#161 I'm gonna miss Jeju Island

Transcript

Alright, it's the day after I completed my circumnavigation of Jeju Island. I stayed an extra month in Jeju to make sure I could finish this task, which I did with about a week to spare, so I think that turned out pretty good. In a way, that's a lot of extra time, but also not really. I didn't want to leave it to the last second, and a week can go by fast. What if it rains? What if there's a heat wave? What if there's some weird thing that happens that I couldn't go out?

Perfectly. However, I finished at the top of Goonsan Orion, one of the coolest views I've ever seen. I was gonna say one of the coolest views on Jeju Island, but just one of the coolest views, full stop. And it was really weird weather yesterday, where at like 300 meters up, there was this perfectly flat line of clouds across the whole island that perfectly covered the top of all the higher oriums and mountains. So today, next day, I fucking opened the curtains, and it's like, oh, look, perfectly blue sky. Look at that shit. Although that was looking toward the ocean. Looking westerly toward Goonsan, it's actually not not perfectly clear. So I guess that's also just that the weather's just weird in the middle of summer. Very unpredictable, but it seems like basically clear. I have a feeling if I went up there today. The views probably awesome. It says like, yeah, of course, of course, the day after. But actually, I think this is kind of cool because first off, it's hot. Oh, fuck it's hot. I mean, I'm just doing laundry and just while I wait for laundry, I'm going to take a little stroll to one of the little machines where you buy a Dixie cup of coffee for 50 cents, one of the things I will definitely miss about South Korea. I love those little machines. And yeah, even just this little walk. It's like, oh, shit, because it was a really great walk yesterday through this eco park and along the shore and up through the ancient 13th century horse trail and then up the mountain. It was a great day. Immediately today, I'm like, I kind of just would like to do that again. That's so good. I already missed the idea of hiking around the island. But I feel like it was already stupid to be out hiking in the weather yesterday. Today, this feels legitimately dangerous. This is like, fuck me. This is so hot. So that worked out better. But also, it's just amazing how fast, even just within one day, like when I was up there yesterday, I don't know. I felt a little bad. I guess that I wasn't in a better mood. I was just kind of tired because I didn't sleep enough and a little disappointed that the weather didn't clear up and annoyed at all the bugs flying around, which is not that I think about it. They were probably also disoriented because of how thick the mist was. Probably a big reason why bugs were flying into me and stuff. They were going haywire. But I even said yesterday, it's like, I know in hindsight, this will seem awesome. It's just in this moment, I'm having a hard time shaking off that my perfect vision of the finale is different. And it's just funny that even one day, the very next day already, I'm like, no, you know what? That was actually way better. Like, what if it had been like today? What if I had gotten up there and it had just been the perfect view? I mean, I just discovered the Goonsan Orient like a few episodes ago. I already had that day where I just gushed about the amazing view.

But it had been except that again. Where instead, what I got was this super thick mist swirling around like fucking sleepy hollow or something. And baby deer refusing to be scared of me and just hanging around and bugs flying right into my head and just weird shit happening. And then there still was the little points up there when the mist opened up. And I could see the full view all the way across and see, like I didn't even notice the windmills last time because I was just seeing such an overwhelming view where this time it's like a corridor opened up and I could only see, I could see all the way to the shore, but I could only see this one part where the windmills were. And it was just so weird and unnatural, like you literally like stepped up into the mist and then down out of the mist, like you could just put your head in it and your shoulders and body wouldn't be in it. It wasn't quite that distinct, but almost. And it's like that was actually coolest fuck. That's already like a cool memory. And it's only been one day. So yeah, I think it all kind of worked out better. I got two versions of the top of the mountain. I got to experience a weird weather phenomenon that I've never seen in my life. And then the previous time I got to experience the big amazing view.

So yeah, this is just going to be, I don't know what the next episode of this podcast will actually be about. Nothing's going on today. I just wanted to do a little intro thing just just to say that that already one day later. I'm like actually that mist was awesome. What a weird fucking thing.

But yeah, I got, I don't know, I guess you would think of it in laundry terms. I got this laundry. I'll do one more thing of laundry right before I leave. And then that's it. Then I'm finally leaving South Korea after six months. I stayed the entire six months. I was looking up Taipei and it's like, yeah, it just seems like instead of the weaker card from Japan or the tea money card from South Korea, I think it's called the easy card. I only looked it up this morning. But just, you know, same thing, different card. You just get one of these cards. You use it for transit. Some stores take it. You can buy it at convenience stores. It seems exactly the same as those other cards. It's just the Taiwan version. So it should be no problem. Just watched a little, it's nice to just, you know, just to be sure you know what's going on. And just watch a little video of just somebody at the airport. Because even in Seoul, it was a little tricky. I couldn't find anywhere in the airport to get a tea money card. I did have to go to the subway station that's attached. And some cab driver tried to convince me there was no subway station attached. He wanted to fucking wanted to sell me a ride.

But you know, I finally got to the subway station and found a machine that sold tea money cards. It was a little tricky. But it's nice to see these things on YouTube and just be prepped. You know, it's like, yeah, just watching a guy at this airport in Taipei. Just buying the little card out of a machine. And it just, it's like, yeah, it's just another airport. Just another place. Looks fine. Looks like it should be no big deal. And I was just, whatever little, little travel anxieties I might have, it's nice to just wash those away. And I was thinking about the days, especially when this Jeju circumnavigation was really, when I was really on the far side of the island. So I'd take these long bus rides and transfers. And then a long bus ride home and spend like four hours on transit. I was thinking how the flight all the way to Taipei will be kind of like that.

Where I just got to take the bus, the 1-8-2, or the 1-8-1, one of those, whichever one, have to remind myself.

But I'll just take it up into Jeju City, but just ride it a little further past the bus station to the airport. Then take a 90-minute flight to Shanghai, I'm pretty sure. Then hang out there for 90 minutes. Take another 90-minute flight to Taipei. Take a subway ride into the city center. And I mean, getting to this whole other country won't be that different. And we'll only take a bit longer, ultimately, as some of these severe travel days on Jeju. It's so cool just having things be relatively nearby. It's just not the way it is in Canada, North America in general.

Now I guess I just got to use up the money on my tea money card and use up my Korean cash. You know, I could just convert this stuff somewhere. But be easier to just use it up before I go. But that's kind of a fun game. Whoops, I got to spend, I don't know, between the two of them, it's probably about 200 bucks. Oh no, I got to spend 200 dollars. I think somehow I'll manage. Even like, I can't buy stuff, I can only buy food. But that's what I did at the end of Japan, just whatever money was still on my sweet card. I don't know, there's still some on it. I don't know how much, but I basically just spent a whack of it at a 7-11 in the airport, just bought snacks, just to finish things off. Boy, one thing though, I hope I remember before I come back, it'll probably be some time before I make it back to South Korea. So I'll probably, I just have the feeling I'm going to forget to do this. Is to go online and try to find a power converter that works better with the outlets around here, instead of just the generic universal adapter, try to find one that's specifically just a Korea one. Because the 7-11 one I bought, that thing was a piece of shit, it just started shorting out and making sparks and crackling and just awful. Real quickly that happened, but it was only like 5 or 6 bucks, then I bought a $15 one at Lotte Mart, I think. There was a lot better, but it's still like a generic just every country to every country adapter. So it's not specifically for South Korea, it's just Europe style, you know, the two prongs. And it worked okay at first, but it's also starting to not work and I got to fiddle with it and jiggle it around a bit and it's starting to make little crackly sounds and it's sparked once and I'm like, God damn, this shit just sucks. This shit just sucks. But apparently if you get a dedicated adapter that's just the two prongs straight into a plug, not a big brick, because the big brick it doesn't fit properly in a South Korean outlet. 10:00 That's if you are coming to South Korea, it's very much worth it to try to get a dedicated adapter. I can't tell you exactly which one because I haven't found it myself, but buying a universal adapter when you get here, it's going to be a pain in the ass at the least and possibly a fucking fire hazard at worst. It's so disappointed when even the $15 one just started crackling and snapping and making weird noises and it's like, fuck me, this shit just doesn't work. Why do you sell this shit here? But obviously it's because the locals don't give a fuck, they don't need this crap. So they don't they're not paying attention to what product they're selling. It's just a universal adapter, here you go foreigner, there you go. But it sucks, these things suck, the big brick adapter, because it's like a circular outlet here in South Korea.

A brick and a circle don't go together. But alright, I'm at the little teeny coffee machine, get a little $0.50 coffee. And yeah, like I said, there's just a random some random thoughts. Where this episode will go next? Who knows? Because my plans for my remaining days on Jeju are jack and shit.

Just soak it in in general. You know, I guess it's one of those things, especially I've been here six months, it's like whatever, just move on. But it's almost worse to try to plan out like, oh no, I only have limited time, what do I want to do? What are the final things I want to do? I feel like that almost makes it worse. It just makes it like, oh don't try to hang on. Transitions are always just bittersweet, they're just weird feeling. It's exciting to go to a new place, but once you're used to somewhere. I mean, I've been gone long enough, I'm even starting to have fond memories of my hometown, but I won't be back there for a while, but it's like even that, I was so sick of that fucking place. But lately it's been creeping in like, oh yeah, you remember this little walk in this little place and doing this and doing that and seeing this person and that person.

It's always this weird mix of like, I just want to hang on, but also I just want to go somewhere new. So I find the best method is don't fucking think about it. What's the final thing I want to do in South Korea to make sure I get the most out of this? How about nothing? How about don't fucking worry about it? Just be here, soak it in, don't think about it, and then when it's over, it's over. There's my deep fucking thoughts.

Man, it really is pretty today, but I'm standing in the shade right now. That's why it's pretty. Yeah, like I'm just running yesterday's walk through my head in this weather. It's like, oh no, oh no. I'm sure I would have made it, but I don't know, I've gotten heatstroke before. I've gotten terrible sunburns before. Wouldn't be a smart, that's for sure. I think everything worked out yesterday. Pretty fucking good.

Holy sweet fuck, I just got back to the laundromat, so I was like, yeah, there's a Wi-Fi here. Let me just check, what is the weather today? It's 30 degrees Celsius with a high of 32 coming, but the, you know, it feels like weather is currently 38 degrees. That's the highest I've seen on this whole trip. That's fucking insane. So yeah, when I was talking about a heated advisory warning, there is in fact starting this morning, a heated advisory warning. And actually, geez, I just noticed because this is the classic standing outside the laundromat. I always have an awesome view of halacen, but I can't see it today. So yeah, this is the worst of all worlds. It's very clear sky. Yeah, if I look the other way out into the ocean, it's totally blue with just little wisps of clouds, but toward inland, it's cloudy enough that I can't see halacen, and yeah, 38 degrees.

Or 32 in real terms, but what the hell? I mean, don't get me wrong. Yesterday was hot, but that's insane, man. That is fucking insane. Because even just sitting inside the laundromat, I realized like, man, I am dying. I gotta go stand outside to get a breeze. What the hell? So yeah, I mean, that's all. Just a reinforce. Yesterday actually turned out fine. On the heat warning day, the 38, 38. Oh my god. Again, I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but go do your conversion. 38 Celsius to Fahrenheit, and then you'll go, whoa, whoa. Yeah, it's a fucking hot, man. It's fucking hot.

Hold it. Two minutes left on the laundry machine. That's...

And then a half an hour in the dryer. The longest, hottest half hour of all time.

All right, it's the next day. I'm just in my hotel room looking out the window. Man, I kind of knew since I have this problem of having to pee constantly. If I drink too many liquids at night, it's a disaster. Like, I just can't sleep because I just got a pee for ages afterward. So I knew I shouldn't have done this, but last night, pretty late at night, I went down to the little kitchen area in the hotel, had some convenience store, kimchi side dish stuff, put it in one of the noodles that as I discovered recently, even though it's the quote-unquote low-end noodles that they have for free here, there are no low-end noodles. You know, they're still super awesome, but I've noticed a lot of places. They have kind of like a distinct garbage, usually like a vat, possibly with like a strainer on top for your noodles. You know, people don't always drink all the liquid with the noodles. They eat the noodles and then they just pour out what's left. Even I was at this 7-Eleven the other day that was in the shadow of Goonsan, and it's rare for the convenience stores here to have garbages outside, usually you got to go inside. You know, as I think they just don't want people using their garbage if you didn't buy anything, but this one had outdoor garbages, and I noticed it had a specific garbage for noodle remnants, you know. You just, in this case, it was just a plastic garbage can that, you know, you step, you step on the little petal to open the top, because I did. I was like, oh, is this going to be gross? I got to look inside, but it was empty. There was none in there. But the point is, you don't necessarily have to drink all the soup that's left, but I did. I drank it all, and then because it's so spicy, I also needed to drink a bunch of water to counterbalance all the spice. So I mean, I was up all night, and it's like, oh man, I shouldn't be doing this. I mean, I'm going to make my travel day harder than it needs to be if I don't try to get my sleep schedule under control, but hey, whatever, whatever happens happens. I've been pretty lucky with traveling so far. I haven't had any very bad days. But now that the circumnavigation of Jeju is finished, and also just in general in Korea, since in Japan, I was really like every day, like, I got to go somewhere, I got to do a thing, I got to soak it in, and it just hasn't felt that way in Korea. In Korea, it's much more casual. I'm just like, I'm here for twice as long.

If I just take a, you know, I just fuck off for a day and just do nothing useful. That's fine. Who cares? So I'm kind of back to that. Now that I finally finished the circumnavigation, it's like, yeah, I was up all night. Today is kind of a write-off. Who the fuck cares? Who the fuck cares? It doesn't matter. And it's overcast again today. It's only 28 degrees feels like 30, as opposed to 32 feels like 38. It might have even gotten higher than that on the feels like scale.

Still hot, but less brutal today. But I'm just looking out the window in my hotel, and through the gap between a couple of hotels across the street, I can see the bay, and I can see this one. Well, let me get the name. Fuck it. If this is going to be my tribute, my tribute to Jeju, the scuba diving place across for me, there's spraying down equipment.

So there are several islands out in the bay that you're not allowed to go to.

But if I had to guess, the one I'm looking at, oh yeah, there we go. I can just click on the photos on Google Maps. Yep, that, uh, that island profile matches what I'm looking at. So this is the Sea Opsium, S-E-O-P-S-E-O-M. Actual pronunciation?

Your guess is as good as mine. And this is interesting on the Google Reviews, an uninhabited island, but it says it's a very good dive point. I know a lot of these islands off the coast, you're not allowed to go to because they're, you know, like an ecological reserve. Very nice to walk the paths to Ramsey, Upsan Island. That's interesting. So you're allowed to go to that one.

This is not a tourist destination. It's an island visited by those who enjoy sea fishing. So I guess if you got your own boat, if you can get there, you're allowed to go there. That's very 20:00 interesting. I didn't know that. Anyway, the point is it's this awesome view that I love that I've been seeing, you know, for over two months now. I'm very used to it. And even just the sound of this neighborhood. I mean, this kind of sums it up is just sometimes there's people in the parking lot talking occasionally a bus or a scooter goes by. The scuba gear guys are scubaing it up.

However, since they are doing work, I will step away from the window while I finish up this ramble because I guess the only point I wanted to make is that maybe I'm feeling a little sentimental because I only slept for five hours. I feel a little fucked up. But I was like, yeah, what do I do with myself today? Do I try to sleep in more? That usually doesn't go that well. I don't really think I can. If I get up, I got to push myself. But I mean, I guess that's just what I'll do. And it was looking out the window and seeing that view and just seeing that it's not horrifyingly hot today. It's pretty overcast. It should be good enough that I can at least go uptown. And I was just like excited to do it. Like, yeah, I don't care that I'm tired. I don't care that I didn't get a lot of sleep. I want to go have a nice little walk across Seguapo. And then I just started thinking out to like this place in particular is so cool because, you know, I got to know the different neighborhoods in Tokyo pretty well. And I got to know Seoul at least different ways to approach Bukansen. I know there's a lot of Seoul I did not see. Jetchan, you know, I knew it okay. Didn't explore as far out into the surrounding areas as I could have. Busan again. I think there's a lot of Busan I didn't see, but I had a sense of it. But it's just different in Jeju because I mean, I spent two fucking months walking around it. Like, it's just so neat that I can cast my mind out and just imagine all the directions.

And, you know, they're not necessarily accessible in some of those places are very long fucking bus rides. You can't just take a hop skip and a jump and just like, oh, I'll just go over there. But this whole coastline I could, doesn't take that long to get to Goonsan, doesn't take that long to go the other way just to go to the beach where there's a fucking idea coffee. I'm sure I'll do that at least once in the week I got left just to go to a Dia. But then when it is time to go up to the airport, like I'm just like, like that I can just mentally like, oh yeah, and this is the way to get up there. This is the bus route. This goes here. But if I did go further, like I know that that's over there, even like Silly Landmarks, like it's not all just the cool impressive touristy stuff. It's also like, oh yeah, I know I go up here and go down this way and there's a burger king, you know, they're pretty rare on this island, but I know how to get to a mind just. I'm definitely going to miss Jeju because I really just feel like I know it. Like, oh yeah, there's that beach where I got stranded in the middle of the night. You know, I don't remember all the names off the top of my head. I only remember the names usually while I'm in that area and then I forget. But I know the places. I know where they are. I know how it connects.

I know how to get there. I never did go up the big volcano and especially in this weather, that would be goddamn insane. It's already already determined that it was a difficult thing to do, but it would be double insane now. Maybe when I first got here, it was hot, but it wasn't like, you're going to die. But even without that, even the fact that I didn't do with the big, obvious thing, I did so much other stuff. I just feel so, man, I mean, I definitely, again, I guess like I was saying before, it's best not to dwell on it. There's no point. I've been here for a long ass time. There's no point getting all like, oh, I'm going to miss Jeju and I'm still here for almost a week. Like, I just, just be here, man. I just do it. You know, you're here. So just go soak it in. If you love it so much, go soak it in. And that's what I'm going to do. But yeah, for the South Korea part of this journey, at the very least, it's just, man, I feel like if I had to pick a place that feels kind of like home, like I had that feeling in in Japan, mainly with Mount Abura, you know, by Umabayashi Station in Fukuoka and Akigawa in Western Tokyo or the two main places. And then on this trip, I'd say I'd add Yokohama in there. I felt incredibly comfortable in Yokohama. Like, if I do make it back to Japan, I very much am going back to Yokohama. And yeah, I'm definitely just putting Jeju there. Jeju. God, I like Jeju. So good. Like, even just this random view out my window, you know, that I'm only seeing a bit of the bay between two buildings. You know, the, uh, the island does 25:00 pop up above one of the buildings. It's like a surprisingly decent view, even just through the window. And all I got to do is walk a block over there and I'll be behind those hotels and the the coastline will be right there, the whole coast. And just that that there's 200 kilometers of that shit. And I saw it all, man. I saw it all. Yeah, that's all. I'm just rambling. I got to fucking, uh, get my big floppy sun hat on and, uh, go walk through this shit. That's beautiful, man. I love it. The AQI for most of the time that I was here was not terrible. Very few bad days, but it did hover a little above 50 most days. It wasn't super amazing. But now that the weather has become unbearably hot, I don't know if there's a connection. I guess there is because it seems like winter is the more polluted time of year. But yeah, it's just been in the green for days now. So the pollution's gone way down. The temperature's gone way up. But it's just beautiful. It's just a beautiful place. Now, whenever since I noticed that little crab, again, maybe this has something to do with the time of year, ever since I noticed a crab on that ancient horse trail the other day, I've seen two other crabs not near the water just scuttling around one of them right by here. And that's just cool, too. There's just crabs around. It's just beautiful, man. If you do make it to South Korea, I can't recommend it enough. It's such an inexpensive domestic flight from Busan. I was thinking the other day when I was walking on the Ola trail right before I get to Wallabong that, you know, when there are parts of the Ola trail where I find the arrows a little tough to to follow. Or there's like a walkway that's a bit starting to deteriorate a little or whatever. I was thinking that's what I would do if I was just like an old Korean man who lived here on this island is I'd get in touch with that Ola trail team and just be like, hey, can I just like help out like be a flanner? You know, can I just I'm just going to walk this fucking thing probably over and over. I'll just walk around the island till I die one day. Say, what if I just take little notes? You know, just let you know if there's something that needs addressing on the trail or something. I don't know. That'd be such a fun retirement job. Just just walk around the trail. Just keep on walking. And I keep thinking ever since about like, what? Where could you do this in Canada? Because apparently that was the inspiration for this trail was I don't remember where the original was South America maybe. But somebody was traveling and there was a similar type of pilgrimage trail. And they thought like, hey, man, when I go back home to Jeju, maybe I could do that. And then they did. I don't know. I can't think of any places in Canada where this would be especially doable. Maybe in the greater Vancouver area, maybe? There's still, you know, limited shoreline in Canada. There's always developments along the shore. You can't really walk along shorelines for long periods anywhere that I've seen. And there's always, again, the insect issue and the weather and a lot of problems that can happen.

But it's just such a cool thing. Just such a great thing.

But all right, I've been staring at this fucking island long enough. I'm going to go outside and go across the fucking street and go stare at it from even closer.

So, it's only like an hour later, I'm just walking through my hood, through the waterfall park, looking at all the gorgeous coastal stuff. And it's so neat, like I was just saying about how I can cast my mind to the different parts of the island. And so, this little washroom that's down here by the, by the waterfront. I never noticed it till just today, but way above, above the urinals, if you look way up, there were some pictures, little framed pictures of little sub-islands, little mini-islands. But I was looking at them and it's like, dude, that's so cool, like I know what all those are. There's one that's very near here, it's like a big, almost rectangular island that I can't quite see from right here, but as soon as I get up this hill, I'll be able to see it. So I'm like, guy, right, that's the local one, that makes sense. But then I saw the little dual islands, it's like these two little, very distinctive rocks. They're probably not little, actually, they just say little 30:00 because they're way out at sea. But they're obviously big enough and notable enough that somebody put a frame picture of them up, and I know what they are. That's way west, over by horse mountain. That's where there's the, the island reported by a Dutch sailor in the 1600s. The first time the western world became known at this part of the world. To fire this point south in all of Korea, and then it's part of that. These little dual islands that are apparently popular for sunrise and sunset selfies. Probably just popular for photography back in the day, but that has become the selfie in the modern era. Oh, there's a little break as I walk up this hill. I have a perfect view of sea up sea on that island I was looking at through my window earlier. But yeah, then I went to wash my hands and the picture over by the sink was the sunrise island, the one that cost five dollars to go up. And that's the one that's way east. The one where the, the bus transfer happens where you're going to get dumped out in the middle of the night if you get on the bus too late. But that's so cool that those aren't even local things. One of them's local. The other two are real far away, but it's like I know what those are. I know where they are. That one's east, that one's west. I know how to get to them. I've seen them have been there. It's just so cool. It feels so cool. Jeju, I was going to say it's a nice digestible size. But yeah, if you can stay for two and a half months, yeah, it's a very digestible size.

It's still big. But I was also kind of thinking about this whole trip in general. Now that the end of the clock's ticking down and I got my flight to Taiwan all set up and I got a couple air B and B's lined up. And yeah, it's just, I mean, that I knew nothing coming in. Nothing but what little bit I picked up from Korean pop culture. I didn't even know that there was a six-month visa waiting for me. And pretty much everything looks better to me in hindsight. It's just the way my brain is wired. It's very much a rose-colored glasses type of thing. And not the deep past. I don't tend to really dwell on that a whole ton. The more or less modern past, you know, the last, I don't know, whatever, 10, 15 years type of past or even just the last six months. Because yeah, I was thinking how I didn't know a ton going into visiting Korea. And my hope was, hey, hopefully, especially to me since I can't speak either language or read other language, maybe it'll just feel like a little more time in Japan. I'll just go to this other place that has seven, elevens everywhere. And as I've talked about many times, but just how, how shocking the change was from Tokyo to Seoul. Being there in the winter, it being just a giant city, it being way more disheveled than the rest of South Korea. And just the pollution hammer, you know, just how incredibly bad all that was.

That not only did I kind of at that point just sort of write off like, yeah, jeez, I don't know about this. This is definitely not what I had hoped. This is not the nice fun extension to visiting Asia that I had hoped. That was also the only time I ever looked into braking an Airbnb lease and realized I couldn't. It was non-refundable because I just got, you know, this super cheap share house. But that I legitimately felt that. Like, I can't believe I've, I've got five more weeks here. How can I fucking do this? It's so depressing and polluted every fucking day. And then, you know, I slowly found ways to approach Buconson, took some time. But I unraveled that enough and it's just such a beautiful national park. That alone very much tipped the scales and made Seoul feel worth it. But I was thinking that even just in general, even by the end of Seoul. Again, just because, you know, you just got to be at a place for a while and just accept what it is and just forget about your preconceived hopes and just let it be what it is. I do remember my, because my Airbnb was in an awesome spot, my, uh, share house.

Oh man, what was that neighborhood called? Come on, brain, we can remember.

It was by Hangek University. I at least I remembered that. But it was the stop next to that. There was like a cool clubbing area where on the weekend, like, there was mega loud club music. You didn't have to go in the club just walking by. It was like, thump, thump, thump, holy fuck. Damn, I'm gonna have to look it up. I don't remember the name of that 35:00 neighborhood. Oh, no way. Do I not have a pre-downloaded map of Seoul anymore? I guess not. I guess not. It'll come back to me. It'll suddenly pop into my mind within the next 10 minutes. I'll suddenly remember. But even by the end of my time in Seoul, I remember just that across the street from that share house was a burger king and, and it was a beautiful view just waiting for the, the walk sign to come on just across that street and go from the burger king at the end of the day. I would usually stop in the burger king and then head across the street to my place. And that view crossing that street was so beautiful with all the cars parked to Seoul had to be careful about scooters because they're fucking maniacs. They only vaguely follow traffic rules. But I guess that view really sticks with me because it was always nighttime as well. You know, daytime was when it was all because on the other hand, I remember like the first time I went to the river near there and just looked across the river into this haze, this horrible haze, the sun just barely breaking through the haze and just seeing endless city and it looked like fucking dune or something. It's like that looks so awful. Why would I ever even want to go out there? Why would I want to explore this? It just looks like a nightmare. But at night, at night crossing that intersection and just looking down the street and you can see way down the street and that's like a huge big built-up part with tons of just huge buildings everywhere and all the lights of the night, the nightlife lights and just like all the cars parked and it's just beautiful. Like I was even even at the time, I remember thinking as I walked across that intersection like I'm going to kind of miss that view. That's just it feels cool. It feels good. And then yeah, everything basically went all uphill from there. So when I look back at the totality of this South Korea trip, it turned into exactly what I initially hoped it would be. Now that I'm prepped, now that I'm ready, now that I know how things work more around here. Oh wow, I actually connected to Wi-Fi. I noticed there's a lot of Wi-Fi near public restrooms which probably ties into how there's the emergency button at all the restrooms. Yeah, the public Wi-Fi situation is, I think almost literally a thousand times better in South Korea than it is in Japan. Man, public Wi-Fi was hard to find in Japan. Very easy to find in South Korea. Hap-je-ong. I would not have remembered that. Hap-je-ong station is where I stayed.

I guess it seemed easier to remember at the time because it was the first place I stayed. Where in the meantime, I've had to remember, I've had to try to remember dozens of similar names and I failed very much though. But yeah, I'd say things turned out actually much better even than I kind of realized they were. Because initially I was like, oh jeez, I don't know about this. And then I kind of moved to the point of like, oh okay, now things are feeling more comfortable. Like next time I visit Japan or next time I'm in this part of the world, I'll absolutely come back to South Korea. I'll go to Busan and stuff. It'll be great. But I still thought like, yeah, but you know, I wouldn't take the expense of the flight halfway around the world if it weren't for Japan. You know, this was still the side dish to Japan. But at this point, especially between Busan and Jeju, I don't even feel like that anymore. Now I feel like for whatever reason, if Japan just decided one day, you know what, we're closing all our borders. No one can ever come here again. I would totally fly back to Asia to come to South Korea now. I would absolutely do it. There's so much good shit here. It just took a little while. Took a little while to untangle the knot, you know.

Yeah, that's also kind of why I do this podcast. I mean, you know, I've been making jokes about it the whole time, but it is true that it's a weird idea. Just the audio podcast where I'm just describing stuff. It's a weird thing. And if you've been here all this time, thank you very much. I greatly appreciate it. You know, hopefully it's more or less evocative. I mean, I guess you can pretty obviously tell that I'm by the the putting place, the golf place where all the old folk play some form of golf. It's not mini golf. It's not proper golf. I don't know what it is, but it's some golf adjacent game. But whenever I listen back to stuff, like even if nobody ever listened to this podcast, I don't know. I feel like I might still do it. It's just like a weird audio scrapbook. 40:00 Because again, just the way my brain is that things really sink in in hindsight a lot of times, even recent hindsight. And whenever I listen back, it's like, oh, yeah, I'm just like transported back to that day. It's like, oh, she's what an interesting feeling. I sort of feel like I'm there again. I'm like, whoa, cool. And that's just the general way that my brain is built. You know, the type two fun model doesn't always have to be that fun in the moment. It'll seem really cool even just very soon afterward. So yeah, just looking back at this last six months, man.

Man, what a delightful turnaround. So it's just nice, you know, feels good.

And it's nice just to take some of that pressure off of Japan. Because Japan was so, it's like a revolutionary trip to me in 2019. It's like, man, I can't believe how great that was. And then immediately I just locked down and stuck in my hometown and spent the next four years thinking about Japan. And then it kind of goes by. I mean, I was there 90 days. It was a long visit. I did a lot of stuff. But at the same time, it goes back quickly.

It's a lot of pressure to put on one place. And like, oh, this is the place. And make the most of your visit and soak it all in. And like, it's nice to diffuse that a little. It's nice to just get comfortable with the area, with just this, with just this part of the world in general.

And yeah, it was a weird feeling at first to think like, oh, geez, maybe this isn't going to happen. Maybe, you know, it was like I was putting more pressure on Japan initially. Because I was like, oh, geez, I cannot believe it. I am not fitting in in soul. Damn it. So everything has turned around in a very fucking nice way. And here we are, the top of the park, where you can look down into the grotto and see the waterfall. It's overcast enough today that my view of Halasen in the background is not great. I can only see it a bit. I can still see it a bit. And yeah, just this perfect view of the waterfall. Awesome, man. It's so awesome. I was thinking it is weird since this is one of the areas where, you know, it costs a couple dollars to go down and see the waterfall. It is almost a little weird that you can just see it for free up here. When this is arguably better, I don't know how they would ever charge you, though, for this one. It'd be very hard to corden this off. But I just noticed also that there is a tree here in front of me in the middle of the view, but they have strategically removed a couple limbs. So there's like two spots from up here where you can see the waterfall. I say, yeah, if they wanted to, they could try to obscure it. They could be like, nah, you're not allowed to see the waterfall. And they should pay two bucks.

But no, they are on your side. They're like, yeah, go ahead, man. Go ahead. Go see the cool, the cool waterfall from up in the air.