#179 Approaching Yinghanling in insane heat

Transcript

Well, shoot. I am trapped under an awning next to a 7-Eleven. You know what? To be fair. I was about to say it's raining harder than I've ever seen it rain since I've been traveling around Asia. But to be fair, I think it actually in the time it took me just to pull out this little recorder. I think it has slowed down. I mean, the sky is just a sheet of gray. So I don't have any particular faith that this rain is going to stop. But it did start real suddenly. So I don't know. We'll see. Basically, I got up today. So last episode, which was yesterday for me, I saw this cool looking mountain across a river. And I was like, oh, that looks fucking red. Apparently, I can walk across this bridge. And then if I can get around to the back of the mountain, there's a hiking trail. But I should probably try to get started, you know, early-ish in the day because it gets dark really early in Asia. Especially in Taipei, because the time zone is an hour different from South Korea and Japan. And I was like, yeah, well, I don't need to do that today. I'll take a day off. But I just, you know, got up. I don't know. I did some laundry, had something to eat. And I'm just like, man, fuck it. I just, I don't want to hang out inside all day. Fuck that.

And you know, it was a little overcast, a little rainy, but that's kind of a good thing because, you know, takes care of the insane sun. So I was like, let's just go. Let's just go. Like, even if I don't really make it, you know, I'll just like go cross the bridge. And even just to explore on the other side of the river, because it's not clear through Google Maps exactly how to get around to the back to the hiking trail. The mountain, by the way, it's called Ying Hanlin, Y-I-N-G-H-A-N-L-I-N-G. There's Ying Hanlin Trail entrance of Guanyin Mountain, Ying Hanlin. Oh, maybe that's why I couldn't find it. Guanyin Mountain. So what the hell is Ying Hanlin then? If that's not the name of the mountain. Maybe it's two mountains next to each other? I don't know. At our time, find in height information about this place.

We have learned that on Google Maps, especially around mountains. A lot of times, I don't know if there's like a dead end or something. Maybe you can get your way through on foot. Like, maybe it doesn't work as a car, but there might be a pedestrian way where I've learned already around here. Not to count on that at all because this mountainous stuff is just the terrain. The terrain is brutal, just all of a sudden. Major gorges and stuff and impassable cliff faces. And it's just like, you really, if it says you can't pass on Google Maps, I'm taking its word for it. So by the looks of it, once I get across the river, it might be quite a walk. I'm really not sure. But I thought, even if I just experiment with that, even if I don't actually make it up the mountain at all, like, hey, whatever, you know, it even sort of takes the pressure off starting a bit later in the day, like it's already quarter to three. It'll be dark by seven o'clock. By seven thirty, like, I could not be on a mountain. But I was like, yeah, maybe I'll just go over there and wander around. And yeah, it was a little bit overcast, but you know, in kind of a good way, give it to the sun. But yeah, geez, at this station, I met Gwando station, G-U-A-N-D-U. It seems like the closest one to the bridge. And everything was fine. And I stopped into the washroom. And as usual, one squat toilet, one western toilet. This is the land of equal opportunity for squat toilets. Just in the time I was in there, I came out and like I said, it was raining harder than I think I've ever seen at rain. But yeah, it's already come down to normal rain at this point. So maybe, I don't know. I mean, like it started so fast, but came out almost nowhere. Maybe it'll go away, I didn't know where. I don't know. But right now, I'm just standing under the awning because it's like, I can't, I can't. I can't. Dude, look at how heavy this rain is. I do have an umbrella, but this is fucked. And I'm basically heading like to a bridge and then across a bridge, like, total exposure. There's quite a bit of awning action still in Taiwan, but there was a lot more in the central city.

By Shimen, the Shimen neighborhood where I started off my first couple of weeks. It was awning city. There's less awnings now. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe if I go out and walk through it, you know, like, maybe it'll all just clear up. But I feel like the responsible thing to do is just stand here for a bit, just in case. Yeah, I mean, it is, it's definitely calming down. Definitely, so that's good. 5:00 That's all reason I pulled out this recorder really is because I wanted to catch a little moment of the crazy rain, and I don't even think I got it. See, yeah, maybe this will be all right. Now, there's some taxi cabs. There's a bunch of them here. That'd be funny. Like, can you just take me to this mountain, please? On scooter delivery men, these poor fuckers. This is a day. Oh, Jesus, though, this guy's wearing kind of like just the plastic slippers, like you wear in the shower room. He's basically just wearing that as he does food pain delivery on his scooter. But that's a kind of a good footwear for this weather. Yeah, this guy, too, is running across toward me. Just sandals. Good rain equipment. Yes, the other thing is I don't have any layers. I don't have like my weather resistant jacket. I don't even have a long sleeve shirt. All I got is a t-shirt because the weather's been so insanely hot. I can't even conceive of ever needing a layer. But I don't know in this weather and I had that. I had my little 7-11 folded up little rain thing that I realized I never used. Literally, just yesterday, I took it out of my pack and put my passport in there instead. Now, it's like, oh, Jesus, of course, the day after I take it out, it's like, Jesus, that would actually be great right now. I could put that on right now. Fuck me. So dumb. And the rain is coming down not sideways now. Now it's only at a 30-degree angle. It's just so hard to stop, I guess. Like, obviously, the thing to do is just stand here for 10-15 more minutes. It can't be a bad thing to do. No bad can come of that. I just am so like, I just want to go. I just want to be walking. I hate standing still. Doing this little recording is the only thing keeping me standing here. But yeah, I think this has calmed down enough. I'm not willing to give up yet. I think I am going to head out. Head out into this rain and just see how it goes. See what happens. Hope for the best.

All right. Well, that didn't go too bad. The rain did not go away, but it sort of stayed at a, a dull roar, not too bad. My pant legs are super duper wet. Everything else isn't too bad. But yeah, I made it to the bridge. It wasn't the shortest walk in the world. I had to walk down to Guandu Temple because there's like a big mountain just right in the way of getting to the water. Down around to Guandu Temple and then up around to the Guandu Bridge. And I could see the mountain across the water. It was real pretty, but the top was all covered over in misty clouds. Yeah, it was far too rainy though to take it any further. It's like, all right, that's enough. Yeah, I was kind of neat in a way, just doing a little rain walk, even though I'm all wet now. I just got ahead home, but being in rain world, because as I was approaching the bridge, I really didn't see anybody. And then there was an old guy with a bicycle just standing under one of the smaller, like ramps heading up to the bridge. Just standing there with his bike just waiting for the rain to stop, which it still hasn't. So I don't know, I guess eventually he probably just had to sally forth. But yeah, just gave him a little nod hello, and then later on, I saw a stray dog walking around and then another one and another one, it was a group of like five of them. Just five dogs. I'll just hang it out. Still, it's still slightly eerie to me when that happens, because stray dogs are just not really a thing in North America.

But I don't know, they seem nice enough. They were just doing their own thing. But it is like a slightly different world when it's all rainy. The average person is, I guess, has the common sense enough not to just go walking through it. But it's kind of cool, kind of nice in a weird way. But I at least made it to the bridge. So it can be done, and there's definitely a walking path across the bridge.

Yo, it's the next day. Very hot today. Very sunny.

So I just walked by some construction guys that some of them were working, but some of them were taking a break. Speaking of the devil. Obviously they're going to be, you know, worn out from working.

It's a bit into the afternoon by now. Oh, here's all those dogs. Those dogs I saw in the rain, they still are here. They live here, I guess. Hey, doggies. Yep, there's fall five. Look at that. Weird.

The bike symbol here for this bike lane is an old timey bicycle with a huge front tire, a tiny back tire. Yeah, obviously they're tired out from working, but also just, you know, from the body language, just mopping their brows, sitting in the shade. You can tell that this heat is getting to them because this intense heat warning, you know, like the, I guess that's what it's called just a heat warning. That was actually kind of rare while I was in South Korea. I didn't see a ton of official heat warnings. Where here, this is so fucking crazy. It's just like heat warnings every day. Every day, today's like 35 degrees Celsius. And anyway, just seeing those guys, it's just, I don't know in a way, it's just like, like I just assumed because I'm not from here and I'm not from this climate. Like I was saying last episode about how I, you know, I don't actually have, and like people from the North don't actually have any way to, to survive any better against cold. We're just trained to never get caught in the cold without the appropriate clothing.

So I think it's kind of the same here. I just assumed that everybody must just be used to this heat, you know, like they can just deal with it better than me. But I don't know if that's true. I think everybody is just getting fucked in the face, which makes sense. It's really fucking hot.

But I don't know, it's one of those neat things about traveling. It does just kind of dissolve your weird assumptions that turn out not to be true. It's just a little thing. Heat is heat, hot is hot. People don't like being crazy hot. But just to see it for real, it's like, yep, we're all in this together, brother. You know, it's almost weird, though, that it's so sunny and clear today because speaking of these fucking weird heat waves and stuff, when I looked at the weather for today, it said possibility of thunder, so I actually brought my little disposable raincoat. I'm going to make sure I bring it with me from here on in.

But yeah, it was intense heat, clouds, lightning, thunder, rain. Not just today, not just tomorrow, all fucking week. I thought I was looking at like just today, you know, like the hour by hour breakdown. I was like, did I make a mistake? But now it's the whole week totally unchanged, almost identical weather forecast for every single day. And it's all a nightmare.

So yeah, the rain could come at any time. There are clouds, but they're not very ominous, and it's mostly clear today in very warm out. I think I might, when I put away this recorder, I think I might break out the umbrella just for shading properties. Like on this little path I'm on, it's at least semi-shaded. But once I get out onto the bridge, I just not in the mood to get fucked by this, by this sun. And I don't have a big floppy sun hat anymore. I left that thing in South Korea. So I can just feel it. Even though I've got suntan lotion on, I can feel it on the back of my neck. It's like, I just don't want to, I want to deal with this. Fuck you, sun. Yeah, I'm back on the same path I was on. Shit, there's a train going by.

That caught me off guard. A train snuck up on me somehow. I'm back on the same path I was on in just that last segment from yesterday. Heading toward the Guandu Bridge. I went one-stop past Guandu Station and just walking back from there just because it's a little more direct. It was a bit circuitous to get to the bridge, but yeah, there it is. I can see it in front of me. The scene's so bad. Pretty short walk.

The heat on my neck. Fuck you. Oh, God. I mean, at least the top of the mountain is very clear today. Certainly not missed it over. It appears that from this side, once I get to the other side of the bridge, there's a hiking path through the foothills because there's really no foothills on the ocean side. It just drops right over to the shore. But away from the ocean side of these mountains, it's actually a pretty extensive, much smaller mountain range that's, you know, like a quarter or a third is high. And it seems like there's a walking path through there. God, though, I cannot believe this. I can really feel this heat. This is fucking crazy. I just feel like I'm baking. Shit. So I don't know, man. We'll see. You know, I've been doing okay. Fighting through this hot, hot heat.

But to go to the middle of nowhere in this hot, hot heat. It's just not a great plan. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. We'll fucking see. I'm going to try to see how it goes, but yikes.

But man, the other thing, I'll just say there's one last yammer before I get to the bridge. And yeah, I'm definitely pulling out my umbrella once my hands are no longer filled with recording equipment, because this is fucking crazy.

But man, one thing, the humidity's really been fucking with me where this new place has a washing machine, which is nice. The other place didn't. It just, you know, had, had used coin laundry, but coin laundry is not too expensive here. It's actually cheaper. Then it was in Japan or South Korea so far. But it's like, eh, nice though, washing machine. And it's not just me and Cody from America. There is a third guy whose name I didn't catch, because both he and Cody are constantly on the phone on their little Bluetooth phone. I always have to take a gander if I see them. You know, I don't know. It's funny. Like, bombed into Cody, because I mean, like, I guess I'll let you. This is like how, how I do stuff, I guess, with people that I don't really know, but just to make sure everything socially goes smoothly. As I do just load up a couple of conversation topics, you know, just in case we're bumping each other in the living room and it's time for a little matter. Just things to get it rolling, just so I'm ready to go. Just going to stop in this little shaded area for a sec. So I was going to say, because this place only has four rooms, and there's only three of us there, that that's just amazing to have two full bathroom washroom, wet room, shower room, whatever's for four rooms, and only three people, like, it's amazing, you know, and even with just the three of us there. There have been a couple of times where somebody's using one of the washrooms, and I go use the other one. So that was going to be my first thing. It's just like, man, when I was in Seoul, I stayed at the sharehouse where it was like one shower, essentially, functionally one shower for like 20 rooms.

But the upside is it was like $16 a day, which, what is that? American like 12? Actually, you know, I got a cash converter app while I was trying to learn what the new Taiwan dollar is worth. So I can see how much 16 dollars Canadian, jeez, not even $12. 11 dollars and 66 cents. I was close though. But yeah, that was going to be my thing. I was just going to say like, man, I stayed in Seoul, and yet it was nuts. This place was that ludicrously under bathroom, but it was super cheap, you know, just there you go, just a little start things off. Nice way to say, hey, I've been here. Here's the thing. And then just go from there, but I've never even had the opportunity because this guy is always on his phone, which again, hey, I don't care, whatever.

But yeah, it's like almost like the stereotypical like office space, you know, type of shit, where just you're on your phone all the time. Switch that back to new Taiwan dollar, 16 new Taiwan dollars is 68 cents Canadian. And yeah, this other guy is the same. So I don't even know his name. I don't even know his story.

Oh, sweat, sweat on my brow. God damn, there's just no way that going up a mountain today. It's just really this can't be the right thing to do.

Anyway, even with so few of us there, so we got a washer, but no dryer. We just got to hang up stuff to dry, but there's a hanger out on the back balcony, and there's a hanger in the apartment. There's plenty of places to hang stuff. But I noticed there was a bit of a log jam with that. There is still like a lot of clothes hanging up, even with just so few of us, and I'm starting to figure out why. Because having to hang up your clothes to dry, I learned in Fukuoka that the best way to do it is to do your laundry often, you know, little bits and just hang them up to dry, so it doesn't take that long. But I've done two little waves of laundry, and I've started to notice that my laundry just smells bad. It just smells like musty and weird. And I thought maybe it was the machine is not strong enough or not good. I think it might use cold water, and it's all in Chinese. It's very hard to figure out. I just said it to auto, just do whatever you automatically do, because otherwise I don't know. 20:00 So I think that could contribute, but I'm starting to think it might be a combination. You know, I don't think this washing machine is like completely blasting my clothes with super cleanliness. But I think the other and probably bigger problem, here comes the train.

Is that I'm learning about humidity? All right, I'm going to start walking toward the bridge. All right, let's do this. Yeah, like I just never really, you know, I'm learning a lot about humidity. You know, I just have never lived in an environment super humid like this. So when I grew up in Eastern Canada, we never had a clothes dryer. My mom still doesn't have a clothes dryer to this day. But it was never really a big issue, because in the summer we had hanging up clothes to dry, and they would dry, and that's all good. And in the winter, it was slightly trickier, but we had a great big old house, like a big three story, ancient house, with just a furnace in the basement that just pumped air out through many events throughout the house. So you could just put your clothing, just hang it up over the various radiator holes or whatever, the heat holes, the heating grates, and it just dried the clothes and it was never an issue, because it's dry, just dry. Any time of year, quite dry. So I guess it's pretty basic science, just if there's humidity in the air, then there's nowhere for the humidity and wetness on your clothes to go. You know, it can't evaporate and spread out into the air, because the air is full already. The air's got enough fucking humidity in it. And you know, it's like I guess I functionally understand that, but I don't really, it's just one of those things, because I never grew up with it, I don't really understand the science of how there's humidity in the air. I don't get it, man, you know. I mean, I guess you can kind of think of air as a liquid that we're all just moving through, and that sort of helps a little, but I don't know. I'm willing to admit when I'm stupid about something, there's just something I don't rock about, humidity in the air. But anyway, these results of it are very clear that my clothes just won't fucking dry. So that explains why there's always clothes up to dry, because it's just even though it's only three of us, we're trying to get our clothes to dry, and they just won't dry. So like these pants I'm wearing right now, I put these pants through the wash two days ago, and they're just not fucking dry, it's insane. If you put your wet pants out to dry in a Canadian summer, they'd be dry in like a fucking hour. They wouldn't have big wet patches in two days, and that's where I gave them a little smell test, and it's like, yeah, the parts like around the pockets and down by the cuffs that are still wet, they are definitely the parts that smell the worst. So I think that's really the problem. It might be an underpowered washing machine, but I think it's just the gross, mildewy, moldy, whatever the fuck mustiness of clothes just never fucking drying. And it's just so weird that like all the parts of the world to deny the clothes dryer, like this whole part of the world, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan now. I mean, it seems like they're all quite famous for not having clothes dryers. They hang up, they're close to dry, but that shit doesn't work here. You can't do that, it doesn't work. So I was like, what the hell is this man? What's going on? Alright, I'm on the bridge, I'll try not to yammer too much because it's obviously louder.

Yeah, I also noticed all the public washrooms in all of the train stations.

They all have big electrical fans plugged in to blow air through there, because I got to assume it just turns into a moist, humid mess if you don't force the air to flow through.

So I was thinking of various ways I could try to deal with this situation and work around it. And it's just like, what am I doing? Who the fuck cares? It's a nice bonus to have a washing machine, but I just don't want to deal with this fucking shit. I'm just going to go do laundry at a laundromat tomorrow. Fuck this.

But yeah, I guess also, I mean, I really don't have coping strategies. I don't quite know what I'm doing wrong or what I could do different because I didn't even know this was going to happen. Oh yeah, as a test, too, once I started realizing that my stuff was just wet forever, because my clothes are so disgustingly sweaty after these days of hiking around. I went and touched my shirt, you know, in my laundry bag from yesterday, and it's still damp, and it's like, that is fucking gross. It won't dry. Why won't it dry? And I mean, the magic word is humidity. 25:00 Yeah, like I said, laundry is not that expensive around here. And I mean, I like laundry. I like taking a day off to do laundry once in a while. It's actually kind of more comfortable than jockeying for space, getting in the way of my roomies, my temporary roommates.

But yeah, socks, shirts, everything just smells a bit weird. This actually feels a lot better now that I'm on the bridge and there's a stronger breeze. The sun feels a lot less oppressive.

So maybe this won't be so bad. And yeah, the mountains right there, dude, assuming I can find the path, as long as I don't have to just literally walk around the whole mountain, maybe I'll be alright. Maybe I can hold this off today. There's the peak. I'm looking right at it. Maybe I'll see you later today, peak. But if I don't fuck it, that's fine. At the first sign of this being insane, I'm gonna bail the fuck out. Well, I mean to be fair, I guess I already had the first sign that this is insane. If I have a series of signs that this is insane in quick succession with no salvation insight, then I'll bail out.

Well, this is pretty cool. I don't mind this. Man, first off, I mean there's enough shade now that I'm on this little mountain road.

Wow, shades of Japan. Just because you're going through a mountain and you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean there's not going to be a siren.

What is that noise? Wonder if that's like a chicken or a rooster or something, because it's definitely not a noise I'm used to. Don't see it though, whatever it is. But yeah, it's shady enough here that I'm feeling all right. I'm surviving. But when I was out under the open sun, this was funny, because I remember it being a bit of a tug of war. I had the idea to use... umbrella to protect me from the sun, but I never really did it. Well, I tried it one day and it was too windy. But I was always a bit embarrassed about it too. I'm just like, I don't know, it just seemed so uncool to pull out my umbrella when it's hot out. But on Jeju, it was like 32 degrees or 33 degrees. Now that it's like 35-36 today, it's amazing how much you learn about yourself. I just didn't care at all. I had zero compunctions about pulling that thing out.

And as soon as I had it covering my neck and my head, it's like, that's awesome. That is awesome. I mean, it was a dumb thing to be concerned about in the first place. Nobody cares what I do. Nobody thinks I'm cool. That's for sure. Yeah, wandering around Asian countries where I don't speak the language and I don't know anybody. It's the silliest thing in the world is to be like, oh, I don't know. Feels kind of un-rad to pull out my umbrella. Yeah, once it gets hot like this, it turns out that survival easily trumps any of that shit. I didn't need it for too long. Now it's shady enough.

Yeah, this is pretty cool. I would never in a million years have been able to take this route if Google didn't lead me here. Because it's just like a little narrow, windy mountain road. It's actually kind of similar to the one when I was on the way to the sulfur place. But that one was really awful because it had big cliffs on either side blocking me in and it was very busy and like pretty serious traffic. This one is actually narrower, but even though it doesn't officially have anywhere to walk on the sides, there's still just more room in general to get out of people's way. And it's very light traffic. Oh, like here's a little minivan coming, but I think that's the first one I've seen. I maybe saw a little mini truck or two, but it's mostly just an occasional scooter. Feels fine. Feels very comfortable.

Apparently there's somebody doing some work down there, but I can't see them either. It's really jungly, very thick trees everywhere. Quite a bit of of cemetery type stuff, the cemeteries that are built into the side of the mountain, the same as I found to the east of Taipei by the 101 building, past the 101.

Which I guess makes sense because you would want to put cemetery plots on ground that isn't going to be used, right? You know, you need the flat ground around here. It's precious. So you can put your your poor dead on the mountain sides, which weren't going to get used anyway.

Reminds me if there's an issue of the comic, the Sandman, about a super mountainous civilization. And they used to, instead of burying people in the ground, they would quote unquote, bury people by leaving them on the peaks of really high mountains. And then birds would eat them, and that's how they disposed of their bodies.

But yeah, not only would I not have known about this anyway, I would never have had the gumption to just walk down a little weird street that, you know, just kind of winds through some people's rural properties. It's not really clear that it's a through street at all, but it's windy enough with enough little offshoots and stuff. If I didn't have the Google map dots, there's just a zero percent chance I would have done this. So this is neat. This is nice. Kind of enjoying this.

Man, though, getting back to humidity. Oh, I guess just what I was saying too about signs that it's too hot. This recorder, like when I was walking across the bridge, and I put this recorder away, the plastic of this recorder, the Zoom H1N, was hot in my hands. In a way, I've never felt it, like, be physically hot before. Right now, it feels fine. It's a lot brazier and shadier.

But then I stopped in a 7-Eleven and got a second bottle of water. So I got two bottles of water and a big bottle of coffee. And just some dried plums and dried mangoes in my pocket has a snack. But I stopped in the 7-Eleven to buy even more water, just to be on the safe side.

And just when I reached down to stop the MP3, I was listening to my phone was physically hot. Even while it was inside my bag, like, very hot. And I was like, fuck. I'm trying to think, did my phone, I think my phone did turn off due to heat once. But it's because I was using it to do a video call home, instead of using my laptop.

On some very hot day in South Korea. So that wasn't really that it was so hot out. It was just that my phone was on for an extended period. And it overheated.

But this was, yeah, unusually hot. Oh, good. I think I've crested the top. I think I'm going down now.

Oh, here's a little four-wheel drive thingy.

Let me check Google Maps and make sure I'm still going the right way.

Yeah, I'm like halfway to the entrance to the mountain. Yes, I don't know. Again, I still could just bail out. Because I don't know about this in general, but this part is going okay. Yeah, this is really nice. I've still never seen a monkey. I don't know if there are monkeys in Taiwan, but it seems like there's a good chance there would be. And this seems like if I'm going to see one, this feels like the place. This is super jungle town. And you know, still close enough to civilization, like I just stepped aside. Shall I let a car go by? There's power lines. Oh, yes, I keep getting views of the mountain. And now that I'm closer, I'm going to stick with my official guest from last episode that just trying to to look at it versus the national park. I was like, it's just this mountain that I'm heading to seems fucking huge. So I guess 700 meters. But now that I'm closer to it, it looks a lot smaller. I think it is again, just like the prominence of it, just the fact that it's right by the ocean. So I'm seeing the whole thing. It makes it look enormous. But from close up like this, it looks way more like Goonson, which was about 400 meters. So just for the sake of the game, I'm going to stick with 700 as my official guest, because that was my guest from a distance. But now that I'm here, if it turns out to only be like 400 meters, I will not be at all surprised. But it's really tough to tell these things. I'm really not good at judging how tall a mountain is. It is tricky stuff. I mean, I was at some of the places in like Jetchon that were like under 200 meters, and they felt very high up. It's all based on the terrain, really, just on what's around.

But yeah, speaking of humidity, the other thing I wanted to mention, because like my palms are wet, and they just won't dry. They're just wet. And it's just like, oh, and that's one thing too. It's just the humidity and the fact that nothing ever dries out is in North America, I was an anti-fan of hand dryers. I really don't like hand dryers in public washrooms, you know, or you put your hand under them. And then because they're so loud, like I'm very sensitive to sound, I have, you know, earplug style headphones in like all the time. I sleep with rain style white noise. I do not like loud noises and hand dryers inside the little tiny contained environment of a public washroom. This is how I can tell that other people do not interpret sound the way I do. Because if they did, like no one would ever use those things. To me, it is not worth it. It's like just to get your hands dry. It's like a psychic attack, you know, you're causing yourself distress and near pain just to have dry hands. It's not worth it.

And I always thought it was kind of weird too, because I feel like it was drying your hands. I feel like maybe it's just something people haven't experimented with. Because in North America, I say you're wearing a t-shirt. So you rinse, you wash your hands, you rinse them. Then I found if I just rubbed my hand up my arm and then my other hand up my other arm, you know, crosswise, it's kind of nice because you just get, you get a little bit of wetness on your arms. This is assuming you're wearing a t-shirt. And it spreads the water over a greater surface instead of just on the palms of your hands. You know, now it's also some of it is on your arms. And I always found that like literally within 20 seconds, it's basically, it's gone. In 30 seconds, your hands are dry just normally, you know, like there's just no need for a hand dryer. I just am a 100% not a fan of hand dryers. But around here, I was doing that same thing of just like, yeah, you know, wash my hands and then I'll just let them dry, you know, like theoretically, if I met the subway station and I wash my hands. By the time I walk across the concourse to the exit and I reach into my wallet to get my little subway card, my hands will be dry. In North America, they would be dry or like 90% dry. And yeah, I've been noticing that here that nope, my hands are still wet.

And then I rub them on my pants and they're still wet. And I rub them on my shirt and they're still wet. And it's like, will you fuck off? What is happening here? Why are my hands eternally damp? They just won't stop. And yeah, it's just the humidity, man. The air does not cause this fucking water to evaporate.

So I have not started using hand dryers because I still find them distressing to my brain.

But that is certainly something I've been noticing. All right, what do we got here?

Guanyin Shan Trail. So if I continue ahead, a kilometer to Ling-Yong Road, that's where Google Maps is telling me to go. Oh, I met Guanyin Community Gazibo. Wow, I can't believe that thing. Yeah, that's what it is all right. But I can't believe this thing has got its own thing on Google Maps. It's just a little gazibo. It's not exactly a rare find, but all right.

Hey, there's a SpongeBob sticker inside this gazibo. And there's Patrick. Just those two. Oh, and there's a small wasp nest that may not be active, but I'm going to get out of here just in case. But yeah, from here, it's pointing me in a different direction. Oh, I see 1,600 meters to Jiang Shan and 3.5 kilometers to Ying-Han Peak, which I guess is where I'm going.

And there's also a map. Okay, you are here. Yeah, I see there's Jiang Shan not too far. Ying-Han Peak. So yeah, I guess this is just an alternate route to the top. So that is ultimately where I'm trying to get to. But I'm going to follow Google Maps. I'm going to do it with the people on the Google Maps review said. I'm going to take even though it's not as direct. I'm going to go to the entrance of Jiang-Yan Mountain. Because first off, 40:00 it says on this little sign here that there's washrooms and parking, you know, civilization. Where yeah, this other route. It's like, oh yeah, okay. There's just another weird mountain road. I could follow that apparently will take me to the top. But yeah, this is almost eerie. There's nobody here. Even the traffic has stopped. No signs of anything. Where apparently the other one, once I get to the official entrance, they said it's really well developed. It's like literally stairs most of the way up. It's no problem. So yeah, I'm going to continue forward.

Because on my first descent during this wacky weather, I want to be around people. If I fucking collapse halfway up, I would rather be somewhere where someone's going to find me. Nobody's going to find me here. And down in this ravine, there's a washing machine. Someone threw away. Maybe it was a shitty washing machine that left all their clothes smell and weird. I could still get like a smell of my pants once in a while. I was just like, shit. I kind of wish I hadn't a wash them at all. I don't know if this weird mildewy smell is better or worse than sweat smell. They both are bad, but oh, definitely a laundry day tomorrow. But anyway, this is working out pretty well. Even the hand that I'm holding this recorder with is still super clammy, but the other one, after all my yammering, it's actually dry. Like listen, listen to this. I can actually snap my fingers. There's actual dryness. Amazing. Oh, and there's a person even. Wow, I'm smoking a cigarette. All right, I'm going to put this recorder away in the sally forth.

All right, this is pretty cool again. It's good because it's kind of late in the day. It's like four o'clock. Apparently, as I read, it only takes like half an hour to get up to the top of this mountain, so I feel like I should be fine, but it is a little later than I thought. I guess we'll see. Sometimes they have at the entrance to place, sometimes they have the last time you're allowed to go in. So we'll see. Even if I don't make it, I feel like that's fine. This has been a fine day, a super nice walk. The incredible heat reduced to just normal heat, and yeah, it's pretty good. So even if I just got to the mountain and went back, that's all right. But yeah, I got to a more major road and it had a nice arrow this way to the mountain, so it's like, oh, sweet, thank you. But then it did start to get a little concerning because it's this weaving windy road with no sidewalk again, which that was fine on the road. I was just on because it was so little traffic. This one is like a real road with a normal amount of traffic, so I was like, oh, I don't like this. And just as I was getting worried, I saw a sign and a path like a stone path, like a really well-made stone walkway that said this way to the mountain, and still like 1.4 kilometers. It's a bit of a ways. But this path, I guess we'll see if it goes the whole way, but it seems like it does. And I also saw two older guys walking down toward me. Gave them a nice hello.

But on this path, I saw a little shrine thing, like a really simple shrine, just like a little, basically just three walls and a little roof. But inside is what I presume is a Buddha. I don't know for sure, but he looks very Buddha-y. I don't know if there's, I don't know who else might be being worshipped if anyone. But I thought I'd check because South Korea nobody ever left stuff at any of the religious observance places where in Japan, that was always a bit of an odd thing to me. People would leave I think excessive amounts of things and not like spiritual things, but just but just like candy and drinks and stuff from the convenience store. And yeah, I just found it very strange because to me it it read as garbage. And especially when you're on an obscure mountain somewhere and you find a cool shrine and it's just got like a fucking family mart drink there. I did not understand that practice. So I saw some stuff over here, some bottles and things. I thought I'd just come over and see what's the deal in Taiwan. And the deal in Taiwan is very, very, what's the word? Like everything here is important. You know, it's a very streamlined. There's the little statue. There's incense and a little pot with, you know, where you burn the incense that's full of ashes. And there's a lighter. Oh, and there's a container here. What's in there? Inside the container, it looks like it's just incense. And there's a little, a little a salamander looking fella. And yeah, there's two bottles. One of them has water in it, presumably 45:00 just if you need to put out the incense. And then one full of rice. So I don't know what specifically the rice is for. But it must be some religious ceremony thing, you know, spreading the rice or something. Or maybe I don't know. I have no idea what the rice is for. But yeah, bottle rice, bottle water, incense, lighter. That's all. Sleek to the point. All the stuff you need. Cool. Yeah, because it's been a while since I've been in Japan. I sort of forgot about, you know, that I just never, I never came to a good conclusion about that. You know, I mean, I guess the origins are leaving stuff for the mountain spirits and whatnot. Or, you know, even if someone is leaving like, you know, a little tangerine or something, it's still strange, but at least, I don't know, it'll rot away or something. It's leaving the mass-produced candy and stuff. That's where I just really feel like, you know, like what is happening here? This is a convergence of spirituality and modernity that is not working at all. It's just, it's just trash. It's just garbage. And of all the places to not leave garbage, I would think that a shrine would be high on the list. But it seems nobody else does that, just them.