#99 Things are going better in Seoul

Transcript

Alright, I'm up on top of a mountain and I can prove I'm up on top of a mountain because you can hear sirens in the distance. Every country, every fucking country, doesn't that matter? Let me see if I can figure out the name of this mountain. So I'm still in Seoul. I'm in the Buchansen National Park, B-U-K-H-A-N-S-A-N. And what is the peak that I did not go up on? Yeah, there are various peaks around here, but there's this one peak in particular.

Jesus, it's just getting louder. Oh, I hate this view. It's so scary. There's so many things I want to say. It's like, how do I get these all out all at once? That's why I decided to stop and do a podcast here is because this mountain is terrifying. I'm so high up. It's very scary. Just the look of it is scary. So I was like, I just got to stop and take a break. So maybe I will do a podcast. Wow, did it actually stop? Fucking amazing. Yeah, basically, I was going to do a podcast today because things are slowly turning around in Seoul. I think I'm about three weeks deep and I'm liking it better and I'm having a better time. And specifically, there was some rain that really seemed to take care of the pollution and then even a little bit of snow. And when I checked the AQI Seoul, the air quality index, it was green. It said good.

Nope, I spoke too soon. Anyway, sirens, whatever. What can I do?

So I kept wearing the mask because I just didn't feel comfortable no matter what the AQI says. It's like this city has already revealed onto me its true face. I can't not be concerned about the air anymore now that I know. And these KF 94 masks that I bought that are like for extremely small particulates, they really do help. They definitely make things feel better. I should probably be wearing it right now, but I'm going to take it off all that podcast. It's okay. I'll fucking survive. But yeah, today I was... I just, I got away from the siren. I cannot talk over a siren. Just catch your criminal. What are you doing?

Maybe I wonder if it's disappearing because they're going through a tunnel because there's mountains everywhere. I should okay. So I'm staring out at... This is like the backside of Seoul. It's the backside of this mountain. It's a northern part of the city. So I've never been over there. I don't think there's any subways that go over there. But city mountains, city mountain, mountain mountain, and the greatness of pollution. Today is only moderate. Today is orange. It's not the terrifying red level, but it's still moderate, which is, you know, people that are sensitive shouldn't be outside today. And I may or may not be sensitive to this. I can't tell, but I think you become sensitive when you go hiking just because it's such heavy breathing and so much exertion. But again, like I was saying, the mask really helps. But the mask, it's not as bad. And and it seemed like maybe the pollution wasn't, you know, as bad. Maybe I just got in a bad patch. But yeah, nothing today. It's like it's back again. It's all gray. It's all fucking disturbing out there. So I was like, fuck this. I'm not doing a podcast. Fuck this.

I stand by what I said last time is, yeah, coming here in the winter is a coin flip at best. If it all happens to line up this way, like it did with me, I guess. But I'm still, you know, looking forward to trying cities besides Seoul. Because Seoul in the winter, I don't think it's worth the coin flip. The pollution, I don't think you should come here in the winter. However, I'm here. I can't leave. I got pre-booked Airbnb's. I'm stuck. However, my day-to-day has been getting more and more fun because I'm finding more and more mountains. I haven't even gone beyond where the metro can take you. If I was to jump on a bus, I could go way further. I mean, this stuff just goes off into the distance further and further. But even just on the subway. So I mentioned Inwansen Mountain, which was pretty cool. It's the one that has the big wall on it. And then even between Inwansen and Hangek University, where my Airbnb is, there's another smaller mountain in between that you can just like literally stop in the fucking McDonald's, get a cool little raspberry cheesecake pie and then hike over a mountain on the way back to downtown. So I'm having a lot more fun in general because yeah, the main city is still 5:00 just kind of grody. It's just not really my thing. But it's easy enough because when you get your little t-money transit card, you can just use that convenience stores and Starbucks' and different various places, Daiso, so you can buy masks. And I've been doing a disproportionate amount of McDonald's and Burger King because I can just toss my stupid little credit card in the machine and just ding. So city life, you know, it's pretty, I'm having a pretty, pretty low-brow grind of just eating junk food and going to coffee shops. But yeah, keep finding these mountains. So behind Inwansen, there were more mountains and I spent the last like few days walking around those mountains because I keep getting turned around and lost and going the wrong way and finding new paths. But like each one was still fun. Like you didn't matter if I was getting lost. It's like who cares? It's fun to get lost up here and to figure it out more. It's kind of tough to find entrances to the mountains around here. But once you do find them, like they're very numerous. They're all over the place. It'll just be like some random apartment building and they'll be like a gate and you open the gate behind the apartment. And there's like a little little little exercise yard because those are all over the place and then steps up into the mountains. Like they're big on the steps anywhere that any of these paths get especially rugged or tough. They literally just build steps and I see a lot of old people hiking around. I think it is kind of designed with them in mind. I think you could almost. I think at some of the smaller mountains, you literally might be able to take a wheelchair across them. Like that's how well maintained and how well developed and ramp-filled and stuff they are. I mean don't point me on that but you almost could. So it's really easy hikes. They're really well-signed posted. It's just really fun. I guess the part I was at. It's kind of connected to this mountain.

Mirador Roca General. I don't know anyway. It's just the uh the southern part of this mountain. Then I'm on right now. And yeah from these walks and just walking around these different paths and getting kind of turned around and kind of just getting dumped out in different neighborhoods and but never being far from civilization. I mean you pretty much just go straight into civilization. Straight off of these mountains right into the city. Take a little tunnel. Take a little stroll back to the metro or whatever. And I just keep going further and further and deeper and deeper out and more and more mountains and I mean they do just go on forever.

It's fucking cool as fuck. Without the pollution like this would be very fucking cool. This would be awesome. It's it's like Fukuoka but uh the mountains are bigger and scarier like today's mountain is quite it's quite scary. I am uncomfortable here but way more developed than mountain trails are in Japan. Like you don't really have to worry about getting lost or turned around. There's people using them all the time. Lots of signs. There's a guy I saw up at the peak earlier walking on down.

Hmm very interesting. He gave me a little uh kind of like a little air fist bump as he went by as a greeting and now he's going down away. I kind of thought I was at a dead end. I'm like stopping at this pretty beautiful plateau but I was gonna go back up and go find a different route. He's going down somewhere that I didn't even realize was a way down. He seems to be doing okay.

Hmm interesting. But anyway one of the times I was walking around I kept seeing this peak in the distance that had I believe is a tree. It just seemed to be like this one tree that was just standing out right at the top. I'm not actually sure if it is a tree or not. It might be like a man made and tenelican thing. I don't know. And it was so just bam big mountain top kind of looks like the Sierra logo the old game company that I presume is based on actual Sierra mountains. And I was looking at it and I'm like man I mean everything is so well developed here and there's so many hiking courses but you couldn't go up there right that would be insane. What if you went up there and as I was walking along I kept walking along parallel to it and then I got to a path that turned north and kind of went up in that direction of of that peak but it was getting pretty late. It was like about five o'clock and at this point the sun stays up for a while. It doesn't get dark till six thirty or seven or something. So I had some time but I'm still very trained by the wintertime hours in Japan that like it's dark by five o'clock that's still in my brain. By five it's like I should really just get out of here and I started walking that way and it was a pretty easy path and there were still people walking well mostly walking the other way coming back but there were a couple of people going my way and there was some kind of tourist 10:00 center and there was a town down to my right but like I didn't know how to get down there. It's one of those things that because everything's so well developed and well-signed posted here probably probably I could have gone there and it would have funneled me down into a city or a bus stop or something but I just didn't know and it was just getting too late and it's just such an eerie feeling that I was walking generally in the direction of this big insane peak that's like a real mountain peak that's like what the fuck am I why am I even walking toward that thing to begin with what do I think I'm gonna do go up it and it's getting dark it's crazy so I turned around I came back funneled my way out down into again just some random neighborhood and escape oh and that's the day those little I was mentioning last episode the little 50 cent coffees you can get in the subway that I just love these little 50 cent tiny cups of coffee that you can only get through when you pass through the the barrier into the subway because I was like I wonder if I can just pop in a subway station and buy one of those but then I was like oh of course not the reason they're so small is uh because you can drink them in between trains otherwise you would get a real coffee they're a little teeny in between train waiting for you train coffee I fucking love them they're so great and some of them are even cheaper they're 40 cents 30 cents anyway there's only two machines that I found out in the wild and one of them I found that day but anyway I kept meaning to go back there earlier in the day and just try that hike and see where it goes and I still have not managed because then I got lost quote unquote lost I just went down to different path the first time and then a different path the second time and went to different little areas and funneled out different places and was like okay it didn't work today was yet another failure but today's failure led me straight to that mountain coming from the other direction just kind of going up up the edge and like everything is so well signposted here and so well laid out that this is where it was like my first for real hike my first not just everything is a a fucking stairway that we built for you so it showed like this is a the parts that are advanced and these are the parts that are moderate and the advanced parts were a 10% grade and I'm like oh I don't see this fine let's try it and it really wasn't that bad I just again going up mountains it's insane how fast you get up to the top of a mountain you're just like holy shit but I reached a point where I started getting to parts where it's kind of steep around me and I'm just in this weird terrain up on this mound that looks like a fucking wily coyote road runner cartoon but then below me is this whole city and just like it's still quite wide if it was actually scary I think I would have just fucked off with it there wasn't anywhere too narrow only one part that was a bit narrow everything else was quite wide walking paths and there were some fairly steep clamber your way up parts but not that bad it's just that all around me is just I'm just so high up even right now that I'm just sitting here is because I'm I'm you know a quarter of the way back down and it makes a big difference way up at the top you're just so high up and there's nothing around and it's just like what the fuck but it did say like hey you can go to this peak then the next peak then the next peak I was kind of just hoping I could find a through path like that's why I kept going because I didn't really want to go back down the way I went up because there were just some steep parts that would be scary you know going down I do feel like it's worse than going up and I got up to that peak and I didn't quite go up it and that's why I saw the guy who just passed me he was sitting up there obviously not scared of heights just sitting up there chilling taking pictures with his phone not at the peak peak though just at the sub peak because at the peak peak there's an extra sign I've never seen before that just basically says technically this peak is outside of the jurisdiction of our forestry services and stuff because there's nothing we can do with it it's just a weird boulder peak thing it's just dangerous we can't fix that you know and they listed the stuff this is where man the Google Translate is so much better with Korean it's so easy to translate this stuff they said basically only like two people died one person in 2018 died from falling one person in 2019 died from like a heart attack but lots of people have injured themselves and they're just like hey they literally said stop here take a rest get your wits about you before you go up to this peak and I was like I'm not going I'm not going up there fuck off so that's why I don't know for sure if it's if it is a tree that was up there I was like I'm close enough I want to get out of here now I don't like this but the fact that I'm up there I did it essentially I was within 10 meters of the top and it's like that that fucking crazy thing I kept seeing in the distance that looked insane I'm there right now what the fuck I did it holy shit crazy then anyway yeah now go in the fuck down fuck that you know I'm not going any further peaks and whatnot I'm just 15:00 getting the fuck out of here and then I think I'm gonna have a bit of a walk in front of me because I'm on the wrong side of the mountain but again it's always surprising too not just walking on mountains but walking around a mountain not that hard takes like an hour so like no biggie or I can just take a bus I got my t-money card I just haven't taken a bus yet that's a little step beyond what I've done but because I just never know where the buses are going to go I don't know how they work I'm sure to be fine I can just get on a bus watch my blue dot you know I'd get there eventually but but I'll probably just walk because it's still pretty early in the day but yeah it's just it's such a bummer about the the grain is still and the pollution and stuff and yeah let's say it's not only is it getting a little better but you do just get used to it also the fact that I'm not wearing my mask right now you know I should be but you just get used to it you're just like oh well whatever you know I feel like I can feel it in my lungs like that feeling like I'm breathing smoke but it might be my imagination or might be real it was I mean it was for sure real the first day that I went up to in Wonson and didn't have the proper mask and it was a red day that day like my lungs burned all night today I don't know I might just be imagining things but just that you get used to it I mean I guess this is why it doesn't come up this is why people don't make a point of bringing this up or making this clear about soul is or I mean one cynical way to look at it is like hey sure it's the equivalent of smoke and cigarettes just by breathing the air hey you know how you can counterbalance that just smoke cigarettes so many people smoke around here it's like hey what do I care extra cigarettes give it to me But anyway, it's definitely getting better. I like these mountains a lot, although this is a bridge too far. This mountain is too high up, too scary. I didn't even quite go to the peak. I'm not coming up here anymore. But the mid-level mountains are very, very fun, and I'm having a great time hiking around them, and I like them a lot. I mean, the good thing is I was ready to put Seoul on the fucking garbage heap of like, I'm never coming back here. This is like scary and terrifying this weather. I hated it. It was like a nightmare.

This is definitely a route. We can definitely go down there. Maybe lets. Well, I'll wait till I'm done recording this. I want to have my hands free. But yeah, like if I could have canceled my Airbnb and gotten out of here early, I would have. I'd kind of like now that the pollution's back. I'm like still kind of feeling like, yeah, that would have been nice. But it's nice to not just have to throw this city on the dumpster heap because it's a lot better than I initially thought. I really thought it was as a city, you know, because I was just walking around downtown not knowing where I was going, and it's all just kind of shitty. But now that I'm getting more aware of all the mountains and how accessible they are and all this hiking, I love this type of shit. I fucking love it. But I do get the feeling probably this is not unique to Seoul. I mean, we'll see. But I have a feeling a lot of the other cities probably have mountains, too. I think that's not going to be uncommon. But yeah, just that the people are generally comfortable dealing with stuff. I do just find easier. It's quite the language barrier. It just feels easier than it did in Japan. You know, just the stupid little tea money card and your credit cards and shit, you can just get whatever you want. It's like not a big problem. I even like my little, my little dorm that is like so. I think it's supposed to be like $22 a day. I think it's only because it's winter that it's so cheap that it's like $14 or $15 a day. But it's just nice because I don't mind having a tiny little prison cell. That's fine. I want to have just a little teeny room with no amenities and not have to pay a lot of money.

That's all I want. Surprisingly hard to find with Airbnb. So this little weird men's only dorm. I wish it had more showers. I have to fight for the shower a little. But again, I'm hiking mountains every day. What do I fucking give a shit? You know, it's not like I got to be the cleanest person in the world. Other than that, yeah, it's great. It's just, it's just an overall pretty nice little stay. It's not so bad. So yeah, I'll definitely be interested to see what this city is like. And at least like this is good that if I come back to South Korea because presumably it'll be a similar thing. I'll be in Japan. Japan will kick me out. It's like, all right, let's go to South Korea. I was thinking I might need to just not go to Seoul at all. Try to get a flight somewhere else. This is seeming more like I could just stop in for a week. Say hello, go do a hike or two. Then leave. You know, it's just a much nicer feeling because yeah, when I first got here, I was like, I just don't know what to do with this city. I just this is so fucked up. And it's all leveling out. It's definitely not as bad as I thought. I say as I look at this insane gray psycho bullshit. I got high hopes, I guess, for other times of year because it was remarkable how much just some rain just cleared everything up. The sky was actually blue. It was unbelievable. So maybe this really is just a winter problem. But anyway, I just thought I'd do a little update just as an excuse to sit here and acclimate a little to this fucking mountain and try to. 20:00 Unfreak out myself before I head back down further. Man, there's a weird sandwiches here. I was definitely noticing it. Like every time I would buy a sandwich, there'd be something weird about it. Like ham and cheese and then a third layer of like strawberry jam. Like what the fuck is that? Or I got one that was like peanut butter and jelly. And then the third layer was potato salad. And it's like, why does this keep happening? And I looked it up. And yeah, somebody posted on Reddit. Like, what is this thing I just found? Like tuna, mayo, and strawberry jam again. And it's like, this doesn't make any fucking sense. So what is this shit? And normal sandwiches are like hard to find in convenience stores. I mean, these are just these weird fucking sandwiches. So be prepared for that, I guess, because there's not as much English. You know, a lot of the stuff in Japan might have been like even weirder on its face, but it'll at least say in English, usually what it is. Where it's like just cartoon drawings here. So you'll see the strawberry and go, okay, I'm buying strawberry stuff or you'll see whatever. Ham and cheese. And you don't realize the strawberry has mayo with it or the ham and cheese that strawberry with it. It's like Jesus Christ. What is this? Apparently it's a well-known phenomenon also that people are chronicling online. But it's all new to me. I'm just learning. But it's kind of scared me off on buying sandwiches. It's just like, you know, I always eat them. They're edible. But every time I'm like, well, I definitely don't want to make that mistake again. I don't want to buy that twice. And it's just more and more. It's like, well, is there even a normal sandwich? Why would I buy any of these sandwiches? What the fuck is going on around here? It's truly, truly strange. The palette around here. Something odd is going on. But anyway, I'm going to put this mask back on and continue my way back down. Because yeah, the mask really, it's quite remarkable, actually, how much the mask helps.

But this 20, 25 minutes I've been yammering. My throat doesn't feel good. And yeah, again, like maybe it's my imagination, but I really don't think so, because it's fucking...

It reminds me of back home. I'm from New Brunswick, Canada. Sometimes there would be forest fires that would happen in Quebec the next province over. And then the weather would blow the smoke from the forest fire into our province, and it would look like this. It would just be gray in the sky, but it would only be for like one or two days.

Here, I had one or two days of reprieve. It's just like yeh, it's the reverse. Scary, scary and unfortunate. But anyway, see you last episode for details about that. It's no need to yammer on about it anymore, I suppose. But anyways, I saw a guy go down this path, and yet another guy go up it.

This is definitely the path, so even though it looks like... God, it's just a drop off of death. Oh, man. It's scary, I don't like it.

Alright, I'm gonna go... maybe I'll pop in with some more soul thoughts, maybe not. Maybe this is the episode. Oh yeah, I guess the other city I was considering going to is Busan, just because it's the second biggest. And, you know, I was like, alright, let's try that. But I couldn't find any particularly good deals to stay in Busan. So instead, I think what I might do is just go wherever, wherever I can find a cheap place, because there was another similar dorm type situation to where I'm at now. For again, 14 bucks a day. With the same kind of little rooms and everything was like a little window above the door, and it looks like pretty much the exact same type of place. And it's just some random city called Jechion. Is that it? J-E-C-H-E-O-N? I believe that was it. And basically, it's closer, because Busan is on the other end of the country.

And yeah, what do I care, man? I can stay here for six months. Why not just go to different places? Why not just try different random stuff? Why not just follow whatever's cheap and let that be the random rolling the dice of where I go, because I don't care where I go? So I thought maybe, again, maybe not push it too much, just do two weeks maybe, and then just go somewhere else. And why not try that? This could also be good training for if I do this in Japan, for just traveling to different random places next time I go, why not give that a test run here? But I think that's going to be the plan, is I'm just going to randomly travel around South Korea for a while and see how it goes. Because yeah, what if I just need to take a little skip, just a little ways over to just a town a little bit away from here? And what if it's just all clear and beautiful and not pollution-filled and what if it also has mountains like and hiking stuff? 25:00 You know? Only one way to find out, so stay tuned, I guess, because that is my tentative plan. But okay, time to head back down the mountain, put my mask back on, give some rest to my poor beleaguered lungs, breathe in in the death, okay? See you next episode.