#98 Don't visit Seoul in the winter

Transcript

Alright, so I want to start with, I mean, I think I'd go so far as to say a warning for this episode. So my idea with this podcast was always just that I had such a good time visiting Japan that it's like, hey, cool, maybe I can capture a little bit of that, a little bit of that feeling.

And you know, obviously, if there's something weird that happens or something tough for whatever, all certainly, you know, I bring it up, but I think the tone, I've at least tried to make the tone so far, generally positive. Because I knew I've already been to Japan, I really, really liked it. Toss in a side dish, a Montreal at the start, another city that I already know I really, really like. But for example, like when I lived in New York, or when I was visiting Amsterdam, in those cases, you know, the thought never crossed my mind to like, hey, I should do a podcast about this. I should do a travel podcast about how I'm not fitting in and things aren't quite working out. You know, like, why would I want to do that?

I can bring it up anecdotally, but I don't want to dwell on that. So this current Japan visit, it is over.

But the podcast is not over. Now we're in new waters, now we're in, I'm heading to South Korea, I'm heading to a place I've never been before, and now this is a different type of podcast. This is the checking out a place for the first time, not knowing how it's going to go, as opposed to Japan, where I already know that I like it. So I guess the warning, such as it is, is just that I just want to let you know there's going to be a tone shift. But it's not a permanent tone shift, you know. As I spend more time in South Korea, like by the time I get to Busan, things are going pretty well.

The positives are hugely outweighing the negatives, and right now I'm on Jeju Island. And it has been pretty goddamn wonderful.

So everything is going to get back to the basic tone that I've been aiming for on this podcast. But the transition from Japan, which I very much did not want to leave, magical, beautiful Japan, straight to Seoul, that is a tough transition. I had a hard time with that. Though that being said, in Seoul, I do eventually have some experiences that are legitimately magical. Like I cannot believe this is happening. How is this not a dream? How is this real? We're going to get there. However, we're not going to get there this episode. And we're not going to get there next episode. It's going to take a little while for me to get my bearings, get my footing, figure out how I can integrate with this new place in a way that works for me. So that's all I just wanted to let you know. A tone shift is a common. I found myself in these unexpected waters of, you know, again, as though I were doing a podcast about New York, say, the big city experience that is not working for me, not a podcast I would go out of my way to do.

But just through the circumstances of travel, that's where I ended up, that's where things are. Oh, I'm at this market now in Seguapo, in Jeju. I've never been here in the daytime when it's actually open. I'm going to go in.

But this is a spoiler alert for the future when everything is cool.

You know, I don't want to oversell it. I'm really trying my hardest to, uh, to be a fair, unbiased observer. But, but I have to admit, upon arrival in Seoul, things didn't go so good.

So if that sounds interesting to you, let's go. This is the introduction to the introduction.

Let's take it away.

Test, test, test. One, two, three.

Okay, that doesn't sound too bad.

I'm going to be a little bit muffled because I'm talking through a mask.

So in this episode, I'm going to get into the ups and downs of, uh, my experiences in Seoul, South Korea.

It's my first time visiting here. And, uh, yeah, it's been, it's been weird. But, uh, yeah, I'll get into that. I'll unravel everything.

But to start, I know this, uh, this podcast has a pretty alarmist title. Don't visit Seoul in the winter.

So I just want to quickly address that up front because I won't be getting into it proper until toward the end of the podcast, because it took me some time to, uh, figure this all out.

But just to jump straight in, just in case anybody saw that title and just wants the real quick, like, what's this alarmist man talking about? What's the big problem? Let me just give you the short version, which is air pollution. I had no idea the air pollution was this bad in Seoul. Apparently, it's not as bad other times of year, but because I'm here in the winter. It's fucking bad. It gets real bad.

It probably wouldn't kill me to take this mask off just long enough to do a podcast, but I don't want to. I walked around yesterday with like, uh, not a good enough mask. You know, I just had a dumb little cloth mask.

Because I could tell even without doing any research, I knew something fucked up was going on. I knew it felt better to have at least that one mask, you know, to have something.

But by the end of the day, my lungs hurt. It's like, uh, if you've ever kind of like been around a campfire for a night, and you don't realize how much smoke you'd inhaled and your your chest kind of hurts, that's how it felt. And then I researched and realized like the air quality index was at the, uh, blazing red warning fucking levels yesterday.

And I basically, it's like the equivalent of smoking like six cigarettes is what happened to me just from hiking around for the day. It's pretty fucked up. So yeah, I'm going to get into it and explain the whole experience, but just for the quick version. If you have any plans to visit Seoul, I can only speak for the winter. But research the air pollution problem in Seoul because it's, uh, it's, it's huge. It's like the number one, number two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. The top things you need to know about Seoul, like it just makes everything else not important. This level of pollution is fucking wild.

I've never been somewhere like this before.

And it just like nothing else can counterbalance this, you know. The best city in the world couldn't counterbalance this. And Seoul is not in the running for best city in the world.

So yeah, this is kind of a fucked up situation.

So that's why I'm emphatically stating, you should not come to Seoul, South Korea in the winter. You just shouldn't.

But yeah, if you don't believe these ramblings of this madman on this podcast, Google it yourself, dude.

I just can't believe I'd never heard of this. It's so important. This seems like the number one thing that should be known about visiting Seoul that I'd never heard this in my life.

Oh yeah, you know, the whole city's just, uh, covered in a fucking death cloud all the time. That's all. That's all. Like what the fuck? How come no one ever told me that? So that's what you need to know. That's the most important thing.

Now for, uh, more nuanced details and tell the story. Now I'll tell the story, but that's, uh, that's the big headline.

But yeah, like I said, I didn't even realize how big of a problem this was. Took a little while. So what I've got for this podcast is, uh, I did an episode of my writing podcast when I first got to Seoul. So I think that's the best way to start is I'll just snip out all the parts where I talk about writing and I'll just talk about my experience of first getting here. And then after that, I'll jump back in with how things went after that.

Which yeah, it's like, oh, I think things are getting better. I think I'm kind of unraveling this city. I think I'm getting to the center of what makes this place cool. And I got smacked in the face with the realization of how bad the pollution is and that just destroyed, destroyed all. It's like, I'm afraid there's no coming back from that. This place yikes.

But all right, here we go. Here is my audio from when I first got to Seoul. This is how things went in the short term. Then I'll hop back in with how things are going in the medium term.

All right, I'm in Seoul, South Korea now. I managed to find it's not the you just bit in nature in the world, but it's like a small mountain in the middle of Seoul. That these these parks do seem to pop up sometimes where it's just just a huge mountain suddenly in the middle of nowhere that would be impossible to reasonably build on. So they just throw in a park.

And this one's kind of nice because it's a little bit long. You can walk along it for a while, but you can still hear traffic. I'm sure in the distance.

I'm looking out at the city, seeing a big overpass. It's not bad though because I've been here not quite a week yet.

And I was just trapped in city before this. So at least this is something.

There's kind of a for real mountain in the distance that I have not managed to get to yet, but that's something to do. But basically, let's talk about Japan for a sec. Japan is amazing, dude. I cannot recommend it enough. It is very, very worth it to visit Japan. It's very far away and the plane tickets are expensive, but it is worth it. I kept thinking that being in Japan felt like a dream right up to the last fucking day.

But I kept talking all the time about like, man, how is this real? How am I really here? What is going on? And it's like, am I exaggerating? If I just become some weird Japanophile, but then when you're not in Japan, no offense to South Korea, but I'm afraid I am going to shit on South Korea a bit. It's so not Japan. I mean, it's not Korea's fault. No where is Japan. There's nowhere like that. And it's so starkly evident once you leave and you're somewhere else and you're like, oh, yeah, this doesn't feel like a dream. This feels very real. This is too real. This is just a normal place. This is just normal life.

I mean, I did a little research on this topic and I've seen quite a few people say for places to live. If you're going to live permanently or for a long term in South Korea or in Japan, there's a lot of arguments for South Korea because it's much more relaxed. You know, there's not insane bureaucracy. You can just actually get things done, you know. People described it as kind of a mix of Japan and China where Japan is so mega regimented.

And China, no one gives a shit about anything. So Korea is like a nice middle ground of like it's still an Asian culture. But it's not as uptight as Japan and it's not as just completely devoid of human rights and sanity like China. And I think that's probably true. I could see that argument. But just as a visitor, as someone who's just here to visit, just here to soak in the vibe, not having to deal with anything logistical or official. No paperwork.

No, nothing like that. Japan is insanely beautiful. And Seoul, anyway, I mean, I can't speak for the whole country obviously, but it's a huge come down. Tokyo versus Seoul, like holy jeez, come on. Really what Seoul reminds me of to a remarkable degree is a big American city. And I'd heard that. I'd heard that South Korea is kind of into America. They think America is kind of cool and they want to kind of be like America. They have nailed it, dude. To a tea. If you just dropped me in Seoul, like say I didn't have my glasses, I would absolutely think I wouldn't think I was in Manhattan. Manhattan definitely has a unique flavor. But the other burrows of New York or like Philadelphia or something, I would 100% think I was in a big American city. And then as I squinted a bit and started to notice the signs, I would think, okay, I must be in Korea town, but I would still think I was in America. Like it would take a long time for me to figure it out. It's spot on. It feels just like America. Even like, you know, they have all the, they have a lot of the same convenience store chains and stuff as they do in Japan. But in Japan, the convenience stores, it's like even the fucking convenience store is a magical wonderland. It's just so fun to go in there and check it out. Where here it feels like a little creepy cramped bodega in fucking New York. And I mean, there's a certain amount of just haze in the air. And just maybe a certain feeling of grimminess that is not soul's fault. I looked into that too and it's just because of the geography of it. 15:00 It's surrounded by mountains on three sides. So this like haze of dust blows in every year and can't really get out. So I'm not falting them for that. There's nothing they can do about that. However, what they could do something about is the garbage. There's garbage everywhere. That's one of the huge things that makes it feel like New York is just trash on the streets everywhere. And it's just like, God, what a, what a bummer. What a downer. I think I even said it the first episode of this podcast I did when I got back to Japan. I'm pretty sure I brought up that idea that when you're outside in Japan, it feels like you're still inside. Because it's such a, such a bizarre feeling of like, man, I could eat off the ground out here. It just feels like an extension of my house or something. But I'm outside walking on a public street. How is this possible? And you know, Japan famously doesn't even have garbage cans publicly available because you just deal with your own garbage. No, if there's a garbage can in public, that's just an opportunity for it to get overfilled if for someone to not properly use it or just, I don't know, garbage gets garbage.

And I'm not quite sure how garbage pickup works in Japan, but whatever they're doing, it keeps it off the streets. We're here, much like America. You know, there's just garbage pickup. I say America. We'll say New York, because New York's where I lived for a year and a half. I know how New York works. There's garbage pickup every day. Hence you can leave garbage out every day. Hence there's garbage every day. Hence it's just gross. And in the case of New York, and then at least the rats and stuff, definitely Seoul is better than that. I mean by big city standard, Seoul is probably great actually. It's probably a really clean city. But compared to Japan, it's like fuck. Instead of like in Japan, I could just go outside and walk anywhere. In the city, in the country, anywhere I walked just was like a wonderful day. Just like a wonderful adventure. Where before I found this little semi wooded park mountain thing, I don't like walking around Seoul. It's not pleasant. It could also be the neighborhood. You know, I got to explore more. I'm by Hunguk University, which I guess is kind of like a cool nightlife place. So there's like DJ clubs and shit. So there's like graffiti. And I don't know if there's graffiti anywhere else. That could be specific to this neighborhood. But I've wandered far enough that the garbage thing is just how it is. It's just garbage everywhere. Every little alleyway, every little corner that there could be garbage. Maybe if I really get deep into the suburbs, it won't be like that. But yeah, it's like, it's not fun to just go outside and walk for the sake of it. You got to have a goal. You got to have somewhere to go.

But my 90 days in Japan was up. I had no choice. I had to leave. I didn't want to. But I do still just want to be a casual visitor. I don't want to start learning the language and trying to move to Japan and all this. I'm happy to just visit, you know. It's just this one visit after all the time waiting through COVID after the four year break. Man, it's just like, oh, I just wanted to drink it in. And I did. I mean, I really did so much stuff on that trip. It's like nuts. So now I just got to accept that I'm done for now. Japan will stay in my rotation hopefully for the rest of my life. So just whatever. Just chill out, relax. You'll be back eventually. Don't worry about it.

So that was Korea. Two hour flight. Very close. Let's look at the upsides to this. It's very close. Easy to get to. I'd never been here. So I was like, who knows. I mean, maybe, maybe it'll be just as good. Maybe it'll be a surrogate Japan and I'll like it just as much. And I just didn't, you know, right away. I knew. Like, oh, no. I think if this was like the first big city I'd ever come to, I would probably think it was really cool. Because that's what happened with New York. I visited New York a couple of times. And I thought it was great. So I'm like, yeah, I'll move there. Fuck it when the opportunity arose. But then I realized it was way different to go for the weekend and go to bars with your friends and hang out. Then once you live there and it's like, oh, geez. Just to leave the house and go buy some milk. I got to wade through a sea of trash. Angry people. I fucking hate this. So I felt that right away here. It's like, no, okay. I know this feeling. Not the angry people. The people are very polite, but the wading through trash. I just can't do it. Mentally, I just can't be happy in a place that's full of garbage. I just can't do it.

And, you know, big Canadian cities aren't the cleanest place into the world. But they're way cleaner than this. Again, this is, yeah, this is the American model. No offense. That's Korea. No offense America. But I can't pat you on the back for cleaning up your garbage unless you clean up your garbage and you don't. 20:00 So that's just the unfortunate reality. But the upside, very close. And I'm just staying at this little men only dorm that is so cheap. It's like $16 a day. The only downside is there's not nearly enough showers for the amount of places and the rooms that are there. So I got to squeeze in a shower whenever possible. Like today, my shower, unfortunately, was at the tail end of the hot water. Quite a chilly shower. But, you know, for that price, though, it's like, hey, I like to not have to worry about the expense, you know. Like, maybe this isn't going to be the best time of my whole life. But I'm also not paying for it. Like, that's one thing that really galled me about New York. New York is not cheap. Crazy expensive and terrible. Like, why am I doing this? So I was like, okay, maybe Seoul's not going to be my favorite place. But man, that's very affordable. That's nice and relaxed. And another great thing. I got to give South Korea a huge props for this. I love this. Canadians get 180 day visitor visa here. And I was researching it a bit. And I think we're the only ones. Like, everybody else seems to just get the standard 90 day that most countries give other countries. But I don't know. It's like, I guess maybe they just recognize like, yeah, we never have problems with Canadians. Canadians are cool. Let the Canadians stay for six months. So I don't know that I will stay for six months. If I do, it will certainly not be in Seoul. Like, I did read even like, don't base everything on Seoul. Like, just go to Busan, even the second biggest city. So it's like, all right, maybe. If I do stay for six months, I will certainly explore more of the country. But for now, I'm here for like a couple of months. I just booked a couple of months in this super cheap dorm. And it's like, all right, here we go. Here's where I live. And I mean, it's kind of neat too, where I've just got this little teeny room. It's like a little, you know, it's like a little prison cell. It's really smaller than a prison cell. But I don't care. It's what I had in Yokohama when I left Japan. Like, I don't mind a small room. I don't care. And this place is so centrally located. Like, you just walk out of the house and it's big time lights everywhere. That's funny too, though, as far as the America thing. Again, I don't know about other neighborhoods, but this neighborhood I met by Hongkuk University. You walk out the door and there's a burger king. And then on the strip, on the street that I'm on, literally six or seven Starbucks. I couldn't believe how many. And then there's way more than that. But I mean, only on that one street even, there's that many. And there's a Dunkin' Donuts and there's Popeyes. Like, it just feels like America. It's like, all right, all right. But yeah, that's the big upside is. It's not expensive for me to stay here. And it's very relaxed. I can stay here for a very long time.

I kind of wanted to just end with a little quick story of leaving Japan, what that was like, the magic of my final day. But I've run out of park, coming down to traffic, sirens, the whole to-do. So let's just take a little wee break, because I do just want to end off with one more quick story. But yeah, I'll pop back in once I find another quieter spot.

All right, time warp ahead about half an hour. I would say, very gradually, it does seem like this city is, it's like revealing itself a little bit. It's kind of coming together. So the overpass that I could see from, from my previous mini mountain, turns out there's like a stream and a path that goes under it. So it's kind of like a nice little, little teeny mini river with like flat rocks that you can walk across to go on either side of the river and stuff. It's kind of nice, but at the same time it's under a giant overpass, so it's not super nice, but I don't know, it's something. But a little beyond that, I found this thing as like an artificial waterfall, it's called, which I don't know what makes it artificial, because I mean, it's water, tumbling down rocks, looks pretty, looks official to me. Maybe that means that they diverted water, or maybe they're like literally pumping water to make it happen.

Maybe that's a mix of artificial, I don't know. Anyway, near that now, I'm on this more proper mountain that I would always see in the distance. And it's a lot more developed than I expected. It's got the little hiking course symbol on Google Maps, but it's all paved paths and real steps. It's not really like a mountain so much, but it's not bad. It seems kind of like a Mount Royal in Montreal. It's probably a bit smaller than that.

And more developed, but I mean, it's not like Mount Royal is especially rugged either, but this is nice. It's like, okay, this is something. So from my little Airbnb, I don't actually have to walk too far down Starbucks Row, hanging left at the Popeyes, you know.

Weave through the fucking random strewn about garbage. It doesn't actually take that long to get to the beginning of the longer park, which is kind of neat because it is such a big tall ridge of a mountain.

That's just sitting in the middle of the city. Come walk along that, get some kind of cool views. And then from there, it's again only a little, little bit of a walk through Super City Town to get to this other much bigger mountain. So yeah, this seems okay, you know, just for something, something to go to, something to do that's not just bright lights and the city fucking shit, giant LCD screens and advertisements. So even if this is, if this is all I got, this is okay. And yeah, I'm sure I will keep exploring little by little.

But yeah, I guess the, I don't know, the thing I was going to end with is, well, I was actually going to start with this story just as a comparison of what it was like to swap from Japan to South Korea. I guess I don't know, maybe it's like, it's almost like a little mean, I don't know.

It's like, hey, I'm here now, I'm in South Korea. South Korea is the country that took me in. They'll let me stay for six months. Maybe it's a little mean to be directly referencing like, oh man, I wish I was in this other place. This other place was so amazing, but just real quickly. So my last full day in Japan, I was way down in Yokohama, which is South of Tokyo. But I thought if there's one thing I can do before I go, what would it be? And it's that I wanted to go hiking in Western Tokyo. So I got on the train from Yokohama.

Oh man, am I forgetting the names already? I am, I'm already forgetting the names. Anyway, I took a train out west then north up to Ome station. Pretty long ride, a couple hours, but it's amazing that you can get that far just on the public transit system in Japan, just with your little subway card. It's like, holy crap, I'm away out here now, because there's this place called the Ome Hills Hiking Course, just north of Ome station. And you walk along this mountain ridge for as long as you want. You can do it all afternoon if you want, or you can bail out at each, whenever it lines up with a subway station, there's always an exit to the course. So I didn't quite go the whole way, because the last fifth of it is like a for real hike. It gets real steep, you go up an actual mountain. Kind of difficult, so I only did four fifths of the journey. But it's just so beautiful, like it's just so easy to get to, and you're walking along, and you mostly just meet old people, I guess, because it was just a random afternoon, it was like a Tuesday afternoon.

But they're just hiking along, and you get these views through the trees that were just below your fucking mind. You're just seeing the little town below you, and the mountains on both sides of this ridge are just so enormous and beautiful. But anyway, I was hiking along, and just literally every time I could see through the trees and see into the distance, like I just kept having that thought of like, how is this real? How am I not in a dream right now? And that's where I thought maybe I had built that up in my mind a little, because I visited Japan right before COVID, so I literally would, to get myself to fall asleep at night and stuff, I would just walk, you know, like mentally walk through places I'd been before. I did sort of treat Japan like a waking dream. So I thought maybe that's, maybe that's what was happening, maybe in my brain, everything seemed more dreamlike and more magical, because I had developed that habit. But no, I mean, now that I've left, I mean, it just really is like that. It's just the, not just the society stuff about Japan, and I'm like, oh, there's not garbage, I mean, it is quite remarkable, but even just the terrain of volcanic island, it's just nuts. It's like Tokyo is pretty flat, but even once you just get out west, even the difference from Ome to Okutama, Okutama is like the very end of the train line. 30:00 The mountains are so high, and so steep, and the ravines down into the rivers are so deep down. And it's like this is, this is crazy terrain, and for it to all be so close to civilization, the buildings just spill up onto the mountains. So you don't have to like track far away. In North America, you know, we got mountains and nature and stuff, but you kind of got a journey to get there. In Japan, it's in your backyard, it's just right there. Anyway, insanely beautiful, and then I got to the second to last exit of this hiking trail. It's like, okay, I gotta go down this one now, and I've done that one one time before from the opposite end. I started there, so I knew I knew basically how to get down there, because it's just like either continue on or go down into these woods that could be out of a grim fairy tale. It's like really, I'm supposed to go down there, so I was glad I'd done it before just down the safe side. But yeah, going down, down that path, and sometimes there were joggers and stuff there, but that day there was nobody, there was just me. And like by the time I was halfway down, it's like I'm surrounded by by the woods on the side of this mountain. Everything is just beautiful beyond fucking description.

And yet, you know, like just a little bit further below me is a drink machines and a train to whisk me away. It's just everything, it's just everything I could ever fucking want.

But I knew that was the last day, the next day, I mean, just had to get up and go to Haneda and fly here to Korea. And yeah, just because there's like the combination, the one-two punch of it, just being so beautiful. And it's like here I am, like I'm here right now, I'm inside the dream.

And it's about to end.

Tomorrow, I got to leave. And even just yet describing it now, I feel a little tightness in my throat. So I don't mind admitting that on that day, I'll buy myself in the woods and knowing around. I was just a crying man. I did not want to leave. So yeah, then to whiplash effect to the very next day, hop on a plane and to come to Seoul. You know, it's like maybe this is a bit unfair. Like I was saying, if Seoul was the first big city I ever came to, I'd probably think it was pretty cool. You know, I'm sure people from Seoul are like, hey, pretty cool, right? Isn't this, isn't this place sweet? But it's like, dude, I mean, I'm sorry. But yesterday I was in a dream. Perhaps I'm holding Seoul to an unfair, standard when I'm comparing it to like the most beautiful place I've ever been in my whole fucking life. But yeah, this is not the most beautiful place I've ever been in my whole fucking life. So all right, sun's on its way down, hazy sun in the sky. I'll have to explore this little mountain more later. But anyway, there's the latest update. Like I said, dude, Japan, man, if you're going to travel anywhere, just go to Japan. It's so good. Okay, thanks for listening. I'm sure next time we check in, I'll still be here because again, sorry for all my criticisms. South Korea, I genuinely appreciate that you let Canadian stay for 180 days. That is extremely cool. So next time we check in, I will no doubt still

be here. Wellie, wellie, wellie, listen to that fucking guy hiking all around without a fucking mask on. Look at dipshit. But I didn't know. I didn't know any better. I'm glad that this sound comes through pretty well even when I'm wearing a mask because I legitimately do not want to take this thing off. I just really don't. I got the proper masks. Let's see what is it called? KF 94 Yellow Dust Protection Mask. And yet KF 94 is 2.5 particles. I'm not quite sure what all these numbers mean, but it's that there's very, very tiny things in the dust that a normal mask does not stop. But this one does seem to. I mean, I've only been wearing them since yesterday, but it seems noticeable. I went on a mini mountain hike 35:00 yesterday and, you know, I didn't feel perfect, but I didn't feel the distinct lung burn that I felt without these masks. Because I mean, I'm a pretty, pretty good hiker, as I guess, has been evidenced from all the hiking I did in Japan. My body is pretty well designed for this. But what happens when I hike is, you know, it's a pretty steady, not very fast trudge. And my body goes into hyperdrive of just heat. Like I've just taken off all my coats and I'm sweating right now. It's just like, fuck, halfway up this mountain that I'm on today. And importantly, I have to breathe very long deep breaths the whole time. And then as long as I do that, it's just a consistent trudge, consistent deep breaths. I can just keep going up. It's no problem. But yeah, I didn't realize that by doing that with just a stupid little cloth mask that does nothing that I just happened to have in my luggage, you know, even like during COVID and stuff. It obviously did nothing. It was really, I just brought it in case I didn't know what the mask situation was going to be like as I traveled. So I just wanted to have some kind of mask, even if it was just sort of for appearances. And yeah, that thing, I mean, I was just shredding my lungs by breathing so deeply for hours without a proper mask. It reminds me of when I was a kid, they used to warn us about fiberglass. If you found fiberglass at like a construction site or something that someone had left, be careful because you could inhale teeny tiny glass particles and hurt your lungs. That's what this feels like, you know, it's like, you know, in the short time I've been here, it's not like it's going to fucking destroy my, destroy my body. I'm just visiting, but, but it's very noticeable. But all right, so that was my initial arrival in Seoul. And it's funny how things change now that I've been here about two and a half weeks, almost three weeks, where just things that seem relevant just aren't relevant anymore. The garbage situation. Oh, there's people coming. All right, let's put my money where my mouth is as far as my hiking prowess goes because there's some people coming up behind me. And I was waiting for a bit to see if they'd pass me, but they're just going so fucking slow. It's driving me nuts. So let's see if I can podcast as I continue up this mountain. But yeah, the garbage thing could not be less of a big deal at this point. I just don't care. As my visions of Tokyo have drifted away and I've just gotten used to being here, it's just like, I would ever do this, just how it is. No problem. You adjust to acclimate. And I suppose let's do kind of good bad, good bad, you know, where this might actually seem like a slightly weird thing to say is a good thing, but I saw a little YouTube video before I came here. There's like a little joke about how if you've never been to South Korea, you might be surprised how brusque the clerks can be. And I'd say that's kind of true. I mean, half of the time they're just super nice, but half of the time they are, I don't know. I mean, I guess you could say rude, but I wouldn't because I think this goes back to way back if you've been listening since the start when I was in Montreal. And I talked about this cool clerk at this Vietnamese restaurant I went to and how I kind of like that. I like the idea of clerks being a bit aloof because it's like, I mean, I don't know, not to put too fine a point on it, but I've been a clerk for many, many years at various jobs and it's wasting your life, you know, being a clerk is wasting your life. A robot should be doing that job. And I guess with self-checkout and stuff, soon robots will be doing that job.

But I appreciate that people are wasting so much of their time for such little money, just to clerk for me, just to, you know, to help broker a minor transaction for my convenience, you know. Oh, here's a little side path I've never taken before.

That is pretty rough looking. Maybe no one will follow me this way.

Because yeah, I kind of want to do this podcasting while I'm on the way up this mountain because I'll get to it later, but the top of this mountain is going to be busy. It's going to be people up there.

Oh, I guess not. Here's a sign that says, please do not, do not bypass this point due to deforestation. They don't want people going up this way. That is one thing that the Google Translate 40:00 thing works way better here in South Korea. Pretty much everything is just straight up white font, you know, that's like not fancy. I haven't had anything that the phone has had a hard time translating yet. So that's a bonus. But yeah, since clerks are just wasting their lives, you know, I think it's okay for a clerk to at least have a semi fun day. I just don't think, I don't think you should crack the whip with your employees. And like, there's times in Japan. I mean, obviously the, they got to say their little hello speech when you come into the store. And they just have to be so super attentive. And they'll play those non-stop jingles all throughout the day. It's just weirdly dehumanizing. Where here in South Korea, the clerks are way more chilled out, but I don't mind. It really doesn't bother me. Like, you know, I had a guy who didn't want to stop watching TV. I had someone else who didn't want to get off the phone. I don't care. That's fine. We easily made it through those transactions. Just today I bought two little mini coffees. And it was a by two get one free deal, which I didn't realize. That's what the sign said. So the guy really just kind of roughly went over and got me a third one and put it down. And he really had the feeling of like a, like a beleaguered grandpa. Just like, ah, here you go.

But it's just like, oh, thanks man, right on. Or when I bought these masks, I got them from a store called Daiso. And they don't really have like a proper counter, it seems. It does seem like you have to go through the self-checkout. And that was it to do because I didn't know how any of the buttons worked. I couldn't get it set to English. Then I was trying to scan the barcode on the back, but there's a separate barcode on the front. So the lady had to come back and help me a couple of times. And same thing. I don't know what she really was feeling, but the sense was definitely, like, ah, gotta do this for this guy. But I guess I'd been pre-warned a little by the, by the YouTube video. And I just don't know why, but I just don't mind. I don't, it's weird, because like, I am quite easily embarrassed. You know, it's one reason why there's so many things in Japan. I just sort of didn't try to do by myself, because I didn't want to mess up the process or do something wrong, or just feel like a big idiot who doesn't know what he's doing. And I tend to avoid those kind of situations, because just the way my, ah, personality is, or whatever, just the way my mind interprets things. If I do feel like ashamed by a situation, it's hard to shake off. I do feel it for a long time. But I just felt zero of that here. I don't know why. I don't know why. I just kind of understood the clerk mojo, of just like, like, I was felt good about it. I'm glad that these clerks don't have to put on a show. I'm glad they don't have to pretend that they're happy to help the idiot who doesn't know anything works. I want you to watch TV. I want you to stay on the phone. I want you to have a semi-ok day, because you should not have to, I guess that's the difference. In Japan, you're expected to put 100% of your attention on this terrible semi-pointless job. But I think back to my clerking days when I would, you know, put on my own music the second that I could, the second that any manager types were gone, or if there was a TV, you can bet that fucking shit's gonna be on, you know, just whatever. Man, when I was a projectionist, once all the movies were rolling, I could sneak out of the building through a service entrance. And I would literally go down the block to buy shawarma and stuff, and I had my little radio. My radio would go about half a block. So if anything was wrong, they could radio me, and I could sneak back into the building, and no one was the wiser. But why not? I was working for 50 cents above minimum wage. It's like, fuck off, you know. There's no need for me to work that hard for a job that shit.

So I'm on your side Korean clerks. I like how you are. I like that casual feeling here. And yet, similar to, I mean, also, I do think the level of English is higher here in Japan. I mean, it was like, geez, you just get in these situations where people really just can't tell what you're saying at all. I haven't experienced that here. The level of English is much better. But I mean, there's still people that very clearly do not really speak English. But I feel a lot more comfortable fumbling my way through the transaction. I'm just not hesitant to go talk to somebody here like I am in Japan. 45:00 Because in Japan, I just feel like I'm fucking up the whole fucking, the whole, you know, super regimented social order by just not fucking knowing what's going on.

We're here. It's just like whatever. I'm stumbling my way through. You're stumbling your way through. We get there in the middle and it's just fine. It feels different. It feels good.