#155 The secrets of Sanbang Mountain, Jeju, Korea

Transcript

Alright, it's a couple days later. I'm back at Mount Sanbangsan, or maybe just Sanbang Mountain. I'm probably doing the same thing I did in Japan where I'm just repeating the term mountain in two different languages. It's a lot less overcast today, but still a bit where last episode I ended with this looming mountain that's really steep. And the top was disappearing into the mist. And there was little occasional lights on the mountain. And it was actually very kind of scary looking. It was very intimidating. Today it's a lot less so because it's like three in the afternoon. And it's less overcast, but the top of the mountain is still a little bit clouded and missed. And yeah, I'm still grateful for any overcastedness I get. I'll take it. It's less overcast today. It's more hot. It's like 32 or 33 degrees. But I still feel like this would be... I don't know what would have happened if I didn't hit this nice patch in the rainy season, where things are generally clouded. Because yeah, I feel like I'm still cutting it a little close, finishing this circumnavigation of Jeju. If it was just full summertime, I just don't think I could have. I don't think it would have been sensible at all.

Got some beware of snakes, got some falling rock warnings, heading on up.

But yeah, this mountain has an admission fee because there's like temples and stuff all over this mountain. And it said on Google Maps just a thousand one, which is just a dollar. When I got to the ticket office, there was a thousand one. And then there was one that was 250. So I don't know what that is. I just went with a thousand one. And if there's anything super sweet that I'm missing out on.

I don't know. Presumably they'll have another opportunity for me to give them another dollar, 50.

I don't mind spending 250. I just want to make sure I can go all the way to the top.

But I didn't realize there were two tickets till I'm right in front of the window. And there's a little bit of English, but not much. And I was like, I don't know what this is. I don't want to figure this out right now. I don't know. Here's a dollar. We'll see as I get up there.

But I mean, podcasting while going up hills a bad idea, the best of times. In this weather, this humidity, the hell was I thinking? I need to wait till I get to the top.

Actually, let me take a little break because there was a couple who I let pass me because I wanted to walk up. Meg us low because I like to go up slow anyway. So I don't injure my knee and with this heat, yikes. But I keep kind of getting a little too near them because of my natural long-leggedness, even when I try to go slow, but I mean, I don't know. It's a different world, man. It's a different world when you don't have mega long legs.

But this is nice because I'm like halfway up. And yeah, this this thing is so sheer. It is absolutely crazy. Just the sheerness of this mountain is nuts. So there's these parts where there's like a little roof. I'm under quite a big one now. Like a big roof made out of a bunch of rings connected together with then fencing over it, which I guess is just for rocks in case rocks fall. And that's like, oh, that's nice because yikes. This is a scary-ass mountain. If they didn't have these steps built into this thing the whole time, I don't know how ancient people's ever got up here at all.

This shit's nuts. Oh, actually, that couple is coming back down and I hear something. I hear some water in the distance. Guess I'll just keep going because I don't know what's happening next. I'm still not sure which ticket I bought. I'm not sure where I can go or what I can do. This is one way to find out.

Yeah, there's a little bit of English signage around, but not as much as I would like as an English speaker.

Hmm, it's weird. On the one hand, this place is really developed and there's all these steps and you know, protect you from falling rocks and stuff. But here, there's just a bunch of bags of garbage halfway up the mountain, mostly filled with bottles, but there's like a coffee cup.

Oh, here's some English warning, danger. This mountain cave, caution of rock-slide accidents, so make sure to stay away from the wall. You know, I don't really bring it up every time, but there's a lot of typos on random messages, like this one says, stay away you from the wall. If you at the end, yeah, there is a general sense of a typo-ness going on around here.

Oh, maybe this is why they were coming back down. This could be it. Oh, and there's a lady here. I don't know. I don't know what's going on.

All right, so that was just a little rock grotto cave with Buddhist statues and a bunch of candles and stuff. There's a lady sitting there, but I'm not sure what she's doing, and I don't think there's any way to go any farther than this. I wonder, I don't know. I wonder if you can go all the way to the top. Maybe not. I mean, like I said, this mountain is ridiculously steep, really sheer. The fact that on this high up is like nuts. Whoever made that little rock grotto cave back in the day, that must have felt like some seriously insane shit to have your Buddhist temple stuff up on the side of this mountain. Maybe that's also what I could see last night, where I could just see lights midway up the mountain, because there are stairs all the way up here. That would make a lot of sense, because inside there are a bunch of candles and stuff, so even if I wasn't specifically seeing the candles, maybe there's artificial lights too.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. But yeah, that's where I'm just like, I don't know.

I don't know if that's it. I'd be fine if that's it, but it's like, is there a, what was the other thing? Even if I gave that lady 250 for the other ticket, what does that mean? Where would I go for that? That's strange. I don't know. I don't know what's going on.

And this is kind of a feeling I've gotten around Jeju in general.

It is, you know, like with the waterfalls by my hotel and stuff, or with the the sunrise mountain on the east side of the island, you know, it's like nice stuff. It's not bad. It's worth a few bucks. Why not? But there's also kind of the, if you build that they will come feeling of like, you know, there's just so many natural wonders around. There's so many mountains and so many gorgeous views and so much amazing stuff that, you know, like the mountain I was on yesterday, as opposed to the mountain I'm on today. You know, what's the difference except this one has stairs built in which is nice, but this one also costs a dollar. You know, yesterday's one was free, but it had wild horses and historical significance of these islands that are the southernmost points of Korea. Yeah, I do kind of get a feeling a little bit that it's like, hey, just because it's a tourist thing, just charge people money and they'll show up, you know, even if there's comparable stuff that is not charging money, like maybe that stuff just doesn't seem as important or it's just like not a, I don't know, I guess you just need a target maybe if you're a tourist, you just need a reason to go somewhere. But again, it's still surprising to me that that island on the east was five bucks because all the other ones, two dollars, one dollar, those guys are really pushing it with five bucks just to go up the mountain. But yeah, I'm not sure if there's anything else around here. Maybe I'll try to find some Wi-Fi and try to do some research. But if that's all it is, that's cool. Didn't get to go all the way to the top, but again, yeah, just not surprising because yeah, this thing, this is some, so that's just a lone 1993 classic cliffhanger type shit. This is a sheer ass mountain.

So I learned something where the timing of this was kind of convenient that, you know, just from getting sunburned, learning, learning that these diffused days you still need to worry about the sun. And then just noticing how obvious it was where I had not put sun tan lotion, even just a little bit of missing area got really burned and everything else was fine. SPF 50, I was surprised how good the sun tan lotion is here. That seemed real good for 50. And I don't really know a ton about sun tan lotion. I mean, we do have brutal summers in Canada, they're harsh, but my hometown in particular, Frederickton, New Brunswick has so many mosquitoes and then they're followed by like black flies like such insect problems that I tend to stay pretty covered up in the summer. I'm not just lasing around on the beach or something, Australia style. So I don't even remember when the last time is I bought sun tan lotion. Because yeah, I just need to not get bit. So I'm pretty covered up back home. But in my memory, it's like SPF 50, isn't that the bad number, isn't it 10:00 like 100? And I think I've seen 150. So I thought 50 was very low. But it's just the weird timing of just as I was wondering about this. There's a YouTuber, her channel is currently Hannah. She's from Australia and she did a whole video about comparing and contrasting Australian and Asian brands of sun tan lotion because she's from Australia. And the kind of assumption people have is like, Australia is the gold standard. It's like the best because you know, they're all out on the beach all the time, beaching it up. And there was this thought that Asian sun tan lotion is weak and is not that good. And her independent studies went a little sideways, a little bit inconclusive, but generally found that the two are pretty comparable. And one thing she mentioned, which I did not know, is that for whatever reason, the way they label sun tan lotion is different in Asia.

For some reason, it seems everything is in SPF 50. But then there's pluses next to that. How many pluses? And I think I think it goes up to four.

You know, I haven't mentioned that yet, honking, honking in South Korea. It seems pretty good because New York, it drove me fucking crazy. Even though I've like lived in a residential neighborhood in flushing queens, the amount of honking at inappropriate times of day, totally fucking infuriating. The honking situation there was nuts. Whereas Japan, there's zero honking. The only time or two that I ever heard anybody honk it was because there was about to be a serious calamitous accident. Korea, it seems like they've hit it right on the head. I do hear honking here and again once in a while, but it's always appropriate. It's always, hey, you're fucking in the way of the bus lane or hey, get out of the way. Why are you parked here? What's going on? Like, I always understand why the honk is happening. And it's like, it's usually not a, oh my god, something terrible almost happened. It's generally a courtesy honk. It's like, hey, you're making a mistake. Pay attention. You dip shit. But it's one honk and that's it.

I approve of Korean honking etiquette. It seems like they're like the perfect balance. But okay, sorry for that diversion. What I was saying about SPF, there's a plus number. And I checked the suntan lotion I had, which was just the only kind I could find at a convenience store. I didn't have any options, so I just bought it. But I remember buying it thinking like, ah, 50, that's not that good. I wish I could get better. But it's 50 plus plus plus. So if it is a four plus system, I'm up to three pluses. And yeah, you can tell, like this shit fucking works. You know, like, when I put on the suntan lotion, I'm good. A very gentle browning. And that's it. Whereas if there's a part of my body where I forgot to put it on, just the little tiny point at the top of my arms, like where my arm reaches my sleeve, I couldn't believe how bad that got burned. It's like, oh fuck. Oh fuck. So yeah, that's something important to know. That's how suntan lotion is labeled in Asia. It might say 50 SPF, but look for the pluses. Get as many pluses as you can. Three plus I can vouch for. Three plus is really good suntan lotion. I mean, I'm not going swimming. I think that's a whole other thing too. That's where a lot of, ah, hand as research went into is because with Australian stuff, if you're at the beach and you go swimming, that's a big issue with the suntan lotion. You know, will it stay on when you're swimming where Asian suntan lotion is just not as common of a of a pattern to your day. So water resistance is less of, ah, less of a worry. So I can't say for sure how that all works out. But yeah, for just walking around, I mean, I've done some pretty big gas fucking walks in this country. And as long as I got suntan lotion on, I've been all right. Though the big brimmed hat also. What a great purchase.

The view of this mountain from the side. I mean, I guess it's not super duper crazy tall. You know, a lot of the mountains I was on in Busan were definitely around this same height. It's just that it's so steep and just like it's just this one discreet mountain. Nothing else around here is even close to a mountain. 15:00 That where I am generally even looking back to a horse mountain I was on yesterday. Well, no, it's that one's pretty big, but it's big and gradual. It takes the whole corner of the coast. This one is just like boop. It's like if you ever played the game populous back in the day where it was like a god game where you could just click to elevate and lower the land. You know, so you could flatten the land out so people could build farms.

Or build it up so that there was mountains. And if you just built a mountain on one little area, just one little boop, just straight up. That's what this looks like. Yeah, it's a really imposing, very fucking intimidating mountain. So it's surprising how hard it is to figure out information about stuff. So down at the bottom there was Wi-Fi. And I was clicking around trying to figure out like, did I make another terrible mistake? Was there like a little opening inside that cave grotto to go up farther? Did I just stop halfway? You know, as I've certainly done that before. I've made some mistakes in the past, but I just couldn't figure it out. I just don't know. Then I found a YouTube guy. Luckily, I had a strong enough signal to play a YouTube video. Some YouTube guy from seven years ago who did a little vlog about this mountain. And yeah, he went up into the grotto and that is it. That's the end of the grotto. He went back down. So I at least confirmed like, okay, what I did is what you do. That is what you're paying a dollar for. Finally, what cleared stuff up was TripAdvisor. Good old TripAdvisor. I was using that site quite a bit when I was first booking travel to New York. I was booking travel to Japan and cleared up a lot of stuff about how, you know, if you should use these discount ticketing things and why it's a bad idea. And it seemed like a really good website, but I hadn't really been back since. But I should keep that in the back of my mind, TripAdvisor. It seems very well curated and the advice people give seems pretty on the level, pretty well thought out more so than just, you know, the random Google reviews aren't the worst, but they're not the best either. So what I learned there is the 250. It looks like that's to also get admission to the dragon coast, which is like a little theme park across the street from the mountain. Apparently that coastline looks like a dragon or maybe it's dragon tail coast, one of the other anyway. I did see that as I was walking back and hear people cheering occasionally. So that's what the extra ticket price is. It's a double, a double feature. And then finally, somebody mentioned if you want to go to the peak, there's a trail at the back of the mountain. It's part of the Ola trail that you can go up. So we will see, supposedly it only takes about 30 minutes, but I'm just walking around the mountain to see what happens. See if I can find it. But the good news is if it's part of the Ola trail, then that's what I'll keep my eyes peeled for. If I see the Ola, you know, those distinctive Ola ribbons, the blue and orange ribbons, I'll head there. If I don't see them, then that's that. But it's a quarter after four. The front end of the mountain closes down at about six. So I mean, it's not tight for time, but you know, it's a little getting a little toward the end of the day. But presumably this will all work out, but yeah, it's just funny how difficult it is just to determine these basic things. I guess if I was just following the Ola trail, I would just come upon this exactly. But yeah, following the coast as I've been doing, I came in the frontway. But again, the frontway is the frontway, you know, it's where you pay admission and stuff. And it's all built up and developed, but it turns out that's actually not... I mean, it's okay to see the grotto. Apparently that's a very rare cave-based shrine. They don't happen that often. But the actual getting to the top thing is on the other side. But again, I'm not surprised. I'm sure they would connect it all together if they could. It's just that it's so crazy steep. And yeah, even looking at the back, I can see it does seem distinctly more walkable here at the back. It's still steep, but it's not fucking, you know, 84 degrees. It's a lot more gradual. However, there's a 7-11 here. I'm going to stop in here and get some dang popsicles first. That's the first order of business.

Hmm, well, I think I might have to chalk this one up as a failed adventure.

But, I mean, I guess if I ever do figure out what the deal is with this mountain, and if there is a way to get up to the top, there's lots of bus stops around here. I can easily just swing back by. 20:00 But yeah, I did the walk all the way around, and it's really pretty. I would almost say it's worth walking all the way around the mountain, except that the first bit that I walked around by the 7-11, that part was alright, because it was, you know, there was wide lanes for cyclists and stuff. It was relatively easy to walk along. But now that I'm completing the loop, I'm on this part that is just like a very narrow bend on the edge of the road. It's not a very busy road, but still it's like, man, I shouldn't be here. This is not for pedestrians. This is 0% for pedestrians. And there is, at the back, there is a Buddhist temple and some roads on Google Maps that go like a little ways toward the mountain. I thought maybe that's it. That seemed like the best bet. And I walked a little ways toward there, but it's just like, dead. There's just nobody around. And I'm still looking up at the mountain. From every side, this part I'm looking at right now, every single part of this mountain looks so uninviting and so terrifying. So that's what I was thinking as I went toward the Buddhist places, like even if there is a path behind there that goes up to the top, I don't want to do that. That looks scary as shit. It's so fucking steep, man. It's like crazy. This is some Nathan Drake stuff, not some Keith McNally stuff. This is like, I'm in the Himalayas in a video game. Or like Far Cry 4, if you ever played Far Cry 4, where it had that slightly annoying map because it was so mountainous that you had to use actual grapple hooks and stuff to climb up sheer rock cliff faces. That's what this thing is like.

And additionally, at the temple, I didn't see any ole trail markers. And at this part that I'm at now, this final stretch, there actually are some ribbons, but they're different colors. They're not the ole colors. And there were some paths going away from the mountain. And you know, there's like some weird country roads and stuff. I don't know. I mean, there might be stuff. There's things you could examine and stuff you could check, but I don't know. I just wouldn't be surprised at all if you're not supposed to go up there.

It looks so fucking scary and dangerous. I think I think I walk in all the way around it now, just seeing it from every side. I think I'm okay. I mean, I am going to look into it a little more because it's like, like I don't know where the ole trail is around here. I really don't think the ole trail would lead people to something dangerous, but I didn't see any evidence of that anyway. It's all just confusing, but beyond just the technicalities of it, my gut feeling is that is a scary place. I'm imagining myself being up there. I mean, it's still misty, too, even today, when it's like, I mean, it's pretty overcast today. But I mean, man, yeah, it's just frightening.

In other news, I went into the 7-Eleven, as usual, it's just so unnecessarily confusing about the ice cream. I wish it was just like, you know, some things are by two get one free, some are by one get one free. I wish it was just everything was by two get one free, even if that meant that some of the stuff was a worst deal. Just so you could actually, like, it's just, I've got to stop bringing this up. I've brought it up so many times. But it's so fucking confusing. It's like, what can I do for the deals, man? So I just kind of gave up. I was like, whatever. These are by two get one free, okay, just give them to me, whatever they are. So they ended up being, there's one thing that I think specifically is for kids, because it's like a little ice cream sandwich shaped like a fish, inside with chocolate and some weird little jelly things.

And then along with that, I got these ice cream sandwiches that were kind of cool, because it is like Korean version ice cream sandwiches, where if you get an ice cream sandwich in North America, you know, it's just ice cream in the middle. And then the sandwich part is usually kind of like a cookie, I guess. I'm not totally sure what they make that stuff out of, but not bread, like a real sandwich.

In this case, it was the ice cream part in the middle, but bread, like just really thin white bread with the crust cut off. And I was like, all right, this is actually kind of good. I mean, you know, it's all just there so you can hold the thing and eat the ice cream. It doesn't really matter that much what the sandwich part is made of. And I mean, if anything, this is more accurate to a sandwich. But again, it's just one of those funny South Korea things, like who would think to make an ice cream sandwich like an actual sandwich? But then on the other hand, it's like, well, why aren't ours like that? But you got to think outside the box a little bit. And then the flavor itself. I thought it was like cheesecake, but I looked closer at the package and it was showing like actual cheese. 25:00 And the inside wasn't pale like cheesecake. It was orange, orange like cheddar cheese. And on the very first bite, it actually did taste kind of like actual cheese. So I was like, hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Just another bizarre South Korea flavor profile. But after a couple of bites, it just tasted like ice cream. You couldn't really taste any cheese stuff. There was a little hint of cheese at the very start. And then that was that. And since it was bite to get one, free I had two of those. I ate them all. I screamed it up. And I think the temperature is just going down naturally too. It feels below 30 degrees now. I'm not, I'm just sweating like a normal person. I'm not profusely sweating like I'm gonna melt into a puddle and die. But now that I'm on a busier street, there's a real sidewalk and everything. This feels better. Yeah, there was one side of that mountain, the eastern side where you just shouldn't be walking on that road. Not only was there not a route up, there wasn't even really a good route around. That was, you know, just one of those things that is like a little too close to traffic. It's not like I actually felt like it was dangerous, but if I was gonna accidentally get struck by a vehicle on this trip, that's one of those times that it's like, yeah, that would have been one of the times that that could have happened.

And yet this, God, this mountain. Now I'm crossing around to where it's not even, the other parts were very steep and imposing, but covered in greenery. Now this part I met, it's only half covered in greenery and then half just rock.

Oh, shit, and here's a beach.

Should I just bail out right now? I could go for a beach. Because at this point, I'm sort of circling around.

I'm by the one and only coffee shop and it seems to lead to a beach.

I guess I'll finish the loop just to be sure. Yeah, at this point, there's only a little bit more road to get back to where I started.

I've made nine tenths of the loop. Fuck it. Like I'm walking backwards now, back to the origin, just for the sake of bookkeeping. There's no fucking way if there was an ole trail. I definitely missed it.

Perhaps it was that Buddhist temple at the back was the entrance to go up, but again, like I said, I mean, there's just no one. There was no one around. The front side was really busy. Like I was saying, there's tons of people there. There just has to be a reason why nobody's around and no one's doing this and the information is so hard to find. And then yeah, even just looking at it, I had zero fucking indication in my heart and my soul and my cockles that that was anything a person should do.

So I think it's okay to let that one go. Still a very cool mountain. I mean, it's totally worth coming by just to see.

But yeah, now I'm heading down to the shore, down to the beach.

Continue, continue on along the shoreline.

Back to the circumnavigation and there's horse mountain just to my right.

Just a little ways behind me. Very beautiful. I love this corner, this corner of the island.

The southwest corner. It's pretty as fuck.

Hey, and there's some OLA trail markers. There you are, your mother fucker.

It's just ribbons, no arrows.

But yeah, it's a little tough to find really specific information about the island out to the OLA. It's hard to find much beyond the general overview.

But yeah, I don't know. I don't know where going up the mountain could possibly be or how it could possibly connect to being down here on the shore. Because yeah, I had to deliberately walk all the way around the mountain and it wasn't so easy. It wasn't the most comfortable thing.

But anyway, it's still nice to meet you. Sandbang, sand. Yeah, crazy, scary, weird looking mountain.

Wow, the walk along the coast across the street from the mountain is really fuckin' beautiful. I got to a point where I couldn't go any farther because the tide was up too far. There's a big rock cliff face in my way. I could almost get around.

It's deep, but not quite. But I only had to backtrack a little bit to find a path up into the little mountains by the shore. And then I bumped into the Olle Trail that I'm on right now. And I've just been following it along. And whenever there's like an opening behind me, right now, just turning around.

There's Sanbangsan. Super visible from many fuckin' places around here and just super gorgeous at all points, from all angles, from all sides. What an aesthetically pleasing fuckin' mountain. It's just fuckin' nice. Oh, here's a little, a little deck, a little view deck. Oh, and here I can see there's like a big port. Bunch of ships. Docked. Got a breakwater. And a spider on my hat. Let me put you over by some trees. Hop off, little spider. Come on. Come on.

Loves my hat. Off you go. I had to give him a gentle blow to blow him onto a leaf. I'm mildly concerned because I've got 500 milliliters of water and 500 milliliters of barley tea that I bought from a vending machine at Sanbangsan. And they're both almost out.

Back to super sweating. Had a little bit there where the weather got cooler, but now I'm just, you know, I've always heard about that thing of like if you ever stop sweating when you're in the desert or something, then you're about to pass out and possibly die because if you stop sweating, you know, you're dehydrated and that's like the worst. I've never had that happen. And I don't feel like I'm anywhere near that happening, but I guess that's the thing. I don't know. I don't know how long that takes, you know, since I've never had it happen. But, you know, I'm not far from civilization to hear a dog barking in the distance. I'm sure I'll be able to get to a convenience store soon. But yeah, shit. Today I very much feel like my liquids are lacking. Well, I guess it's because a lot of these times I'll buy like by two get one free coffees while I'm out on these journeys.

Because yeah, that adds a liter or so of extra liquids on top. And I guess I didn't do that today.

And there's some more smaller mountains in the distance ahead of me. Much more gradual, much less crazy looking than sunbang sign. Although there's a cliff coming up. There's like a big factory by the shore next to a sheer cliff. I think this is a good time to keep following the ole trail for a while because the shoreline, that doesn't look very fucking inviting. That is a serious ass cliff.

It's creepy when there's like an enormous giant factory and next to it is a cliff bigger than that, you know.

Scary. I guess they're about the same height. But factory towers aren't exactly short.

Oh, here's a little water park.

There's a water slide and some pools. But there is nobody there. It appears to not be open. That's slightly odd.

Because it sure is hot this time of year.

So I guess I did see some like lightning warnings possibly coming up for the next week, so maybe that's why.

Maybe they don't want to risk it when it's overcast. I don't know. There is water in the pools. Just no people.

So man, one thing now that I'm the proud owner of deodorant again, and I don't have to just carefully go all out my remaining deodorant like fucking Bob Cratchett cutting up a single bean.

And I learned something about deodorant that I mean I just piece this together myself. I didn't look it up specifically, but I was looking up more about the idea of how sweating and sweat glands just seems to be different amongst Asian populations, hence why they don't have deodorant. And I was talking to my friend Brad who lived in Japan for like three years that he said it was, you know, tricky to find deodorant. 35:00 And he specifically is looking for unscented deodorant because the senti type perfume shit irritates his skin. And he said that was quite hard to find. But obviously the whole thing is nothing compared to Korea like way more accessible and available than here where it's just like ridiculous. You just can't get deodorant anywhere.

So I was looking it up and I thought this was an interesting way of describing this. There's a gene like the AA CC11 gene. I don't know. Some weird, you know, code.

And the way NBC News described it is that a large percentage like over 90% of Asians and especially Koreans. Apparently this is super even more common among Koreans have a quote unquote defect in this gene.

And because of the defect, their sweat glands don't produce this one particular thing that bacteria eats. And it's bacteria eating this thing, whatever the fuck it is, that causes sweat to smell bad. The residuals are what smell bad. But I just thought it was funny that they described it as a defect, you know. I have a feeling that the news in Asia might not describe it that way. I don't know the science of it. I guess technically if you have a gene that's supposed to do a thing and it doesn't do it, I guess that's a defect. But couldn't you say that ours is the defect? Like maybe that gene's not supposed to make that bacteria food. And it's a defect that we make it just because it's more common. I mean, it feels like the evolution is the Asian gene, right? It's clearly better. But I don't know. I don't know what else that might do or what it could possibly help with. I don't know if it has any value.

But I thought that was very strange suspect description. But once I learned that probably grade school level thing that I just never came across before and never knew that it's like, oh, so that's what makes sweat smell bad. The bacteria is eating your sweat and it's pooping something out. I always just assumed deodorant just covered up, you know, like a perfume that it just covered up the smell of sweat. But it's so mega different what I notice in myself when I'm wearing deodorant or not.

Because you know, it's just easy enough to just wear deodorant. I can't think of any particular times in my life that I ever had trouble getting my hands on deodorant till very recently in Korea. So I didn't realize like how bad I smell when I don't have deodorant is like really terrible. It's kind of like that's where I was like, I desperately need to find some deodorant. This is getting to be a deal breaker here. This is insane. No amount of washing off or just anything, anything I tried to do to counterbalance it was not working. I smelled very bad. So that made me realize deodorant must actually neutralize your sweat, you know, whatever that stuff is in your sweat that bacteria likes to eat. Having deodorant on your pits must, must wreck it, you know, must neutralize it, must ruin it. So the bacteria don't want to eat it no more. Again, maybe this is all super obvious stuff, everybody knows. But I didn't know I'm learning. I'm putting information together and piecing things together and I'm learning.

But yeah, it's great. I feel like the king of the world now, not only do I have deodorant. Now I'm kind of incentivized to use it up. I think I had a little more left than I thought I did on my North American deodorant. It's still not quite gone yet. I got to at least use that all up before I get out of Korea. So I'm just slathering myself in deodorant and it's like awesome. Like right now, I'm just the sweatiest person in the world right now. It's ridiculous. But I smell okay, you know, I smell like 5% sweaty. Where? Yeah, those days when I was not appropriately deodoranted. I don't know, I don't know what percentage to say. In the grand pantheon of bad smelling people, I don't know where I fall, but it's a... Let's do a pass fail system. I failed, big time fail, total fail, inappropriate to be around anyone levels. So yeah, deodorant is a lot better than I thought it was because I did just assume. I guess it's just like good smelly stuff that masks the bad smelly stuff. But no, it definitely does more than that. It does a lot more than that.

And I guess, I guess I should just thank Korea for having any deodorant at all. But it was weird to read this thing and apparently, you know, they don't know the exact numbers, but particularly in Korea. It could be up to 98% of people who just have this quote-unquote defective gene and just don't smell bad when they sweat. So it makes total sense given that situation. Why they don't have deodorant, but what about the 2%? What about those people? Well, I guess those people go to E-Mart and they buy the one kind of deodorant that they have there and they fucking like it. I guess I answered my own question.

All right, back into civilization.

Gonna go take a little stroll, see if I can't find somewhere to buy some motherfucking liquids.

Hey, there's sandbags on. In the distance, I have a feeling I'll be seeing that thing in the distance for a while.

Well, it seems like I haven't made it that far because sandbangsang is still right there looming behind me, but I mean also it's such a big imposing mountain. Maybe I'm farther than I think.

But the day is getting on a little bit. It's only a little after six, but that big cliff face that I saw, that heads to Huanggachian Bridge. And then beyond that, Wallabong Mountain, W-O-L-L-A-B-O-N-G. And yes, just this big spot on the map where there's this big, non-descript space for the mountain, but beyond it is a beach. But there's like not a lot on the map behind it or anything. It doesn't look like, I don't know, it looks like once I head in there, I'm just not quite sure what's gonna happen. Then there's another mountain behind it, and it's all a ways away from the bus route.

Yeah, now I definitely haven't made it very far looking on the map. I have hardly made it anywhere, but I'm just going from one mountain to the next mountain. And yeah, just hard to tell exactly what's gonna go on over at that mountain.

So I think I just got to save that for next time. I think I got to start next time by heading up into that mountain, because I got to give myself more time. Because I don't know what's the weight in. It could be a bit of a trek away from normal population stuff. Or it might not be, who the fuck knows. But too late in the day to start that shit right now. And I never did find a convenience store to buy any fucking liquids. So I'm just gonna go catch a fucking bus and get the hell out of here.

But I just got some random stuff that I had on my mind.

I was watching the YouTube channel Katie and Eric, KYDE and Eric, who are just this American couple who have lived in Japan for like 10 years. They live there permanently now. They have a house and everything. But they do travel videos. And Eric was mentioning how Japan is seemingly in the wrong time zone. Because I had been noticing lately here in South Korea, like it does actually get dark a little early in the summer, surprisingly early. And he was saying he noticed in Japan that in the summer, the sun comes up at like 4.30 in the morning. You know, it's like, if they shifted stuff, it would really help. Well, I guess that's why we have daylight savings hours in North America. You know, we actually change the times during the winter. It's annoying. But it kind of makes sense. Like, yeah, when it's getting light at 4.30 in the morning and dark at 7.30 at night, that ain't right, man. And that's not a good use of your day. That's awkward. But I don't know what a person could do about that. It's just how it is.

But also, I'm watching this series where he rides his motorcycle up through Northern Japan. And he was talking about barebells. Because that's one of those things that was always on my mind. Other people would walk by with barebells. But I mean, I just can't do it. I have like mesophonia. I have sound sensitivity. A repetitive sound like that. I would lose my mind. I cannot do the barebell thing. I just can't.

But he's been pontificating for many years about, do these barebells really work? You know? Like, is this really the best thing to do? So he was talking to a park ranger in Northern Japan at a park that has famously had bare problems. Like, before you're allowed to go to this national park, they sit you down and have a 15-minute presentation about what to do about bears. 45:00 So he asked that lady and she said that human voices and clapping are better to alert a bear that a human is around. And she wasn't so sure that the barebell thing really was a good idea. Because there's not particular evidence that barebells send bears away. And there's maybe even potentially some evidence that barebells are like a dinner bell. You know, like it causes a bear to be curious and to come check out what that sound is. So I'm certainly not saying don't wear barebells. You know, hey, if you want to, if you feel safer, if it doesn't drive you insane to hear a repetitive noise all day, you know, don't take my fucking word for it. I think it's obvious at this point that I don't know shit about dick. I literally don't know anything. I'm just walking around pontificating about how deodorant my work. I'm an idiot. But that made me feel a little better just for my, on my part. Because it's just not going to happen. You know, I'm just not going to wear barebells. I just can't, I can't fucking do that all day. I might as well be poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick. It would make me nuts. So it's kind of nice to see the alternative opinion that it's okay if you don't wear barebells, you know. You're not putting yourself, you are putting yourself in danger by being around bears, but having a little bell jingling on you is not going to be the make or break in that situation. So I just thought that was interesting.