Day 14, rest (really this time)

I made good on my threat to walk over to Dragon Head Rock. Turned out to be a mere 1.3K walk one way. Before heading back, I stopped at a place with the Konglishy name To Island and had myself a pulled-pork sandwich. I then hung out by the water's edge a bit before heading back to my hotel. Below, I've got a messy spill of random thoughts, plus a few photos.

Going back to last night: I ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant. While the food was okay, if expensive, the initial service was a bit annoying in that a female staffer ran up to me as I was staring at the touch-screen display for the mu-in ordering system. She reached past me and pushed the "English" button. Now, I've been through situations like this a hundred times, and I understand perfectly well that the person is trying to help, but it annoys me every time because the automatic assumption is that I'm an incapable furriner who needs to be led by the nose through simple situations. There's no justification for this assumption. Enough Korean-fluent foreigners have appeared on Korean TV for Koreans to know that we're not all retarded, handicapped monkeys, and yet the stereotype of the hapless foreigner persists. Why? I guess TV isn't as influential as people think. Aside from that annoyance, though, it was a decent enough dinner, although I'm beginning to think Japanese food (or at least the Korean version of it) is a bit overrated.

My current room was called a "deluxe suite" by the lady at the check-in counter yesterday, but I didn't understand why until I finally looked outside my room this morning and discovered I've got a huge balcony all to myself. The lady had said that the deluxe was all she had available because the hotel was otherwise booked up, hence the W80,000/night price tag. I still think the room itself is no better than a motel-sized accommodation, and despite the balcony (which Koreans always call a "veranda"), I can't help thinking I got wallet-raped. At least the room comes with tons of electric sockets, which is one of the things I look for in a decent place. 

And in bad news: my cell phone no longer charges quickly, especially when it's on the portable battery. I keep getting "slow charge" warnings that tell me it'll take several hours to go from 60% to 100% (that interval normally takes well under an hour). I actually ran out of battery power while walking to this hotel yesterday, despite the phone's being hooked up to the charger the whole time.

My right big toe and the rest of my right foot both look pretty rough, so it's a race to see whether I can complete the Jeju walk before my right foot finally decides to implode like a black hole. My left foot isn't doing so hot, either, thanks to the heel pain that expanded to become a whole-foot pain. All of this affects my walking speed and makes me feel as if it were 2017 all over again, when I was a trans-Korea newbie. I'll almost definitely be seeing some foot professionals once all of this is over. 

Righto—let's move on to the day's pictures. 

peeking over a stone wall at laundry

an interesting lot

200 meters to Dragon Head Rock

I'm guessing that's Yong Du Am.

not the rock's most draconian angle

Tourism photos usually show the rock's other side. Dare to be different!

The weather's been beautiful all day today.

touristy trinkets

To Island, specializing in burgers and churros

I was the only one here.

pulled-pork sandwich, half-size fries, mandu side

The hash brown inside the sandwich barely registered, but the sandwich was good.

mandu poppers

their biggie churro, 50 cm of delicious fried dough

This invites fill-in-the-blanks thinking.
Slow, but... what?

digital zoom, 10X

a reminder that the airport is only a few miles away

This dragon was blocked by parked cars yesterday. I had a chance to photograph it today.

You are now here, on Jeju Island.

no socks today, so I clearly see the hole in my shoe

What mysteries lie beyond the red gate?

My bank, Shinhan, goes by Jeju Bank here.

another door to mystery

unexpected religious imagery (Catholic church?)

the city beloved of all the people of the world

This horror in my hotel's stairwell makes me think of biblical angels.

Kevin doing his Old Man Kevin impression
(see my bandanna line?)

might as well use the balcony to accelerate drying

Tomorrow, the walk continues. Hard to believe I have only three more walking days left. The final day is supposed to be over 30K in length, but I might divide that into two days just to spare my feet the torture. If I do that, the walk will have taken 18 days, not the originally projected 17. Since I broke with planned protocol early on, though, I think it's safe to say that this walk was more about discovering my post-stroke limits and getting reacquainted with Jeju after a 36-year absence than it was about sticking fanatically to a plan that fell apart as soon as it encountered the on-the-ground realities of walking and hiking on Jeju.

As mentioned before, Course 18 basically continues to hug the coastline, and so does the bike trail, so tomorrow's hike will probably be a mixture of both, as usual. 

The original plan was for the hike to end on October 15, and I would stay until the 18th, just chilling out and basking in my victory. I may not have done the Olle in an orthodox manner, but I will have circumnavigated the island, so at least there's that. 

Now, though, the revised plan will be to end on the 16th, leaving me just one full free day to do whatever. I actually know what I want to do: take a bus back to that awesome bakery and buy two of those pizzas plus two of those croissant-shaped, buttery salt breads. Still can't get those out of my mind. I need to check whether that bakery is a chain that has branches in Seoul. Otherwise, I'll have no choice but to come back to Jeju soon to get another fix. The life of an addict, right?