Day 18, eye bleach

I took a few short videos over the course of this walk—nothing special, but you might find them interesting, and some of you probably need some eye bleach after the previous post about my toe. Here are all the videos, gathered in this one post.

October 2, 2022 (Day 4), 3:36 p.m.:

I hope you could see the water running down the walls. It's one of those waterfall designs that you find in certain high-end places. A bit frou-frou, but kinda neat.

October 3 (Day 5), 1:36 p.m.:

Inevitably, there's gonna be video of spiders and their webs.

October 8 (Day 10), 2:08 p.m.:

Ah, those silly turbines. And another—

October 8 (Day 10), 2:30 p.m.:

October 15 (Day 17), 9:14 a.m.:

I thought the play of shadows here was nifty.

October 15 (Day 17), 9:54 a.m.:

The snake seemed to have a head injury.

October 15 (Day 17), 2:12 p.m.:

I wanted to capture a recurrent motif of the coastline: rocks lying just beneath the water's surface. All swimmers, surfers, and mariners beware!

In other news, I Googled the Jeju National Museum and discovered that it's always closed on Mondays, so I'll have to figure out something else to do tomorrow. Since abalone and the snail called bomal/보말 are both advertised so heavily here, I might seek out a lunch of one and a dinner of the other tomorrow. Bomal gets priority because abalone is easy enough to find in Seoul. 

I had a nasty dinner at a fried-chicken place tonight. It was a reminder of why I usually avoid such places unless they're top name brands: the chicken was made with shitty cuts of thigh meat and was way over-sauced. The fries were bland (not enough salt and seasoning), but I forced my way through most of the meal before calling it quits. I now feel bloated and sluggish after having spent most of the day with a proudly empty stomach. Ick.

Next to the chicken place was a hilarious-but-sad sight: a fish restaurant with tanks on display outside. Normally, you see fish swimming around vigorously in such tanks—a sure sign that whatever you eat will be fresh. In the tank I saw, though, 95% of the fish were dead. They weren't even floating: they had all sunk to the bottom of the tank, where they congregated in a sad little cluster of carcasses—more souls for the Reaper. I thought about taking a picture of this morbid tableau, but I didn't want that image to be one of my last visuals of Jeju-do. 

Instead, here are two pleasant images from just before sunset:

Seong-san

similar to yesterday's pic

I can do the National Museum on the day I leave, and I can also do the bakery: my flight out is at 7:50 p.m., so I'll have all morning and afternoon to gallivant all over the island one last time before finally departing. I really am going to miss this island, as harsh as it was to me with its often-nasty weather and its steep mountain paths and its precariously rocky stretches.

I don't think it rained at all today despite the forecast of rain. Rain is predicted for tomorrow as well, but maybe we'll get lucky twice. The 18th, my departure day, continues to look good, so I'm hoping for a smooth flight out. Of course, when it comes to Jeju, you never know. 

Last note: after that bad chicken dinner, I limped over to the souvenir shop and ended up buying a lame little packet of tangerine-flavored jelly candies and a tiny pair of stone grandfathers for my #3 Ajumma to put on a windowsill. I found myself looking around the shop and noting the missed opportunities to sell little statues of all the iconic images I've seen during my walk. Not just stone grandfathers, but also haenyeo, grist mills, farm women, little lighthouses, 3-barred gates, and so on. Hell, even miniature replicas of traditional stone walls might have a place, not to mention small versions of mountain trails and famous geographic features like Oedolgae. If I were an artist in this region, I'd be brimming with ideas for iconic, tourist-friendly imagery. How about a miniature sea-god shrine?

Right, well—more jibber-jabber tomorrow.

PS: I just had an idea: I can spend tomorrow tracking down the end-of-course stamps that I'd failed to get because I'd skipped that part of the path. Ooh, there's a thought. If I go by bus, the project might take a while, but I'd rather not spend money on a cab until it's time to get to the airport. (And even then, I might prefer to stick with the bus.)