Latest / bit of a Rambler / 148 Ramble On

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148 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and today we get to talk about Korea. I went
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to Jedju Island, South Korea because of Trump's invasion and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: then Spirit Airlines shutting down. Direct flights were crazy, so
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I was gonna have to take layovers, which I don't
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: usually like. And instead of doing a bunch of layovers
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in a row and kind of rushing to get back
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to the wedding in Portland, I decided to do a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: multi leg trip, which I almost never do unless you
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: considered the entire traveling thing a multi lake trip. So
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: from Mongolia, I'd spend a week in Jju Island, and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: then a week in Osaka, Japan, a week in Hawaii,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and then I'd make it to Portland for the wedding.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: So I made it to Jedju Island. I had such
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a fun time in Busan that and I was so
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: blown away because I had never liked soul very much,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: but Busan was so beautiful and so nice and so
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: much fun that I was like, man, you should start
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: going to all these other cities. So Korea like shot
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: back up on my list of interests. I am still
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: thinking about how much I like living there and the
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: food and how clean everything is, and I might just
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: go ahead and live there at some point, but I
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: don't know. I've just it's still it's in my mind,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and you'll hear why soon. Actually I told you why.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful and there's great food. It looks like some
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: of this is out of order, so whatever. Oh, okay,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: let's start. Because I did have to do a layover
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: even to get to jud you, because there's nothing flying
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: out of Mongolia really unless you're gonna pay two thousand
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: dollars for a ticket. Everything routes through Beijing, and this
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: route through I had a very short layover, and I
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: had to be detained really, not like in an arrested way,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: just literally stopped from doing what I was doing. I
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: couldn't go through the the immigration desk. So okay. China
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: has a new policy as of I don't know, like
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five that for layovers you have twenty four
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: visa free travel. A ton of countries do, including the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: US people. But I, fifteen years ago overstayed in China
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: by one day. It was it was my fault because
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I have the passport, but I didn't know what I
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: was doing, and the people that were helping me get
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a visa so that I could teach English told me
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a problem, that they would one hundred
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: percent get my visa beforehand, so I didn't do it myself,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and then I overstayed my visa by a day, which
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I'm upset about, but whatever. So this was the first time,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I think ever I have been asked about it's that
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: particular overstay. And I've been to China a billion times.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: This was the first time I didn't have a visa,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: though I've had a visa every single other time of
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the maybe fifty times I've entered China, and this time
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't. So the immigration officers like hey, and they
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: were like, you can't stay here, and I was like,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I know how it works, and I got through, but
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: they had to call over a special guy who could
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: let me through for the visa free, and they actually
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: asked me about the fifteen year old one day overstay
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: in Beijing. So that was surprising and irritating, but kind
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: of my fault because I didn't just take care of
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the visa myself. I let the school take care of it,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: which was a mistake. Now, if you're going to go
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: to China and get a visa, let the school take
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: care of it. When I say I didn't let my
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: school take care of it, I mean the specific people
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: who I knew were not good at getting visas, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: they told me not to worry about it. But it
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: would have been easy enough for me to get at myself,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: but I didn't, so in my face, Okay, they called
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: up Rose one to six. I thought they called up
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: groups one to six, and I was like, that's weird,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and I'm group six. Rose one to six the people
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: who paid an extra two thousand dollars per ticket, only
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: five kilograms were allowed, but packet jacket, so no problem. Oh.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Last thing about China. The layover there was a family mart.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: So I had like forty five minutes or so I
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: think of free time before my plane boarded, and it
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: was right next to a family mart. Now this is
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: super weird if you're familiar with China and Japan. If
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you aren't familiar with those two, they don't like each
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: other historically, politically, completely at odds, and they're not getting
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: any better. Recent history of wars is on everybody's mind still,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: and then China is continually invading Japan's Sea area territory,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: so things aren't getting better between the two, which is
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: why it was so odd that there was a family Mart,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: which is the a Japanese like one of the most
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: popular Japanese convenience stores in the Beijing airport. It was
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: not there even last year, and I was like, ooh,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: because japan Japanese convenience stores have the best food. Even
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: in other countries, if you go into a family mart,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: they'll have the nice, the best quality food in the
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: healthiest food. So I was pretty excited when I saw
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: that because I was like, hey, have forty five minutes,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: let's party. And I went in and I got some beers,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: and I got like twelve snacks, and it was really
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: interesting because since it was in Beijing, it had a
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: bunch of Beijing snacks like kou chwar like barbecue skewers
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of chicken, but the meat was very high quality compared
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to the meat you usually get in a Chinese store
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: selling barbecue skewers. I got a whole bunch of stuff.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I got a ton of jerky, I got a couple
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of beers. I just had a big snack time feast
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and it was so funny being back in China again.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I got a table and I was really happy about that,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: but it was literally covered every inch of it in
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: old noodle cups with the soup left in them, and
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: wrappers and food and trash just all over the entire table,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: because right when I was showing up, there was a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: whole group of young adults at that table, all eating food.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: And in China, you don't clean up after yourself, and
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: you don't You don't worry about the table. You just
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: shove things in your mouth and you don't worry about
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: what spills or anything like that. If you have trash
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: and it falls on the floor, that's where it goes.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: It goes on the floor. That's just how China rolls. Still,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: So I showed up and it was bizarre saying that
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: in Family Mart, which is like, in my head, the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: super clean, austere Japanese convenience store. But I when I
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: saw it, I was just kind of confused, and I
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: like stopped for a second and checked, like, I am
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: in China right now, right, so I do not know
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: why China is allowing Japanese convenience stores into their country.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Everything is political, and Japan is going to make a
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: killing on this deal because their food is such high quality.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Even their cooking preparations for fast food in particular is
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: of especially respective to with respect to Chinese like convenience
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: store fast food is a much higher quality, and there
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: are plenty of Chinese snacks in the family mart. Also,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: just in this one Beijing airport, there's no Chinese snacks
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: in the family Mart stores in Japan. So yeah, I'm
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: it was very jarring because I've never seen it. So
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I asked the clerk it's been there for less than
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a year, and yeah, I think he said it starts
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: sometime this year, so six months ago or something very
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: new development. I'm very curious how that deal got broken.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Everything's political, and I'm really curious how that happened. If like,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: because the Chinese don't need money. They have plenty of money,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Like their corporations have plenty of money, their government has
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: plenty of money, They have plenty of money. I don't
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: know why they would let such a successful Japanese business
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: into China where maybe it's only in the airport. If
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: it's only in the airport, there's so much traffic between
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Beijing and Japan, like air traffic. I could see like
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the demand of Japanese tourist just being like, Okay, when
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: we're in the layover, we need something to eat, and
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: we can't eat the Chinese food, So maybe that's it.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I have to check their Soundly Mart in
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: China now, because that is that's just crazy. That would
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: be like if there was an Iranian fast food or
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a convenience store and they just opened up shop in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the United States, or like North Korea. It's like a
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: North Korean convenience store began opening shops in the United States.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: That's about how bizarre this is. Japan and China have trade,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I guess, unlike the North Koreans and the US, but
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it's almost on that level. It's a very strange turn
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of events. Yeah, if you don't know about this and
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: you're familiar with Asia, isn't that crazy? Okay, let's move on.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I ate a ton of food there. It was great.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: It's a new thing. I'm excited about it. I'm excited
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: about countries coming together for whatever reason, because even if
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: they're angry at each other and whatever, the heck blah
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: blah blah, it's nice that they're making some kind of connection.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe that will improve relations in some marginal way. I'm
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: all for it. Also, Family Mart kicks the butt of
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: all other convenience stores. Okay, so I get on the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: plane after my feast. It's fine. It's only a two
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: hour flight, so I'm okay, maybe four hours. I can't remember.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I think it is four because it's from Oh No,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to Bussan, so it was like three hours.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I hit people with my bag getting on the plane.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I never do that. I don't have a lot of
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: stuff in my bag, even when it's full. There wasn't
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: a lot in my bag. And somehow I managed to
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: avoid this guy who was going to hit me. And
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: even though I was avoiding him, I'm generally very aware
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of my surroundings. I backed into a girl and my
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: soft bagh hit her head and she was like ah,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, I'm so sorry.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And I turned around to apologize to her, and I
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: was like, how did I miss the clearance that my
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: bag had turned around? Hit an old businessman on the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: other side of the aisle, and I was like aha,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: And I just like froze and made sure of the clearance,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: which was normal. I never have hit and then I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: hit two people, So I guess I have another fifteen
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: years where I won't hit people again because I'll be
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: extra careful. Because I hit two people softly but still rudely,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: and I apologize to both of them profusely, and they
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: said it was okay. I guess they both looked super pissed,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and I would be pissed too. I've been hit a
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: lot of times by people's bags because I'm like curious
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: if it'll happen a lot, so I don't like, should
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I move out of the way. It doesn't seem like
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: this person, and then they hit me with their bag.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: But I'm so excited about getting to Korea that quickly
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: goes out of my mind. I think I read a
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: few murder bought ages on the way there, and then
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I get off. There's these two people I have been
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: noticing since before we got on the plane. I saw
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: them walking around the Beijing airport, and then they were
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: at my gate, and then they were on the plane.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I just kept looking at them because they looked like
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Mortal Combat characters. The dude was ripped like crazy ripped,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and then the girl and he was wearing like all
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Span decks like he was getting ready to, I don't know,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: do martial arts. And then his girlfriend was also wearing
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: all Span decks with a green long sleeved shirt tied
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: around her waist, but she also looked like she was
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: ready to like kick butt, and I loved how cool
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: they both looked. You know what, This dude wasn't just ripped,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: he was swoll. It was weird. His arms were really
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: big and he looked very strong. And then the girl.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I just kept thinking like Lou King and Sonya Blade
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and I just kept mortal combating them in my head.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: So shout out to them because they looked really cool.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: And then I landed and everything was fine. We got
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: off the plane and I was trying to figure out
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: where I was going to go. How I was going
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: to walk to my hotel because it was on the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: other side of the city almost exactly. The airport is
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: in the what in the northeast of Jedju city, and
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: my hotel was outside the southwest of the city, so
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I had ways to go. It was going to take me.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: If I walked just straight, it would probably take me
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: five hours ish For four to five hours and I
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: never walked straight. I'm always meandering around the streets looking
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: for cool shops and food and sites and whatever that
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I can share on the LEMMI community. And I found
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: a bunch of cool murals. That was an extremely artistic place.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: But the first thing I noticed as soon as I
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: walked out was there was just so much greenery, and
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: just like Busan, just green everywhere, absolutely beautiful. But all
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the buildings are still clean and everything's organized. I was
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: very happy because it was extremely clear right away that
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: this was another Bussan wonderful South Korean city experience. It
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: might just be sold like I might just not. It
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: might just be sold that I disagree with. And all
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: other South Korean cities are great. Because I had such
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: a good time in Jedu, I stopped by a place
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I got a I think I got like a grapefruit
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: local Jedu Soju highball something like that, a mixed drink
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: cocktail with grapefruit in it and an ony geary and
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I was like, hey, man, I'm gonna be walking all day.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna fuel up real quick. And I did.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: It was great. I kept walking. I found a mural
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Jedgu Island really interesting. It's a matriarchal island, pretty rare,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and the women are the divers. The women are the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: seafood providers historically, and apparently a lot of them still
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: do dive rather than the men for harvesting clams and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: fish and whatnot from the ocean, which I thought was
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: really cool. And there's a huge mural of it on
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: this pier that I decided to visit, and that's how
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I used up the first two hours trying to get
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to this pier for no reason, just looked cool, and yeah,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: that's when I saw the mural. And then Jedgu's interesting
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: for so many reasons. They're very all island things have
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: such a distinct culture from their mainland, even if they're
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: right next to it, like Jedus right next to South Korea.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Their walls are made from like volcanic rocks, but the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: rocks are not mortared together traditionally. There's a lot of
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: modern walls that are mortared, but they just stack the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: rocks in two walls and then the walls generally stay apparently,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: which is kind of crazy. And I saw a lot
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: of walls like that, just stacked volcanic rocks, not mortared together.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: So you could see through them. There were like patches
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: where there was no rock, but they seemed pretty solid,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: these volcanic rock gravity walls. Oh. Before I left the airport,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I did have a very fun chat with some local
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Jedju Korean girl who spoke super good English. I can't
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: remember why she started talking to me or we started talking,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: but we had a fun little conversation. She was, Oh,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: she was something interesting. It was like architect or lawyer.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: She had something interesting she was finishing. She was finishing
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: up her she was finishing up some program in university
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: so she could become some interesting profession. So my hotel
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: super far away, so I just decided to go out there.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And like I said, I spent the first two hours
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: walking around. Then I just kept walking in the general
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: direction of the southwest, and every now and then I
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: would stop inside a South Korean convenience store and buy
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: some water and some chips and jerky and just a
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: few snacks, and then I'd keep walking. And it was
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: so much fun because it's so beautiful. It was a
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: little too hot, but I knew what I was getting into.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I don't usually go to hot places during the summer,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: but I have to get back for this wedding. So
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: I just I'm gonna have to be in Korea and
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Japan and Hawaii during the summer, but I'll only be
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a week and then i'll be in the States. I'll
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: be in the North and whatever. So it's fine. I
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: could deal with it. And I was in after the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: heat when I used to travel in Vietnam and bike
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: packing for three months and Thailand. I'm just the heat.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Even extreme heat doesn't bother me so much. My body
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: is used to it. It knows how to deal with it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: It sucks. I like not baking, but I know that
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to die. Just have to have enough
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: water and make sure I have my hat and my
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: son's sleeves and everything. So I had a really fun time.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I walked across the city, stopped at a few shops,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and then I just got to this one shop and
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: they had nothing that popped out to me. So I
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: was about to leave and I used the restroom, and
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: then when I walked out on the end cap of
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: an aisle were big packs of seaweed. Now, Norri like snack.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Seaweed nor is my favorite snack. I'm crazy about it
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and I can eat hundreds of them without a problem.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So this was like a twelve pack, I think, and
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, and I got that and took
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: it to the front desk and I cashiered it out,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: and then I was going to walk out with it,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: but it was air conditioned inside, and I thought, you
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: know what, why not just eat this. Now I'm barely
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: halfway to the hotel. It's been five hours. I can
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: take a break and have a snack. So I took
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: a break started eating the seaweed, and I was like, hey,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're eating seaweed, why don't you have
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: some beer with it? So I went and got one
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: of the beers. I got a Cass Classic Korean Logger,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed those twelve packs, and
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, that was good. Okay, okay, here
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: we go. And then and then I remembered I had
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: like other snacks. I had, like some jerky left over
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: from a store, and like a couple pouches. So I
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: took those out and was eating them with like the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: last of my beer. And then a group of young
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: adults came in, I don't know, college age, came in
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and they talked with the lady, who was very nice.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: The lady at the desk, the cashier at this place
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: let me charge my phone behind the counter while I
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: was eating my food because I'd been using it so much.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: It was almost gone after five hours, battery almost been dead,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: but it it wasn't, so that was great. And they
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: were tying with her, and then they bought a bunch
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of local snacks like eggs and uh what did they get?
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. They had some like oh, they all
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: had noodles. And then there was a tupperware container full
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of pickled dikon pickled radish right next to me that
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I hadn't really noticed. And there was a little tray
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of like pickled side assortments, and all the kids noticed me,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and I can speak like five words of Korean, so
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I'm like hi, thank you, And they were like, eat,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: eat the pickled radish, and I did and it was
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: so good. So I got one more beer and like
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: like half talked with them, mostly just listened and tried
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to say what I could when they asked me questions.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And the cashier could like speak a few i'll say,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: like one hundred English words in total, so she tried
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: to translate sometimes, and we had been using Google Translate
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to have a conversation, me and the cashier for a while,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: so she like explained to them about me, sort of,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I assumed, because I couldn't understand what they were saying.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And they had a whole bunch of food, and I
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: had another beer and I was eating the pickled radish
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and it was so frigging good, and she was like,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: just eat it all, eat it all. We have another
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: thing I have to put out anyway, so keep eating it.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And I was like, no, no, And then I kept
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: eating it and I ate. They bought me a snack
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and I eat that and I can't remember what that
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: was now, but I just was having such a fun time.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I went back and out a third beer, and I
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: bought another twelve pack of Nori, and everyone's like, oh,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: he loves Korean food, and I was like, I do
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: love Korean beer and Norri and I just kept eating.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And I was there for probably three to four hours.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: My phone was fully charged. I got ready to go.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: The cashier switched out with a young cashier, and the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: cashier I had been talking to this whole three or
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: four hours left and on my way out. The young
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: cashier was like, oh, you can't drink here, and I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, sorry, because I I was like four
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: or five beers in at this point, and the young
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: cashier was like, just so you know, you're not allowed
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: to drink in here. You can come back and eat
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: all you want, you just can't drink. And I was like, oh, okay,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: because I don't know if that's a thing in South
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Korea in general. I did ask other people and they
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: said I can definitely drink outside the store, but not
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: in the store like I asked other shop owners. So
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: maybe that's a thing in South Korea. You just can't
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: drink inside the premises. They are very law abiding. But
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: it was awesome because I got to drink because the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: first cashier was like, yeah, dude, party and she was
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: very cool and it was air conditioned, which I needed
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: because it had been a five hour walk and I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: was just dead and I slowly returned to myself. I
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: did drink a ton of water too, but then I
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: drank five beers at this shop, so I, you know,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: kind of blanked out all that water. And I think
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: on like the first beer when I was at that shop,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I had already marked it down as fun party place
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I can charge my phone and drink a beer and
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: be an air conditioning. And then when the cashier told
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: me that, I was just like, all right, I guess
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I'll never come back here again, because then, well, I
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: want to chill with a beer in a nice air
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: condition place, eating snacks during the hot, hot summer. So
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the next the decks four hours as I made my
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: way to my apartment were pretty much the shops got
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: less and less because it was outside of the city
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and I figured i'd come across some convenience stores and
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I could have, but I didn't check too deeply. I
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: just got some water. I just walked for three or
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: four hours. I don't know how far, but it was.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: It was a long ways, but because I wasn't stopping
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: as much, I got there a little faster. So let's
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: say three and a half hours. And I finally got
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to my hotel after three and a half hours, and
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: there was nobody there. And there was nobody The door
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: was opened, but there's nobody at the front desk. None
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of the lights were on. I didn't hear anybody anywhere
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: in the hotel, and I climbed the stairs. There was
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: an elevator, but I climbed stairs anyway up to my room.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I texted them and they said, yeah, your key's in
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the room, and they sent me the room number, and
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: then I went inside and the room was pretty empty.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: There was a flat screen TV, a mini fridge, a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: queen sized bed, and a generous balcony out the windows.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: But it was also a huge room, and other than
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: those four things, it was empty. So it was slightly
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: eerie because it was empty, and it was getting into
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the afternoon and there was like a mist hanging over
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: everything that made the whole hill look like silent hill.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: There's a great picture of it in the Lemon community,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the travel community if you want to check that out.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: But with nobody in the hotel and no sounds, and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: opening my door like let out a very loud click
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: that echoed throughout the hallway, which was huge. This was
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a huge, huge hotel. How many how many rooms one
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it's ten, twenty thirty, forty fifty six, seventy eight nine.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, there were probably eighty rooms in this hotel.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: It was a big, real like resort hotel. But I
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen anyone, and I just as soon as I
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: saw these winding banisters and carpeted floors, I was just like,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: this is the shining I'm in the Shining House. And
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: my knee jerk impression of the place was, Oh, I
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: don't want to stay here. I'm really glad. I only
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: booked three days because I canceled the remaining four days
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: in the week so that I could backpack outside because
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I wanted to test my new hammock and start backpacking.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: But after I was there for ninety minutes, Oh, what
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: was really cool. There were hooks on the balcony and
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I was actually able to put up my hammock on
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the balcony, and I think I fell asleep in that
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: for like an hour or something, and then I was like, great,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: hammock works. Great. So I got out of it, and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I was still like, okay, weird hotel. It'll be nice
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: to get out after three days and just slowly make
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: my way back toward the airport. We'll, we'll, I'll make
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: my way to Japan next and just urban camp around
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the city until that point. But then at like six pm,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: seven pm something, it started raining and I was like, ooh,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: that's that's kind of heavy. That's like real rain, but
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: as long as it doesn't stick around, I should be okay.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Because I hadn't made my rain weather gear yet for
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: urban camping, for backpacking, so if it rained like that,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: that would be a problem. If it kept raining for
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a long time, and then it kept raining for four hours,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: and I was like ooh. So I checked the weather
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: for that week that I would be staying in Jedju,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and every day was like eighty percent rain, and that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: rain rained the entire night. So now I'm in my
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: second day of this hotel and I'm checking out in
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: like one more day, and I was just like, oh boy,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and I check the weather again, because it does change
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: day today. You can have an entire week, which is
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: this what happened in Japan. Well we'll get to that,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: but you can have it like forecasting a rainstorm for
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: a week and then you show up and the weather's
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: forecast it as sunny for a week the next day.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: That happens pretty regularly. We still don't have weather down.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: In terms of every app I've ever used and prediction,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: it seems about the same as pretty good. Probably if
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you're in a place that has seasons. It's really difficult.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Still to predict the weather, so I was I waited
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: one day and then check the weather again. It was
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: more rain, Like the forecast of rainstorms was just heavier
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and it was rainstorms and thunderstorms, which apparently are pretty
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: rare in judge you. But I just showed up during
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: rain week, and I've in Thailand. They'll say that be
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: like rain storms coming, and I'm like, yeah, right, and
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: their rain lasts like fifteen minutes. So I very often
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: discard that warning and just backpack around. Anyway, this one,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I had just been through like twelve hours of rain. Yeah,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: because I was like seven to seven am that it
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: was raining. Maybe nine might have been fourteen hours of rain,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: but it was at least half a day of straight
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: up heavy rain torrential. If you're not used to rain,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I would say heavy rain, since I'm very used to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: torrential rain. I love the rain too, But I didn't
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: have cold I didn't have rain weather gear for my hammock.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And you know what, the longer I was in this hotel,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I was like, I got a giant comfy bed to myself.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: This is a huge room. I figured out that second
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: day actually how to hook up my computer to their
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: flat screen, and I just got Death Stranding two, and
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna play that on this giant
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: flat screen while I'm here. And there's a mini fridge,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and there was the balcony that I could put my
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: hammock on, so I was still getting my hammock time in.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know, it's screw whatever, and I
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: just got the rest of the week again, which if
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: you are Airbnb, by the way, if you only get
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: three days and then you extend it to a full week,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you get the weekly discount. Still, it's a like they'll
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: pro rate the remaining four days so that you're paying
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: as if you booked an entire week in the beginning,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: so you still get the discount even if you book
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: three days and then extend four days. It's great. I
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: love how discounts work on Airbnb. It's so convenient. I
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: that's why I use them. That's why I use them
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and not other places, apps, services, whatever. Okay, so I
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: have now decided, all right, I guess I just have
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a week of eating snacks and playing video games. And
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: that's pretty much what happened, except the next day, well, okay,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: that did happen. That's what happened. But also the next
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: day I was peckish and instead of getting snacks, I
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: just thought, Hey, I know I'm way outside of the city,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: but what if there is a buffet. Because I love
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: buffets in all countries, I think they're great. I don't
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: know why everybody doesn't go to buffets all the time
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: in every single country, but Korean buffeys especially, like you'll
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: some countries just have higher quality buffets, tie buffets totally
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: rad they can be amazing, and these are all you
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: can eat buffets I'm talking about. Korean is the same way.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Koreans have amazing all you can eat buffets, and they're
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: usually like six dollars, generally four to six, five to six.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I'll say, I haven't had a four dollars one in
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: a long time, and most of them were six, So
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: six dollars all you can eat. They'll have like five
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: different meats and a salad bar and this one, this one,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: this one, this one. I didn't say, so I looked
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: on Google Maps to find the closest all you can
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: eat buffet and I was like, well'll just walk a
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: couple hours totally and then walk back whatever I have time.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: It's fun i'll listen to podcasts. There was one at
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the bottom of my street, ten minutes away outside of
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the city. I'm not sure why. There was a shopping
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: complex at the bottom and there wasn't a ton of people,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: but there there was. It wasn't serving many communities, but
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: it must have been serving enough because there was a massive, beautiful,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: all you can eat buffet run. It was clearly run
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: like by a family, like it was a It didn't
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: feel corporate. It felt like this was a family business.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But it was large and it was great. They had
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: two soups every day. They had five different meats every day.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: They had a huge vegetable bar. They had a pickled
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: vegetable bar separate. They had a beebim bop like station,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and they had a Mongolian grill thing where you could
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: give them food and they'd fry it up for you.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: And they had rices and eggs. They had an egg
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: cooking station. And interesting thing about the Korean all you
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: can eat biffets. At their egg station, it's almost always
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: diy So there's just a bunch of eggs in cartons
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: there and you crack them into the pan and cook
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: them on these little bunsen burners they have so that
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: you can cook your egg exactly how you want to
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: cook it, which is so cool. So the first day
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: there's some marinated chicken and I eat the crap out
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: of that, And then there was beef and I ate
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: a bunch of that. Though there's bulgogi. The first day
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: there was bullgogi, and I love bulgogi, so I got
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: a bunch of that. I also got a ton of kimchi.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: They had like three different kim cheese, but I just
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: like the regular one, and vegetables. I could look at
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the picture, but just imagine all great Korean food, just
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: a hubcap of Korean food piled on top of it.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I ate two big plates. I got a beer with them,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: and I was happy as I can be. And then
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I walked for ten minutes and boop, I'm back at
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: my now, a belly full of food, not having walked
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: for ten or eleven hours. I'm like, wow, I have
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: all day to play video games and watch movies and
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: take naps in my hammock. And that became my routine,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and it was a great routine. I had a wonderful time.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. I couldn't believe how lucky I was.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: It turns out there was another one, another all you
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: can eat a fet It was like an hour away,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: but this one was so good. And the other great
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: thing about Korean all you can ep of face every
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: day they rotate the dishes, so you're getting several new
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: dishes every day. Usually, like a lot of vegetables will
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: be the same, bib and bop station's gonna be the same.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: But they rotate the meat, soups, the rice, like a
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of dishes are rotated. Eight even the vegetables
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: like pickled vegetables, so you get fresh, delicious, varied menu
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: every day for six bucks. I only eat once a day,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: so that is quite the deal for me. That's probably
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: you know, that's probably why people don't go to buffets
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: every day, because most people don't eat once a day.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Cracked the code anyway, if you eat ones a day,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: hey guess what all you can eat bffas that's the
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: that's the that's the trick. And if you go to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: one of those countries like Korea that has amazing food
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: and they change the menu every day, it's it's just golden.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I was like, I am one hundred percent doing this
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the whole time I'm here, and I pretty much did.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: So I walked back to my Shining Hotel totally happy.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: You know what, I haven't written down here, so I
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: should mention the first night, I did sleep for fourteen hours,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: even after that hammock nap. When I finally went to bed,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: it was at like nine pm and I woke up
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: at eleven am. So I did sleep for fourteen hours
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: because I was walking for more than ten hours, but
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: it was broken up with a beer and snacks. I
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: don't know. I was exhausted. Maybe I hadn't been backpacking
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: in so long, and that first ten hour hike was
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: like the first I just used up so many of
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: my reserves in my body. I had to pass out.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I really conked out, so on the way back up
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to my Shining Hotel on the second day, I walked
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: back in my room and I'm like, all right, giant
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: in bed. I have a mini fridge, I can play
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: video games, there's AC there's free air conditioning, and I
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: have a balcony that I can go sleep in my hammock,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: which is what I love to do. And I don't
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: have anything to do there except make one of these
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: episodes if I want to seem like too much work
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: to set up the audio equipment for a couple days
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: for a week in Jedgu, So I didn't. I just
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: played video games and had fun, and I booked those
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: rest of the four nights. And I was like, hey,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: you know what, this is great? You know what's so funny.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out how to hook at my laptop
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: with Linux on it, Linux Mint. I could have figured
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: out how to hook that up to a flat screen,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: and I know it works, and I've done it before,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and I just had some option clicked. Oh I had.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I had the graphics setting in power saving mode, and
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: so my computer didn't automatically connect to external displays that way.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I've had that problem for like two years and I
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: haven't solved it because I'm usually traveling, so I don't
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: need a flat screen. I have a big, old gaming laptop.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: And then I was in Korea and I was like,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: this is so weird. How have I never figured this out?
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: And I finally looked at the display settings and realized
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I just had to change it from power saving to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: normal or performance and then it worked fine and could
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: immediately connect to any external display and then I could
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: play video games all day, which I did and it
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: was fantastic. So for two days I just went down
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: to this place ate my fild went back up, played
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: video games all day, watched some movies, took naps, and man,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: that den hour hike conked me. I was sleeping through
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the night and taken naps the next couple days, and
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: then something terrible happened. The buffet at the bottom of
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: my street closed for one day. It was really difficult
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: for me, but I survived. I found a convenience store,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: bought some popcorn, and I waited. I played video games
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: and waited for the next day to come so I
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: could go back to the buffet. Luckily, it came back
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the day after, but they closed. There was some weird
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: like party going on down the hill. There's a ton
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of people and tour buses showing up there. The shopping
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: center must be famous because a couple times there were
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: a bunch of tour buses that showed up and dropped
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: people off, even though there's nothing else out there except
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: this one super tiny shopping plaza. It was weird, but
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: luckily the buffet was open the rest of the week
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and I just kept on going back and it was
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: so good. I got an amber. I got a lot
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: of amber alerts actually on Juju Island, which I guess
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: be aware of, but I thought amber alerts were for kids,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and they said it was an amber alert for seventy
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: five year old grandma who got lost. So is that
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: what amber alerts are for? They're just for anyone that
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: goes missing. Do they just call a missing persons amber alerts? Now?
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: If you know that, let me know, because I don't
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: know that. And I thought that was curious. Okay, reported
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the terrible guy in seat twenty five C in front
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: of me to the airline. I mentioned that I think
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I closed off the last episode, and then I started
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: looking around because it was raining so crazy hard, and
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I took that as a message like, hey, man, if
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be backpacking, you better get your rain weather gear,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: your rain gear in order. And Japan also rains a lot,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: so I was like, yeah, okay, okay sky. So I
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: went out hiking during the afternoon and there were usually
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: a few hours of non rainy time that I could
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: go around, and there were some hot days. There were
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: like three hot days that week, although it's still rain
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: at night in the morning, so I walked around and
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I just looked for ideas because I didn't want to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: do the same rein gear I had last time that
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: was bulky and heavy, and I'm more lightweight, campy than
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I ever have been. Even with all this audio equipment,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: the gaming laptop, everything still fits with tons of space
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: into my fifty liter rucksack forty Leader rucksack forty Leader rucksack,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: So I just don't want to add any bulk or weight.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: But I couldn't get any good ideas really, so I
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: think the only thing I ended up finding was an
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: umbrella for a stuff sack because my jacket I lost
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the stuff sack for it somehow in Peru, and I
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: was basically too despondent about losing the stuff sack that
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I worked really hard on. It was actually built two
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: of them because the first one was no good, so
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I hadn't made a replacement yet, and I found a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: perfect umbrella on a hike, took it back home, made
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: another great stuff sack for the jacket and it's the
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: perfect size. Put a Paara cord drawstring on the top.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Great Now I can condense that when I put it
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: in my bag much better, and it makes a huge
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: difference because that is a giant fluffy puffer packet jacket.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I then went to the second buffet the next day.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Took like I thought it was gonna take thirty minutes
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: to walk there, it took an hour. And when I
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: got there, I walked in, I was like, oh man,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: cause it was kind of clear right off the bat
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: it wasn't as good. The meat didn't look as good,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: and they also had a bunch of crappy they had,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: like spaghetti, which is really popular in South Korea, like
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Italian red sauce. Spaghetti is really popular, and a lot
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: of the buffets there and that's the only non Korean
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: noodle they used, but whatever they used it there. They
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: just had a bunch of fast foody looking food, like
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: processed food, and it was good. I still had a
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: great meal, but the first one was clearly better, so
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I just went back to that the rest of the week.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I saw ground fowl on the hike. I was walking
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: down this stretch of super tall, fluffy, meadowy grass and
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: it looked amazing, So I was it was just this
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: spiraling into forever. There was a gate that you're not
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: supposed to go past on the path, but it didn't
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: say private property. It said like I can't remember what
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: it said, and I don't take good enough notes for that,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: but it seemed fine. So I went through the gate
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: and followed this path through these oceans of tall, wavy grass,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and maybe ten minutes into the walk, there was a
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and I was like, what the heck was that? And
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I looked around. I didn't see anything, and that happened again.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: I saw this big pheasanty fowl like right above the grass.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: It didn't fly very high, it just sort of skimmed
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: over the whole grass, flapping furiously to get away from me.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: And as I walked like that just kept happening, and
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: I got a yeah, I got a couple cool videos
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: of these ground fowl that were apparently nesting in the grass,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: and then I disturbed them. So after a while I
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: turned around because I did feel like I was being
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a big, clumpy human. You know what, since I was
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: just playing video games, there wasn't that much going on,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: so I'm just going to finish up Korea. So what
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: else happened there? I started jogging. Freaked the crap out
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: of this kid playing basketball in his driveway because I
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: was jogging around at night and I was going down
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: a side street and I realized it was just a
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: long driveway, and so I was just some guy running
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: up to him in early evening while he was playing
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: basketball in his driveway, and I was like, I mean
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: that's and then I turned around and went back by.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: I noticed there was a hair dryer behind the giant
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: front desk in my Shining hotel, and that was just
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: clocked in my mind. But then the night before I
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: checked out, I used the washing machine, and as soon
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: as I turn on the washing machine, it was just
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: raining at like four pm, and it did not stop
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: raining until I left, basically the next day. So I
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: went downstairs and took the hair dryer upstairs and dried
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: all my clothes from the washer. Because they don't have
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: a dryer, usually just hang them out, but it was
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the air was wetter than my clothes, so they just
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: didn't dry. Luckily, that hair dryer was conveniently behind the
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: front desk, and I noticed it and I grabbed it
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and I used it and it worked out fine. I
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: played Dispatch, which is a video game that is a
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: lot of fun. It's this superhero who has to go
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: to work at a superhero call center after his superhero
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: he can't be a superhero anymore. And there were a
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: lot of decisions to make. It had a real visual
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: novel kind of feel. They were good choices, they were
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: like tricky choices to navigate, and there's a lot of
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: interpersonal dynamics have to go through. I loved it. I
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: played the entire thing in one sitting. I just played
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: it all day and it was really fun. It was great.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: I highly recommend that video game Dispatch if you like
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: superheroes or well like invincible style superheroes, like adult superhero stuff,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: or comics at all, or visual novels, or just interpersonal
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: like emotional choices, because you have to make a lot
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: of difficult choices in the game and they have consequences
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: for how the game progresses. I highly recommend Dispatch. Oh
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: just the art. The art's a lot of fun. And yeah,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: the story was surprising, tons of fun. I really like that.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Highly recommend it. So I was gonna get a bus
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: card so I could get to the airport from my
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: far away hotel, and then I was going to get
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: the app Cacao to get the taxi to the airport
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and I got a bus card, but I can't add
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: money to it with my credit card. I have to
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: use cash, and I didn't want to pay the feed
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: to take out the cash, so I did end up
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: using a taxi to get to the airport. And I
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: went in the airport and everything is serene and calm,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: as it always is, and then this kid just started
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: scream crying, and I was like, oh geez, and he
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: was right in my gate and his parents weren't really
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: paying attention to his scream crying, and I was like,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I bet, and then they start speaking Mandarin, and I
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're Chinese parents
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: are very much of the cry it out style of parenting,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: so I feel like they're coming across not that good
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: in all of these airports I've been in, But you
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: know what, that's how it usually goes. If you have
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: a kid crying with his two Asian parents that aren't
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: paying any attention to him. The odds are Also, there's
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: like a billion a half Chinese people, so I guess
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: the odds are pretty good anyway. But that's it. That's it.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I'm now on my way to Japan. I get to
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: go to Osaka, which I didn't like when I've been
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: there before, but I was like, hey, look what you
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: thought about Korea, maybe you'll like it this time. Let's
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: go into Osaka. And all ended on this because it's
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: kind of funny. On the plane to Osaka, I sat
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: down and they tend to group foreigners with other foreigners
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: in Asia, especially, like they'll put all the foreigners in
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: the back of the plane in like one section, and
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: then all the locals in the rest of the plane.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: And this time they put me and I'm kind of brown,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: reddish hair more brown, but I have a redder beard,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: and I was next to two other gingers, so there
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: were three redheads in one row and then all black
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: hair on the rest of the plane, which I thought
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: was very funny. The three ginger row have a great day.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go get some pizza. I hope you're
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: doing great. You can talk to me a bit of
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: a rambler at gmail dot com or a bit of
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: a rambler on Blue Sky and Lemmy, thank you so
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: much for listening. I hope you are having a great day.