. Very nice. Just a nice place. Feels good. But anyway, also now that it's hours later, like what was I talking about? I was talking about a bathroom. It's like, that seems so seemed relevant at the time. But not finishing that story. And now it's like, I'm just having a nice chill evening walk through Seiguopo. It's like, wow, what was I talking about? Let me finish that story up. Turns out getting on the bus around 730. A very good idea on both sides of the island. It works the same way. It's like I saying there is that stopping point midway. And then maybe I would have even stopped at the Seiguopo bus terminal. But since I got on the bus early enough, I got to push through to Central Seiguopo. Very convenient. And also it got dark really fast. I remember in my constant, you know, trying to sort out and figure out how I should best approach this situation. I was like, I don't know if I want to take the bus along the route that I haven't walked yet. Because when I be spoiling it for myself. But it's pitch fucking black. Can't see anything out there except signs for Paris Baguette.

Fucking stores. And the bus is rarely by the coast anyway. That's a very, that's a very strange concern that seems completely irrelevant now. It's like, would I really take this insane super long route up through Jeju City just so I don't glance out the window and see a fucking windmill that's coming up ahead of me? Who the fuck cares? That's fucking weird. But yeah, to rewind. It was like 730. I was standing there. I knew a bus was coming eventually, but I didn't know when. And I was like, God, I really need a washroom. I just, uh, and yeah, like, now that I've been on that ride, that bus ride has the long fucking bus ride, man. I don't know. I think I would have had to, uh, find a McDonald's on the route or something and just bail out. I just wouldn't have made it. There's no way. But important to this story is one of the things I pass today is a cactus field, population of cacti in Wolleongri, W-O-L-L-Y-E-O-N-G. And that's what it was, all right? It's a nice little, uh, walkway down by the water and it just goes by all these cactus. And I mean, I've seen cactus before. We've had little cactus plants and stuff when I was growing up. But I don't think I've ever seen cactus in the wild in my Canadian life. I've seen cactus in, uh, Wild West movies and older roadrunner cartoons and shit. I can't think of any times in Canada that I walked through a cactus field. So, you know, it's not like usually interesting. It's just a bunch of cactus, but it's kind of 25:00 cool. It's just like, oh, shit, look at that. A bunch of cactuses and they're kind of got little yellow flowers on them and stuff. That's pretty cool. But the important thing is that this was cactus zone. This is where a lot of cactuses are. So I was standing at this bus stop and it was, you know, fairly wide section of road at this point. Pretty, pretty wide highway style thing, but there just were no cars around. So I was like, all right, well, fuck, I don't know. Let me just hop across the street and just see. Definitely like there was, you know, I really was kind of in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't anything across the street as far as buildings or anything. It was just kind of like a big field with some trees and stuff. And I mean, I'm just like running through, just trying to do this calculations in my head of like, I really, I don't want to just try to find some bushes to hide in. And I just, I don't think it's going to come to that. Surely I can figure something else out, but I just don't know. I'm at this point where it's like, I just don't trust my body right now. I just don't know what's going to happen. If I get another big push in the gut, I was very concerned. But I went over there and I'm like, yeah, I mean, there is kind of a lot of trees and shrubbery and stuff. In that horrible event, I probably could hide myself away in here. I mean, I just, I mean, you don't want to be that guy at the best of times. You definitely don't want to be that guy when you're not even, I'm not even in Canada. If I take up poop in some bushes in Canada, well, whatever. Whatever. Still like horribly embarrassing. But I mean, at least it's my stupid country that I'm pooping on. I really didn't want to have to do that here. And I'm proud to say it did not come to that. But it wasn't going to come to that here anyway because there were fucking cactuses. That's like, God damn it. That one stretch with the cactuses. That's kind of the curated cactus walk. But apparently the cactuses are all over this zone because there's a bunch of cactuses here. And like that would have just made the story double insane. I'm just like, oh man, I just, I just didn't know what else to do. So I tried to go sequester myself, hide myself away in some bushes. And then I fell into some, who was it? Oh, it's Evan Edinger, the, the YouTuber. He had a fucking thing where he was just trying to get a cool picture. But he was hiking somewhere near Los Angeles maybe. And yeah, it fell into a cactus. And it was so bad he had to go to the hospital. He fucked himself up on cactuses. And at least he was just taking a picture. If I fucked myself up on some cactuses because I was pooping in the bushes, oh man. I mean, now that I'm saying it out loud, it's like, God, today could have been one of the greatest disasters of my traveling life. I'm so glad none of this came to pass. But again, I was just kind of in the middle of nowhere. I was really a pretty secluded stretch of nothingness. And there was this weird little building there, which I've seen pop up here and again, but they're always just like, you know, a locked up room for, I think they're like supply rooms, you know, for people that are doing work on power lines and stuff like just, just whatever, just a weird little supply shed for city workers. So that's what I assumed this was as well. But I turned my head just to be like, so what is this weird little thing? And I saw super faded like you could barely see the symbol anymore, but it was the man and woman washroom signs. And yeah, this building was clearly all this fuck super weathered and those signs and the doors were on the back side of the building, like not facing the road. So you really did have to kind of go up near the cactuses and sneak around to see that it's a washroom. I couldn't believe it. It's like, why is this here? This is weird as heck because there is a great uniformity to South Korea, even more so than Japan, I'd say. Like when I said, you look at the bus window and you just see Paris Baguette stores. I wasn't kidding. I've still never been in one of those stores. They just seem like, you know, kind of a chain bakery. They seem all right. From looking through the window as I walked by, but I mean they're fucking everywhere. So yeah, this little washroom, it did not fit the pattern at all. And when I went in, it wasn't the same either. Usually the washrooms, they're really nice. You know, they're really fancy pants and modern and all pretty new. Where this one was all this hell.

And felt way more like almost like an outhouse, much closer to an outhouse, just like a rustic toilet. But it had toilet paper. I mean, it was stocked. It was ready to go. And yeah, it just felt like a miracle. It's like, what is this doing here? Why is this here? Of all the times for there to be just a random magical bathroom that just doesn't fit with the pattern and just doesn't at all seem like it should be here. 30:00 Right when I needed it most. Right when just my mind was worrying with disaster scenarios. What's worse, the shame of just trying to poop in some bushes, the calamity of doing same and falling into cactuses, the danger of getting on along to our bus ride and just hoping I make it. When there's no way I'm going to make it, what do I do? And then for this washroom to just be here. I was like, oh my god. Amazing. And yeah, inside there was like a urinal and there was no sink, nowhere to wash your hands unfortunately. Really weird little gross toilet that was more like an airplane toilet. Like you had to step on a little foot pedal at the bottom to kind of wash it out very much like an old school airplane toilet. No ventilation, super hot in there. I noticed as I sat down like my arms were just covered in sweat because it suddenly everything got so crazy humid and hot in there and no ventilation. So it very quickly just smelled like my poop. I'm not saying it was a good time, but it was fine. Whatever. It was good enough. And yeah, I just couldn't believe it was there. I just couldn't believe it. I just really did feel like holy shit. I used up all of my luck for the next like three months.

On that one. And that's all. Then I waited for the bus. That's another dubious poop story.

You know, if this podcast never develops more than a boutique listenership, I can't say I don't understand. It's like, what the fuck is this?

It's, I don't know, man. That's what happens when you travel, dude. It's what happens when I travel. Kind of the number one most important thing is always just like.

What's the bathroom switch? I don't know, man. Everyone else acts like they just never need to poop. I don't get it. But all right. I'm going to sign off for this evening.

But this episode's not over. I'm going to continue the walk. So let's fade out. And then fade back in.

Oh, there's the happy to see you, convenient store. You know, ever since I found that happy to see you store when I did get abandoned on the east side, stranded on the east side of the island. And I had to figure out how to get home. And then the first open store I found was the nice to see you. They really have moved up in my pecking order a lot. 7-11 still is very important because they have the latte ATMs that take foreign cards, which they are a pain in the ass. By the way, I never really noticed this, but you can only get $100 out at a time. Then the machine charges you five bucks. And I just noticed the other day that the bank also charges me in extra five bucks. So it costs $110 to get $100. It's annoying because in Japan, you can get out $300. So at least you can get a chunk of money. The first ATM I found in Seoul near the airport allowed you to get out $300. Since then, it's only been a hundred. Many charges. Somewhat annoying, but anyway, got to get money somewhere. So 7-11 is very important for that because the happy to see you stores only have domestic cards. However, just for generalized stuff, like I just got to jump in there and grab some snacks just because I got nothing at the hotel. Just in case I need a little something to nosh on in the middle of the night, they've gone way up for me. I'm a loyal man. I remember when I get rescued in the middle of the night. I remember and I appreciate. So I'm going to go into nice to see you and buy some shit. I'll see you in a couple days.

Wowzers. I don't know if you can hear that because I don't have my proper recorder. I'm just talking into my phone. And there's rain-pitter-pattering as well, but I met the Changeon Falls, the $2 waterfall near my hotel. Not the one that empties into the ocean, but the one that you can see from above, from the park, the adjoining park. 35:00 And that's where I am. And the man, the waterfall is crazy today. Like when I went to see each of these waterfalls, I went the day after it rained, so I got semi-big waterfall. But today it's been raining all day. And that's why I didn't bring that recorder because I don't know what's going to happen out here. It could get crazy at any time. I didn't want all my stuff to get rained on. But it's just pitter-pattering right now, but yeah, man, it is nuts. I almost feel like I'm almost tempted to go pay the $2 to go see it from the ground today.

I don't know if you can hear that, but there's some people that just stopped by. One of them just went, woohoo! Yippee! Waterfall and Pepsi Cola!

Yeah, the only downside is that the water is not clear. The water has kind of got a weird brownish tint to it, I guess, because it's rushing down so much, it must be picking up a lot of stuff from the bank, a lot of... What's that stuff? Soil, dirt, the earth.

But yeah, today's just a nice feeling day. Just going for a little stroll to grab something to eat.

And I stopped at one of the 50 cent machines, 50 cent coffees. And I got a 50 cent coffee, but I also got... I'm not sure which one this was because none of the signs on this machine were in English, but there's always... I don't know, there's like Korean tea, and I think I've seen it labeled as Job's Tears before, but also like a ginger tea. I'm not really sure which is which is which, but this was not the ginger one. This was a little tea that I'm not quite sure what the taste is, just kind of generically sort of sweet tea. But the smell is like overcooked popcorn, which is not a bad smell, but it really smells like popcorn. And it's just one of those little things that I know I'm going to think back to, because it's just weird. I mean, you can get the smell of slightly burned popcorn, I guess, but you can't get it in a nice tasty drink. It's going to be one of those little things that when I'm not in Korea anymore, I'm going to be like, man, what a weird little thing. Or when I come back and have one of those, it's going to be like, oh, I remember that.

And I guess I was just thinking today, I mean, I think I did the right thing staying in Jeju, because I'll probably make it all the way around the island with time to spare. I've still got like 25 days, but this way I can take it kind of calm, take days off, and between, don't have to worry about it too much.

If I had not stayed in Jeju long enough, like, what if I got almost to the end, and I just didn't quite make it? I think that wouldn't be worth it to go back to Busan.

You know, I'd rather not take the risk of messing up the circumnavigation plan. But I had to make a choice so I could set up flights and Airbnb's on the other side, got to set things up a little in advance. But I really am thinking today, like, man, I do wish I could go back to Busan for just a little bit. Just go back to the Adia coffee by the beach that I like so much, that whole coastline. And then even Seoul, it's like, yeah, you know. In hindsight, I had a very tough time getting used to Seoul, but those mountains. I really did love those mountains, man. I'll definitely go back to Seoul someday, just for that plan, just to, like, escape from the city and go straight to those mountains. Because this is huge. It's a huge national park, Bukhansen. There's so much stuff I didn't do there. Even if that's, you know, the only reason I go back, really. It's a good fucking reason.

So yeah, I guess that's all I just wanted to say. Things have definitely turned around. I mentioned this in a recent episode, but I'm really feeling it now with, like, like, it was a slow burn with Korea. At first, I was a little shell shocked by Seoul being so much more, just more of that big city in a bad way compared to how Tokyo is a big city in a good way. And I didn't expect the pollution. But now I'm used to all that. Now I'm ready for it. Now I know what Seoul's like. Now I know that there is pollution problems here.

And the good is very much outweigh in the bad. Like, I definitely would stay a little longer if I could. So I guess I did say this before. I'm just repeating myself, but, yeah, I guess it is just that idea that next time I'm in this part of the world, I will enthusiastically be putting South Korea back on the docket. 40:00 And I'll go to Seoul for a bit. And I'll probably swing by jetjohn just for the memories. And I'll head to Busan for longer. And I'll definitely be back to Jeju. And then, you know, maybe I add to the docket. Try a new place. Go somewhere else as well. Start adding to the fucking portfolio.

But yeah, I guess there's no point in thinking about leaving when I'm still here for almost a month. What is the point of that?

I guess it's just that I won't be going back to Busan. I won't be going back to Seoul. Would have been cool if I could have pulled off both. And maybe I could have, you know. If I gave myself a week in Busan, I probably could also have done circumnavigating Jeju. But I just, I don't like the stress feeling. I want to just be able to circle Jeju at a nice pace. Not have to squeeze it in.

And I've circled around and I'm up by the top, the top of the waterfall. Yeah, it's going fucking wild today. Man, this would be a day where, you know, you can cross a little barrier and go to the top of the waterfall. Highly discouraged, you shouldn't. I tripped over barbed wire when I did that. But that was also on a calm day and I didn't go even near the edge. But on a day like today, fuck, get swept along and woo, off the waterfall. You'd actually probably be okay. It's like a 20 foot depth of the basin at the bottom of the waterfall. You'd certainly be arrested and deported. So, you know, the best case scenario is still very bad.

Anyway, that's all. Just the waterfall's crazy today. Having a nice day. I'm feeling very good about Korea. As long as you're ready, it's real cool.

All right, it's the next day. Very rainy. I woke up and it was nice and overcast. And I was like, ah, delightful. Look at that. No sun to be seen. What a great day this will be to go on a nice little stroll. But then by the time I left the house and started walking to the bus, it started raining. But then I thought like, ah, maybe I'll just push through. You know, by the time I get to the other end of the bus, two hours from now, maybe it'll stop raining. But this is an extreme level of sunlessness.

This cloud cover is total.

So that seems unlikely. But also tricky. How I was confused about the 202 bus, whether it stopped at this Seiguopo bus terminal an hour from my hotel. Or if it went through and then it turns out it did actually go farther into Seiguopo proper. But I was sure it stopped at the terminal. But now I'm thinking maybe that still could be the case. But maybe I got that in my head because I was looking at the journey in the other direction. Because in the other direction, that's definitely what happens. You can't catch the 202 at all. You got to catch the tail end of the 201, which is the bus that goes on the eastern side of the island. And take it a little short ways to this bus terminal, then switch over to the 202.

And I've just reminded how when I started this journey, how I didn't take the bus the first day I just walked back. Because it's like, I don't know how this works. I don't want to try to figure this out today. I hesitated to take buses in Jetchan for probably way too long. I never took a bus at all in Japan. I just reminded how once you know how this stuff works, it's great. Hey, I'll just go take the bus somewhere. But the initial breaking ground, learning how this stuff works, it really is tough. It is just really hard to figure out how trans it works until you figure it out. So like this bus terminal, it's just weirdly designed. It's not the same as the one in Jeju City. Where you get to the bus terminal and then you can switch to another bus from there. Maybe you can do that in Segwapo, but I honestly like I can't tell. It appears to just be a bunch of buses that just spit you out and you can't get back on. But I don't know for sure. But if you click on the little Google Maps icon in the bus terminal, it just says no departure scheduled for any bus ever. So it's like, I guess I have to get out and go across the street and catch the 202 from there. 45:00 Like probably not. That weird little extra, you know, it's probably set up in some way that you can just transfer over without having to go, you know, it's only a little journey across the street. But then when I got across the street, the closest bus stop, it's just not there. So I walk to the next one over and it's like, okay, from here, I could probably, it seems like the 202 will stop here.