#189 Surviving insane heat to see a movie in Taipei

Transcript

Man, I am in a total heat days today. I don't know what the fuck. So it's very nice day. It's very clear skies. It's actually not, uh, not even a bad AQI today. It's just nice out. But I saw that the temperature is 35 degrees, feels like 42. I also realized, too, uh, since I don't know Fahrenheit, but this is a convenient one, is that 37 degrees, so just a touch higher than it is right now. And that is an insane temperature. It very rarely hits 37. Even here, in Canada, that's, I mean, I'm sure it's happened, but that would be nuts. But 37 degrees Celsius is 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So even though I never bother with trying to figure out the Fahrenheit stuff, I figure, you know, you can Google it. But that one's an easy one. That's a good one to know. 100 degrees Fahrenheit is 37 degrees Celsius. Just to get across the level of fucking insanity, if you're a Fahrenheit person. And yeah, the, the, the feel feels like 42. Did I say, wait, was it 42 or 46? I actually have, uh, Wi-Fi in this metro. Let's see. Yeah, I think it was 46 earlier because now it's 44. 34 degrees feels like 44. 35 degrees feels like 46 earlier. Just goddamn insane. So I thought, first I thought I would go, uh, north of my Airbnb, but I'm starting to realize that these mountains that I see to the north actually are the Ying Hanland mountain that I've already been up to the top of where I saw this amazing beautiful panorama. Super worth it. Very awesome. But it's like, oh, that's, it's not even a different mountain range. That is that mountain. I'm just seeing it from a different vantage point. So I guess there's nothing up there. And it's such, I mean, this is heading out toward the, the big airport. And it's such a tangle of streets and overpasses and crazy shit. I'm like, I don't know, man, I found a hiking path out there that I'm like, oh, maybe I could go check that out. But there's no easy way to get to it. Apparently, it's quite a small hiking path, but that's fine. You know, with this kind of weather, I don't want to be outside too much anyway. But I don't really know how to get there. So I was like, ah, maybe never mind that. Maybe I'll go into She-Man. It's a little, uh, weird to go to a movie, you know, go to a movie theater, just because I can't order tickets online. I can't use the machine in this country.

I probably could in, uh, in Korea. But here, my cards never seem to work. So, you know, it's just that, even just that small, uh, uncomfortableness of going up to the, the counter and having to order a ticket in person. And then I still can't pay with a card. It's still got to pay and cash. It's probably fine. But it's all that stuff's enough for me to just think like I shouldn't bother. But it is so super hot. And to set this podcast in time, today is the release September 5th of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which I didn't even realize. I didn't even realize that was coming out. This sequel to Beetlejuice. And I'm not like Meg, I excited or anything. I was actually disappointed when I realized that, uh, Tim Burton is directing it. As I got, I wish there was some new blood. I don't know how many people have fallen off harder than Tim Burton. Like that guy, wow, he used to be so talented and interesting. And then, oh, here's 20 years of fucking lame shit. But Beetlejuice was my favorite movie when I was a kid. And I rewatched it last night. And it, it's better than I even remembered. There's so much stuff in that movie I didn't get as a kid. So I'd be willing to go. I'd be willing to go to the movie theater to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, you know, it might be cool to see it in a theater. So then I was like, yeah, maybe I'll just do that because it's so fucking insanely hot outside. So I managed to make it to the metro station. But now that I'm here, it's only one stop. This is the, uh, purple line that goes out to the airport. It's only one stop back into Taipei. But I'm like, well, I could go the other way. Now I'm here. I could go the other way out into just a, just a sea, just a sea, just a sea if I can even make it to this hiking path. But if I get out there, it's like, oh, but then I'm gonna be in the heat. I just truly didn't know what to do. But here comes the train, the train heading away from Shiman. So I guess that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try to go out there, see if I can survive the heat, see what happens. And then maybe I'll just bail out and go to, uh, a later showing of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice when this inevitably fails. Cause yeah, this heat man, oh my god, it just makes me not, I just don't know what to do. Yeah, just getting on 5:00 the train so I should stop talking to myself. But yeah, I just feel like I'm spinning in circles and my brain can't make a choice, can't make a decision. Everything is fucked.

Since, uh, when I visited Japan in 2019, it was summertime, similar to this, it wasn't as bad as this for heat. But I remember one night I was walking around and it was still all hot, even though it was the middle of the night. And I finally found a machine and used my last coins to buy water. And then when I took a drink, it was like one of these sports drinks, you know, it wasn't a Polkari sweat, but it was that type of thing. And I was just like, blah, you know, like, you know, those are okay, I guess, but not when you're super thirsty and all you want is water. Then they're just like the worst. So that just happened to me. I got off this train and, uh, it's like, oh, there's a machine. I'll use my last coins to buy a bottle of water. What is this, shit? Um, fin, fly in nature. It's got a dolphin on it. It looks 100% like water in every way. Oh, here we go. I mean, I was going to say if I looked more closely, but I was buying it out of a machine. I couldn't see the, uh, the bottle low K-cal. I guess why would you mention anything about calories if it was water? Yeah. And I mean, I'm sure in Chinese, it explains, but I, this, this looks so much like water. It's ludicrous. And it's just like, ah, I mean, it's probably a good thing to have. They always say this type of shit is good for hot weather, but I'm going to have to, find a fucking bottle of water somewhere else. So I'm at Lingku station, L-I-N-K-O-U. And this is kind of neat just because, uh, I'm on the train that I took when I first got here from the airport. So the stuff I saw out the window before my first day here, where I saw some little mountains and stuff. And I was like, oh, I wonder what these are. I wonder if I'll ever be back. So I am back. Here we go. Here's a different machine. It has the thin thing, but then it's got the water, pure water, it's called. All right, well, let me try this again. I don't have enough coinage to buy water, but supposedly you can use your IC card, but I've tried it before and it never worked. Let me try this again. I'm sure I'll find a convenience store. I'm in civilization, but if I could just get this out of the machine, that would be great. Okay, item number three. Okay, select payment easy card.

Well, this one's actually in English. Yeah, it worked. Fuck yeah.

So this actually might be a good thing because yeah, it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt to have the fancy sports drink. Just not in lieu of water. You know, water is not optional. All right, which way do I go from here? Apparently, I have about an hour long walk from here to Linku Laogonque Trail, L-A-O-G-O-N-G-Q-I Trail.

And it appears there's the McDonald's part way there. So that's kind of how I'm thinking about this, is I'm just breaking this down in just smaller adventures. Like, even if I just came out here and then went back, that's not the worst. At least I got to look at the window of the train and I'm learning a bit about what's out here and I think there's nothing out here. I think this is classic beeping. I think there's nothing out here. I think this is not the way forward. You know, I think out here is just if you live out here. As far as nature type stuff, there's not a ton and there are a million highways and overpasses and stuff. But you know, just to sort that out for sure. So even if I just came here on the train and went back, that'd be one thing. Because you can go all the way past the airport, but even down there, I just don't see anything down there. I don't know. I think it might be one of these cases if this is a, as far as I know, this is the newest MRT line to the airport. And you know, I think they were just like, well, if we're going to the airport, anyway, why not go a little further? But I don't think there's much out here. It's interesting, though, how just on the normal train, because Taiwan's at just small country, it's like, wow, you're really kind of like already just sort of encroaching into a whole different area of the country. By the time you get to the end of this subway train, 10:00 this elevated train, that's going to fuck me up forever. I just call everything a subway, whether it's sub or not. But yeah, then I was like, all right, from here, an hour in this heat, that's asking for trouble. But there's a McDonald's part way there. So let's just try to get to the McDonald's to see how that feels. Yeah. And then even if that's all I do, it's just get to a McDonald's and bail out whatever. I don't know, we'll see, because yeah, yikes, like I went on the train and I'm enclosed in there and there's air conditioning. And I'm looking at the window, and it is a beautiful day. It is a 10 out of 10 visually gorgeous day. And I start thinking, like, oh, it's not so bad, an hour. Come on, I can walk for an hour. And then every time the subway doors opened, the breeze that blows in, it's legitimately like the world is a blow dryer, like a hair dryer. And it's just blowing in your face. And it's just hot air. And it's like, this is fucking insane. But now that I'm out here, at least I know what that beeping is, that one's a cement mixer. And now that I'm out here in the world proper, and it's just like the breeze all over. It's not just the breeze blowing directly into the metro station. It's not so bad. There's some shade. There's some nice cooling temperatures. And I guess the other question is, why am I doing this at all? Why don't I just stay inside when it's this hot? But I did that yesterday. I literally stayed inside all day. I didn't leave the house until like 6.30 right before it got dark, which was kind of nice, because I didn't have to put on suntan lotion, you know. And I walked around in the night for like an hour, and that's it. I was basically inside all day. And I just don't like doing that. I don't like being inside for a whole day. I definitely don't like being inside for two whole days.

Wow, this is a noisy neighborhood. Yeah, I really feel like out here it is just, this is just traffic spill out here. This is not, not probably anywhere that I need to come back to, but at least I can check it off my list.

I meant a list. But yeah, I just can't stay inside for two days. Get the fuck out of here. But I should. Like that's the only reasonable thing to do in this heat. This is fucking nuts, man. Again, I guess if you lived here, like you'd only be out in this weather on your way to work or on your way back or whatever, it's just my stupid rambling lifestyle of going outside and just wandering for a whole afternoon. That's just not fucking appropriate during this time of year.

That's all. I do wonder what the numbers are like. I mean, I always just thought of because I'm from Canada, just summer. Ah, summer's the nice time of year, just summer. But I wonder what the numbers are like for visitors and stuff. I mean, like that dude I met the other day from Alabama. He's a visitor, you know, people do visit. I still see foreigners walking around and stuff. But like for example, the place I met now that has like seven rooms, I think like three to four of them seem to be full. But I'm the only visitor, like the rest are kind of locals.

So I wonder if you can go by that, you know.

Essentially, there's no visitors in there. There's just me and I'm just here through weird circumstance. Probably there would be nobody in there who's visiting the country in August, September, July, probably too. I don't know, it's just, I mean, I always heard that. I always heard like, God, don't go to Japan in August. You can't handle the truth. You can't, you can't deal with this. But I guess I took it for granted. I'm like, I didn't really get how bad it really is.

Well then, I mean, I guess in 2019, I mean, I was there partially for this type of weather. And to be fair, it wasn't this bad. But you know, we are farther south now. The idea that the earth gets worse than this is crazy. It is fucking crazy. I don't know how you can live when it's this hot.

Yeah, I noticed even I really do think I got lucky in my place that the room I have, which is the one room at the end of the property that has its own window that opens right into the alleyway. Like, I'm the only room that has an outside window. And yeah, that's one nice thing about not having competition with other tourists, is I really am glad I got that room. It would be so shitty to be in one of the other rooms.

I suspect, because even this place, it's got an air conditioner, which is quite weak, but it's good enough. It just keeps things from getting insane. Almost more important is it has fans. It has two different fans. One in the ceiling and one above the entrance to the entrance door. And I just realized today, it's a pretty good flow. 15:00 It's like, if the fan above the door is going, and I have the bathroom door open, and it has the window out into the alley, it does keep a consistent airflow flowing through the place. And that makes such an incredible difference, because it's always quite comfortable in there. It's not that bad. Once in a while, I do turn on the air conditioner, but sometimes I turn it off. Sometimes it's not too shabby. But I turned off the fan today, and then I walked into the bathroom, mere minutes later, and the bathroom went from feeling all right to being a heat box, just being incredibly unbearably unpleasant. And I was like, wow, that's just because the airflow has stopped. In mere minutes, this thing has become a nightmare. See, I have one of the other rooms without the airflow. Yikes. I wonder though, this place does have a washing machine in no dryer, classic Asia style. And after the last place, I was like, I just don't want to deal with this. I'll just go to a laundromat. I don't want to deal with my clothes being musty and stuff. But I think I might test it out. Now that I've realized I can turn my fucking... Now that I've realized I can turn my place into a... I can turn my bathroom into like a fucking heat box. I don't know, if I hang my clothes up in there, they might... they might actually dry. We'll see though, because there's still the humidity in the air problem. I really think you've made an odd choice, Asia, in not having clothes dryers. Very odd choice indeed, or that combination washer dryer thing I had in Fukuoka, where the dryer took like three fucking hours. I think the one in Korea was like that too. If I remember right, the sharehouse in Seoul had a dryer.

But it again took for fucking ever.

But hey, whatever. I mean, that's... I don't know. That's a choice, but I mean, I'm all right with it. If you want to have a dryer that just takes three hours, maybe it's energy efficient. I don't know. But not having one at all.

And maybe I'll just cut all this stuff about the dryer. Who cares? There's no point in me complaining about that.

This actually seems okay though. I mean, I am just walking through pure city. So the fact that even just to get to whatever this little hiking path is, you just gotta walk through the city. Yeah, I think there's really not anything out here. Oh, a shawarma guy. I've never seen shawarma out here. I've seen some shawarma in Akihabra, and that's the last time. Interesting.

But yeah, even to get to whatever's around here is just walking through city. I think this is a one-time trip is enough. I don't think I need to come back out here, but this is actually pretty nice. This is a lot easier than I expected. And basically just in the shade. This ain't so bad. I feel like I'm gonna make it. I might not even have to fucking hunker down at a McDonald's halfway. However, because I'm walking through the city, land of traffic, it's also the land of infinite beeps. I think especially out here, now that I'm away is out. There's a lot of buses and big trucks and stuff.

And that's the way it is around here. Anything larger than a car, functionally just beeps. If not all the time, almost all the time. That's just how it is. No point complaining about it. The best thing I can do is just turn this recorder off. Here's an under construction building called Twin Towers. Not the best name you could pick. But I suppose around here they probably, probably the Twin Towers is probably far from anyone's mind.

On the outskirts of Taipei.

There's just... There can't be a reason for, you know, this is a bus right now. I met an overpass.

There just can't be a reason for it to be when it's parked, when it's just waiting at a light.

I just don't understand, you know. I know I keep saying I'm gonna stop at a light. I'm gonna stop at a light. I'm gonna stop at a light. I'm gonna stop at a light. I'm gonna stop at a light. I don't understand, you know. I know I keep saying I'm gonna stop bringing this up, but I gotta bring it up one more time.

Because, you know, the traditional North American style is when you're backing up, there's a beep. And there are some buses and trucks around here that beep when they're turning. That makes sense too. Why the fuck would it constantly beep when it's just sitting at an intersection?

What possible value could that be to anyone? I mean, I have mesophonia for sure. Repetitive annoying sounds make me literally lose my mind.

But I gotta... I don't know. I feel like every city council should have one of me on it.

As a fucking consultant at the very least. Just to make sure shit like this doesn't happen. Clearly just somebody was like, yeah, it's like safety or whatever. Just have the buses beep all the time. It's like a safety thing. You know, it's slightly well-meaning in a very stupid fucking way.

But yeah, this is wild. It's the same bus, so just turn the corner and it's stopped at the bus stop and it picks some people up. And now it's driving away. And it's just been beeping the whole time. It's fucking insane. It's fucking insane. That's the dumbest shit in the fucking world.

Hands down my least favorite thing about Taiwan. Hands down. Anyway. That's not why I turned on the recorder. I wanted to turn on the recorder because sometimes I think like when I walk by an ESL school or something like an English second language school. And I think like, yeah, you know, I got free time. I don't know how I would get involved in something like that. I don't know how. I mean, I guess, you know, you can easily go online and join language clubs and stuff. I've just never really had the gumption to do it, but it's kind of a shame there's not like an easier way to just get in contact with programs like that. It's like, yeah, I could sit down for an hour and talk with some people. I got the fucking, I got the English. I got the skill. Maybe I could help somebody out. But, you know, it's a passing thought because as a truth is, I'm a, I'm a much more self-centered person than that. It literally is just a passing thought as I walk by. Not something I'm gonna go seek out. At least not at this point in my life, you know. But yeah, especially, I guess I especially just learned that it really is an idle thought, a passing thought. Because somebody actually stopped me today.

Oh, so windy. That's nice. Yeah, somebody just stopped me in a park. Like quite deliberately, quite insistently stopped me, took my headphones out. And it's like, oh, okay, they just want to, they just want to talk English. And I noticed around this neighborhood, it's like a purple uniform. It must be a school. I don't know that it's a language school, just somebody from a school. So I'm sure they do have English classes and maybe they saw me and was like, oh, let's try to speak English. His English was dog shit. It was just terrible. We could not get any kind of a conversation going at all. And it's just like, I'm sorry, brother. It is too hot out today for this. It is too fucking hot. So in my polite as possible way, I just said, hey, you know, it's very nice to meet you. I'm afraid I gotta, I'm late for a thing. I gotta get going. But it was great to meet you. But yeah, I just, I just couldn't do it. And I don't know, I mean, is that a thing too? I never really thought about it before. Wow, it's actually super windy right now. This is awesome. It's still slightly warm, even with this slightly, a slightly warm wind, but this is actually pretty nice.

But yeah, I never really realized this about myself, but is it that I want to have, I mean, maybe it defeats the purpose to have a conversation in English with somebody who's already good enough at English, to have a conversation in English. You know, I always enjoy, like when I meet people, like they met that guy in Buchansen, in Seoul. Or I met the guy up on the mountain by the smoke signal in Busan, which I learned in Korea. They actually pronounced Busan with a, with a pee.

But those guys were actually very good at speaking English. And when I, when I meet someone who's not, who's not so great at the English, I just bailed out. Am I a dickhead? Or is it actually just too hot? I mean, it is really fucking hot to be fair. Linkau Community University I'm walking by, yeah, maybe that's where these people were from. Well, no, I suppose you wouldn't have a uniform at a university, right? So that must have been like a high school kid. Oh, hey, another foreigner just went by me on a bike.

I'll leave it to you, sir. I'll leave it to you. To walk around, speak in English to people. In my stead.

Well, this is pretty interesting. This is almost, you could say, the opposite of what I expected.

I guess the literal opposite would be if I went to a trail marker on the mountain. Well, this is pretty interesting. This is almost, you could say, the opposite of what I expected. I guess the literal opposite would be if I went to a trail marker on the map and there was just nothing there. So it's not the opposite in that sense. But I just presumed in the mountainous country of Taiwan that a trail marker on the map I assumed would be up into a mountain. And this is actually the opposite. I'm going down steps quite deep down into a gorge. But I'm here. I made it. Oh, there's a gioro. There's a big ass fucking spider out of a nightmare. But that's okay. I'm friends with the gioro now. There's the elephant ear ferns that are fucking huge. It just, it really feels like being in Jurassic Park. There's another spider. Everything is just so fucking big, speaking of beetle juice. When beetle juice bites the head off that cockroach in that movie. That's like the size of cockroaches here. They're gigantic movie comedy cockroaches that you could eat as a meal.

Yeah, this is cool. This is pretty cool. Oh, and look at that. It won't be dark for like three hours, but there's like lamp posts in case I somehow get trapped. But all I read, obviously, I didn't look very close at the Google reviews because I didn't realize this was a down into a valley type of hike. But it did say it's very nice, but very short. So it should be, should be no problem. This is fucking nice.

I noticed, by the way, I mean, it's still sub-titled beetle juice, beetle juice. But I didn't realize that the movie was called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, that genius title of doubling the name until I heard it somewhere. I didn't even know the movie was in production or anything. It wasn't until I saw the poster go up at the movie theaters around here that I even knew it was a thing.

But, yeah, I mean, it's fair to say they probably don't remember or never knew what Beetlejuice was around here. So the title here, I don't remember exactly, but it's like arch-mage of the underworld, something like that, and then sub-titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. But I remember it being a bit of a news story, like way back when the first Transformers movie came out, which was almost 20 years ago now, how crazy is that? But, yeah, it was a projectionist back then, one of the last projectionists. And I remember noticing stuff that had probably been happening all along, but it was becoming way more obvious, like that, you know, brand name is popping up in films. And like a, well, let's just stop for a moment to fill the entire screen with this particular brand of SD card, and if a movie is sponsored by Coke, everyone's going to be drinking Dessani water, you can be sure of that. But one of the things was that the Asian markets were getting very big, very big deal, especially for action movies, because they're just easier to export. And that there were, I think it was the first Transformers, like an actual Asian character who literally had more scenes in the Chinese version than in North America.

And that type of thing did come back to me while walking around Shimen specifically. You know, I saw some movie theaters in Japan and some movie theaters in South Korea, but the density of movie theaters around here is way more. Like three movie theaters right together in that one neighborhood, and then I saw at least one other movie theater somewhere else in the city.

And it's got like statues outside of the Ninja Turtles and a life-size Hulkbuster armor and all this stuff. And it's like, yeah, movies seem like they're still a pretty big deal here. So if that was true 20 years ago, that it was very important to cater to Asia with big blockbuster movies. It's got to be more true than ever now. I mean, after COVID and everything, we still do movies in North America, but yet the tide has turned. You know, it's very much feeling like an old tech.

That, I mean, it'd be nice if it stays around.

I don't go to movie theaters too often, but it's nice to have the option. I wouldn't want them to go away, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they did.

So it's neat around here that it's still quite a going concern. There's still seem to be going pretty strong.

But yeah, the breeze pretty much stuck up there. Now that I'm down in this valley, it's not nearly as windy, but it's still not that bad. It was nice and windy up there, and then I passed a temperature thing, and it was a mere 32 degrees. 30:00 And I was like, nice. Like that is what's so weird about the randomness of the weather here. When it was 36 degrees earlier, feels like 46. It's like there's no way this is the right choice. There's no way it's the right choice to go out into this some weird neighborhood you've never been to before. Search for a random hike. And then by the time I got here, it's fine. Like I remember 32 was like the death zone in South Korea. It was like, oh my god, 32 degrees. It's the end of the world. And now 32 degrees is a nice temperate day. Oh god, can you believe it? It's only 32 degrees. Yeah, there's no way. There's no way I would have made it around Jeju in this kind of weather. Because I mean, I don't remember all the specific details, but I seem to recall. You know, it's like, oh my god, it's 27 degrees today. This is going to be pretty rough.

But yeah, if it was the temperature then that it is now, no fucking chance, zero chance.

So yeah, it's all relative, but today turned out pretty nice. Oh yeah, this is cool. I just went and passed, like there's a little teeny shrine I just passed and now I'm just walking to a little bridge. There's a bunch of butterfly and butterfly type creatures. One of them just flew by, I don't know what it was, I've never seen it before. It looked like butterfly with wings that were kind of shaped like, I don't know, like, long cotton swabs, except it was dark colored. I don't know, just who knows. Yeah, going over a nice little stream. This is very nice. Headed toward Bangan Tree, whatever that is. I just passed 2D Gong Temple, 180 meters to Bangan Tree. Who knows what that is? Yeah, this is nice. Just a nice little jungle style.

Track down through a weird gorge. Cool. Yeah, this really is like interesting. I just assumed, I just assumed I was going up, but today I'm going down. Nice little adventure. And yeah, I can't believe how temperate feeling the weather is. It's gotten so much better. It's amazing.

I got a closer look at one of those butterflies and it is a butterfly just instead of wide wings. This one has just long sleek wings. It's like the sports car of butterflies.

I noticed, too, on the way here, there are an absurd number of schools. I was just constantly passing schools and then I took a wrong term briefly and passed by another school, school, school, school. And yeah, that seems to be true because I just, there's a little sign here that I Google translated that heads to the Lincao District Office, but also to Giancao campus, Cancwau International School, Lincao campus, Morrison American School, and Lincao Senior High School at the very least. It's just a lot of fucking schools around here.

But that made me think I just saw thing the other day, the YouTube channel I've brought him up before, but the YouTube channel 32-year-old average Korean man who is no doubt 33 years old by the time you're hearing this. But he just posts stuff about living in Korea. And he was saying how, so I didn't know this, but South Korea, I knew Japan had a low birth rate issue. But apparently it's even worse in South Korea. South Korea is literally the lowest birth rate in the world. And he was describing some stuff about that drain. The same thing that's happening in Japan where the country sides are disappearing and there's all these, in Japan, like all these, like, crazy. It's like 8 million empty houses or something. Everybody moving to the big cities. So that's happening in South Korea, but even more pronounced.

Well, yeah, I'm trying to think now when I was in Jetshon, how many young people did I see? Can't really conjure up any. It's easy to imagine old people walking around though. So that does pan out. And you know, there were plenty of people in Jetshon in like their 30s or whatever, but yes, as far as young professionals and very young people, not many. I mean, I just see some kids. But yeah, everybody's moving to Seoul because Seoul is like crazy. It's like 10 or 11 million people. So none of that's surprising. 35:00 But the thing that did surprise me is he was saying how the second biggest city, Busan, which is where I learned that he pronounces it Busan. I mean, it's still pretty big. It was like 3 million or something. But apparently it's draining as well. Like the second biggest city is not big enough. Everyone literally is going to Seoul. Even people who live in Busan are like not good enough, not enough jobs, not enough opportunity. I got to move to Seoul.

And I just find that so, man, that's such an eerie thing. When the second biggest city, which is also like a thousand times nicer, just like I like Busan, I don't like Seoul. You know, is it still not worth it? This beautiful seaside city with all these nice mountains and stuff.

I mean, Seoul has Bukhansan National Park, but that's like it. Seoul sucks. That's what's so weird. The idea that everyone's moving to Seoul and it's like, you're moving to the shittiest thing your country even has. You're moving to the worst place. That's so fucking weird. But it's just that it's the big city. It's where everything is.

Big city, big gets big city attraction attraction. You know, just like the snowball keeps growing. It keeps getting bigger because it's the biggest. But Seoul is so shitty. It sucks so bad. I mean, it's by far the shittiest place I've been on this whole journey. I have nothing nice to say about Seoul besides the National Park. Seoul sucks.

But even people from Busan are moving there. How weird. What a weird phenomenon.

Apparently, I'm nearish the airport, which of course I am. I was taking the MRT out toward the airport to get here. I think I'm coming up out the other side now. I did see that tree, but it didn't seem that magical.

It's just a tree. It wasn't even really that big. But it had seats set up all around it. Like it's a special tree. Who knows? Maybe it has historical significance, but just as a purely physical specimen.

A bit of an odd thing to make a big deal about. So yeah, that was mega small. It was like 20 minutes to get through that little hiking path. Certainly only worth it if you're already in this neighborhood. But if you are, why not? Very nice. So yeah, this was good just as an excuse to explore out this way. And to see that I don't really need to do, I don't really need to do any more exploring out this way. But at least there was something out here. At least I didn't just explore and find city. There is a nice little trail that is not bad if you're out here already.

Hmm. Now I guess I just got to walk back.

Yeah, here we go. Just exiting into a random street in a random neighborhood.

But yeah, thank God that weather calmed down. I cannot complain. This is borderline nice out now. I mean, yeah, I'm still sweating so that I just feel the sweat dripping down my temples.

But even now that I'm back up out of the gorge, it's nice and windy again. Yeah, there's an airplane flying on by.

Oh, wow. Actually, did I walk by here earlier? Oh, that's weird. Yeah, this is earlier. I took a wrong turn. Because I literally recognize this guy who just guides people across the parking lot. There's a lot of that in... Did this happen in Japan? I don't know. It happened in South Korea and it happens a lot here as well.

Where they have crossing guards for parking lots.

And the parking lots generally have red lights and maybe a warning beep to let you know that somebody might be coming.

But yeah, I recognized that crossing guard. Yeah, this is where I took the accidental detour and was going the wrong way. I just came out at the end of that path down a random street and now I'm here. That's got an interesting... I could have entered the path from this side.

But I didn't know. But that's what's neat about these little exploratory trips.

Yeah, that's actually really neat. That would have cut quite a bit off the journey except then I'd be on the other side. 40:00 You know, I have to walk it either way. But yeah, I love stuff like that when you just realize like, oh, I was right by a shortcut quote unquote. Or I was by the hidden back entrance and I didn't realize. Now I know. Except I will probably never be here again. I'll never get to use that knowledge. But if I was staying in this neighborhood, if I was coming here regularly, that would be cool intel. Like, oh, sweet. Do you know if you go down this street and around this corner and to the end of this street. And then you go through this little lot and then through this little opening and offense. And then you can go down these steps into a little 2030 minute cool gorge hike. However, in this case, that knowledge I think will never be useful to anyone ever, including me. But still cool stuff like that is still what I like to do. Feels good, feels good to explore, feels good to learn the ins and outs of places. But alright, now I just got to walk back to the train. Sun's going down, it's continuing to get cooler and cooler. Not a bad day overall.

I can kind of see why I've heard stories that people thought that the garbage trucks were ice cream trucks.

And I can see why, because yeah, that's one going by right now.

Not playing flurry leaves, playing a different song. That sounds extra like an ice cream truck jingle.

But yeah, that'd be one thing. Well, I mean, I guess it's a different situation. The song is supposed to not just alert you to the location of the garbage truck. It's supposed to alert you that it's time to come bring out your trash. But it has strange, right, that they have so nice. Such a nice thing to have a nice little jingle play as opposed to just the beep. Though I did read people complain that the garbage truck jingle is too loud.

But it has to say, I think you're complaining about the wrong F and thing. You live in a city just filled with non-stop constant beeping. And you're concerned about a jingle?

I guess the difference is though, the garbage truck does go through residential areas where presumably those buses do not. There's a big building in the distance that looks like a combination between a huge hotel and like a Harry Potter castle.

Like it almost looks like a maybe like an ancient university. They're not wrong. Those garbage trucks really are loud. But I wonder what that is. This is the land of schools. Is that a school? What the hell is that building? It's so hard to find things on Google Maps. Yeah, the only thing I'm seeing on the map is a temple, but there's no way that's a temple. And Linku Elementary School, but there's no way that that's an elementary school.

How very strange. It's not even that far, but I mean walking over. Well, I was going to say it's not going to help. There's not going to be a sign right there telling me what it is, but actually maybe there is. I don't know.

Fuck it. It's just such a distinct building. That's got to be something. It's like the Gran Budapest Hotel over there. What the fuck is that?

All right, a little hard to tell. Yeah, this is one of these buildings that now that I'm standing next to it, way less cool and pretty than it was. From a block and a half away because you can't see all the parapets and cool stuff on the roof. But it's eyes are the new Taipei Linku out district office or fashion aesthetics hall or possibly a hotel looking lobby. And a bunch of other businesses and stuff. I think it's just a general building full of stuff. Oh, one of them is a burger place. But here's vegetarian dishes.

I also just realized I think I didn't connect all the dots on that last little the Busan anecdote. The reason that all the schools in this neighborhood made me think of that story of people leaving every city in South Korea including Busan. To move this all is that, yeah, apparently it's noticeable enough that a bunch of schools have recently closed in Busan. 45:00 So yeah, it's for real, man. It is for real. Everyone's moving to Seoul. Good luck with that. Good fucking luck. Go hiking. It's all the only recommendation I can give you. Go to Bukhansen. That place is rad.

That's at least something nice you can do around there.

Okay, enough rambling. Now it's time for me to mosey back to the train. Yeah, now that I'm especially in the shade of the buildings and the sun is still on its way down. I haven't seen a temperature gauge lately, but I'm presuming if it went from 36 to 34 to 32, we're probably at 30 by now. It is feeling downright tolerable. How nice. What a fucking surprise. I did not expect that to happen.