From Busan Complacence to Fukuoka Insomnia

I left Busan, South Korea yesterday morning, to fly to Fukuoka, Japan. I really wish I had taken the ferry instead of flying, but it is what it is, and I made it intact. I am not the biggest fan of flying. I don't mind the flying itself, in fact that's kind of cool. What i don't like about flying is the bureacratic part of it. The regulations of what you can bring and how you can bring stuff, the focus that is going to be placed on you by probing individuals, and the general hassles involved with getting from one side of an airport to another relatively intact. I suppose a certain amount of that is unavoidable, but some of the details get downright surrealistic. The focus on things like liquids and shoes can seem a little heavy-handed. And a lot of this seems to be peculiarly focused on air transportation rather than other forms. I always have to do a complete air travel repack. Discard the big liquids. I left a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of cooking oil behind at the Busan hostel. I also had to leave a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide behind, because you can't take that on a plane.  Find all my liquids of less than three ounces and put them in a baggie. Put all my electronics in a carry-on. Sharps (pocket knife and nail clippers) go in the checked baggage. Then when I get to my destination, I have to reassemble from the airplane repack to a more practical assembly of my stuff. But, oh, well, the airplane dance is over for me until the next time, so time to focus on new things.

My shoe crisis is somewhat resolved for now. My old shoes are waterlogged and on the verge of collapse, which led me to seek new footwear in a land where I understand very little and others understand very little from me, and shoe stores were difficult to find. My first stop was at a shoe store that was small and really didn't have many choices that worked for me, but I had to get something. So I bought some water socks and a pair of soles. They handle wetness well, but are really not meant for heavy walking. So after walking about fifty kilometers over three days, they were pretty much ruined. The soles held up fine, but they both have nickel-sized holes behind the heels. There is thirty bucks down the tube, but I had to have something on my feet. Then I found an underground mall in Busan and had a huge number of small booth stores, and a much wider selection. So I got a pair of decent walking sandals with enough fastening around the foot to provide for good support and good bottom soles. Hopefully the problem is solved for now, but I eventually will have to buy some closed-toe shoes. And right now, I'm hauling around my waterlogged old shoes that I tried unsuccessfully to dry out with a hair dryer at the old hostel, and are now taking up huge amounts of valuable space in my pack. I have just had the one pair of shoes up until now, and now I have three, which means two pair (both wet) take up pack space.

When you leave a country you've been traveling in and go to a new country that you've never been to before, you have to discard a whole set of learned behaviors that you have acquired in response to the cultural norms and prepare to learn a whole new set of strategies. But some things you learned in one country might carry over to the next one, too. You never know. What you have learned about the country you have spent time in brings you to a certain level of complacence that you have to trade for nearly constant vigilance when you get to the next place. And the whole process, combined with the constant moving and the packing and the lugging, can be exhausting. When I got to Fukuoka, I was exhausted. But I still had to find the hostel with full pack regalia attached to my body. I went through the orienteering ritual, combined with the occasional moments of frustration ritual, with the sit-and-rest-and-mentally-regroup moments, and this process led me to the hostel, after circling the block a few times to find my elusive prey. Then I checked in and got settled and just collapsed in sleep on the bed at five in the afternoon. Now I'm awake at two in the morning, kinda needing to go through my pack and get some stuff done, but everybody here is crashed out or at least peacefully perusing their digital devices in bed, so now is not the time for a repack and assessment. Oh, well. Maybe I can at least dig out my Kindle and read some travel guidebooks or something, to kind of get an inkling as to what the Fukuoka plan will be. I already excavated some snack bars, so my rumbling tummy is relatively satisfied now. Gotta get some water soon...discarded my water bottles for the airplane but forgot to get some on the way to the hostel. Wish I could reach for some water right now, but I'll live. Hopefully, I'll survive the night intact and move on to more challenges on the morrow. In the meantime, I'm here wide awake laying in bed at two in the morning.

The Case of the Waterlogged Shoes

I've had quite a saga in Korea. I've managed to spend a little over a month here, starting in Seoul, heading up to the DMZ and briefly setting foot in North Korea, to Chuncheon to Gangneung, stopping in Wonju and Jecheon, then Daegu, Jeonju and, finally, here in Busan. I've taken trains, inter-city buses, and express buses. Transportation for the most part is amazingly cheap, and there is a card called T-money that you can use in just about every city's subway and bus system. You can even use it for most taxis, and on ground transportation across the country. The transportational network is well-integrated and seamless.

South Korea in general is very high-tech. The T-money cards can have value added to them through touch pad machines; you just lay the card on the pad and add money. The machines are easy to use even if you don't understand Korean...most of them have an English option, but I used some that didn't, and they were very intuitive to follow. There are escalators that don't start up until you step on them. At first, I thought they just didn't work, and took the stairs. But then I started to walk up one escalator, and it just started moving. When you press some elevator buttons, sometimes if you press them a second time, it cancels the floor request.

South Korea also has the fastest average Internet speeds in the world. Most wifi I have used has been really fast. I never encounter wifi that you have to just be in a certain corner of the room for it to barely work, like I have in a lot of countries (including the US). Most of the hostels have touchpad locks to enter; they all pretty much work the same way. You lift up the cover, enter a code (usually four digits but sometimes it adds on a # or * key before or after the four digits), and lower the cover again, and the door unlocks.  A little song plays from the announcement speakers in the train station when your train is arriving (I think they did that in China too).

The rainy season is here in Korea, and up until I arrived in Busan, I had been lucky. I had only encountered sporadic rain, but mostly sun or rainless clouds. But since I arrived in Busan, it has been a different story. It has been raining almost constantly. It will often vary in intensity, but mostly it has been a steady downpour,  with occasional respites. I don't mind so much getting wet, especially when it is warm like it is here now. And I'd rather be wet than put on a raincoat and be uncomfortably sweaty under the plastic. But what I can't deal with are constantly waterlogged shoes, which I had had until yesterday.

The shoes I brought with me were not of the greatest quality. In hindsight, I might have bought better shoes. But I wanted shoes that fastened with Velcro straps rather than laces. This preference arose a couple years ago when I was in the Arctic wilderness in Alaska, and had shoes that were constantly coming untied, then one day I was startled by a bear, and one of my shoes was untied. I decided the next time I bought shoes, they would have Velcro straps.

My Velcro-strapped shoes have been serving me well,  but they don't do well in the rain,  and they are probably near what most people would consider their useful life anyway. But I usually wear shoes long after they become ragged, even though it is probably time to buy another pair for when they suddenly blow a sole or something catastrophic. And I have walked around a thousand miles so far, so it is understandable that they would be a little worn. And now they are constantly waterlogged from being in the rain, and rotting. No. Not a comfortable feeling when walking long distances every day (at least most days).

So I set off to find a shoe store, and try to buy some good walking sandals made of materials that handle rain well. But shoe stores are hard to find, given the language barrier and the limited capabilities of Google Maps in South Korea. I finally did find some shoe stores, but they were mostly small and had crappy selections. None of the sandals fastened well enough for walking, or had good enough soles. One store had some Crocs, which I consideted, but they didn't have any in my size (damn my big Western ape feet!). I finally found a quasi-acceptable solution at the third store I stopped at. I bought some water socks, but the soles were barefooty, so I then inserted some walking soles. It is actually not too bad, though I will need to buy some shoes pretty soon, and may also want some sandals too. And, if I get to a thirty-below kinda place in the winter, which is entirely possible, I'll need even another footwear solution. But I don't have a lot of room in my backpack...right now, shoving my other pair of shoes in there will be a challenge.  And they will most likely be wet. I've filled them with baking soda to try to keep the rot down, but they are definitely on their last legs.

Busan is a nice place, but the rain has made it more of a challenge to get around on foot. Still, it is doable. But it is not the best weather to enjoy the beaches, which I am hoping to get to soon. I spent one rainy day soaking in hot springs, which was wonderful. I went to Hurshimchung Spa at Dongnae Hot Springs. The water is a natural hot spring fed into the spa. There were several different pools of different temperatures, a medicinal herb bath, a "champagne bath" (which didn't actually have champagne in it, but it did have lemony effervescent water), and several scrub areas where you could swath yourself in salts, scrub down, and then shower. They give you a bracelet that unlocks two sets of lockers, one for shoes, and the next for everything else. And there was an outdoor hot pool that I sat in while it poured rain. I always feel so relaxed after sitting in the hot springs, so it was a great way to spend the day.

Then the next day, I took a day trip to Gimhae, and slogged my way through pouring rain all day. The regional airport, Gimhae Airport, is about halfway between Busan and Gimhae, and I passed it on the way. When I arrived in Gimhae, I went to a park that had a steep hill in it, but it started getting a little flash-floody (there was deep muddy water starting to pour down the rock steps, and rushing streams starting to form several inches deep), so I abandoned ship on that plan. So I visited a traditional market,  and the Tomb of King Suro, and walked around the town some before heading back to Busan on the train.

Daejeon and the Yuseong Hot Springs

I arrived in Daejeon on the express bus. Thus was the first time I had taken the express bus; prior to this I had taken the inter-city buses which are somewhat cheaper and stop more places. Still, the price wasn't bad; it was about twelve dollars for a ride that was at least two and a half hours. And I really couldn't see any real difference in quality. There was a TV at the front of the bus blaring some mindless daytime infotainment show in Korean, but I didn't understand what they were saying, and even if I had, it looked completely pointless.

When I first got on the bus, I was the only passenger. But at a later station, another person got on. So there were only two people on the bus for the entire rest of the ride to Daejeon. It was a very pleasant ride. The scenery was nice, as it usually is between cities in Korea, and the seats were fairly comfortable. I think they might have reclined a little more than the inter-city bus seats. Really, the only reason I took the express bus was that the express terminal was easier for me to find than the inter-city bus terminal. And with the language barrier, I went with what I could find. Actually, there are several bus terminals in Daegu. But the express bus terminals are all within a few blocks of each other, while the inter-city terminals are all over the city, and I had no idea which buses left from which terminals. And I had taken a train into Daegu...the first time I took a train in between Korean cities, so I didn't end up at a bus terminal. That was my bus strategy...to end up at a terminal, so I would know where it was.  But that only really works in the smaller cities, where there is only one bus terminal. No telling if the terminal I land at would be the same one I take off from in these multi-terminal cities.

At least my method for taking the bus (or train) is solid. I just pull up the city I am going to on Google Maps, and show it to the person behind the counter. It has the name of the city in English and Korean. So far that has worked. But I might mention that Google Maps doesn't really work fully in Korea. It won't map out your route, though it will show you the streets. But sometimes it takes some time before it is not blurry...maybe after an hour or so, the streets will show up with definition. But what is DOES do is show you what bus or subway you can take to your destination, and where to catch it, which is awesome. It took me a while to figure out that I could do that, and it took me a while to figure out that I could map "manually", that is, just follow the streets on the map, even if it won't plot the course. At least Google Maps has some functionality in Korea; in Mongolia it didn't work at all. Then there is maps.me, which works great, but didn't cover one city that I was in at all (Jecheon)...it didn't even look like there was a city there; it showed no streets. Also it has less landmarks, though I think there is the capability to add some, but you have to go to the Open Maps Project to do it. Anyway, I haven't taken the time to figure it out. But between the two of them, I've mostly been able to make my way around.

Until now, that is. When I arrived in Daejeon, I tried to look for my hotel on maps.me, and it wasn't there. Then I tried Google Maps, and it gave me a location, and a bus to take. Great! So I took the bus across town, and searched for the hotel all around. The problem was, it wasn't there. It wasn't even anywhere near where Google Maps told me it was. So here I was, stuck somewhere across town with my full pack on, walking around looking for a phantom. Luckily, some kind teenagers working at a mobile phone store saw me wandering around aimlessly, looking for a dot on the map that was right where their store was, and helped me find the actual location of my hotel with a great Korean maps app (which I have downloaded since it is supposed to be the best one, but I can't use it because it is all in Korean), and set me off on the right bus to the correct place.

So I settled into my hotel room after a couple of hours of chaos, and in the late afternoon, explored the town and walked along a couple of rivers. But the main reason I came to Daejeon was for the hot springs. They are under the town, and come out in several different places. The easiest place to find (for me, anyway, with the language barrier), was at the Yuseong Spa located at the Yuseong Hotel. They charge a little over six dollars to use their spa. They have a public bath with several hot spring pools of varying temperatures, from lukewarm to barely tolerable, and also some cold baths. There is also a medicinal herb pool, which smelled quite aromatic, and the water was brownish. It was also pumped up and roiling like a jacuzzi. I have no idea what was in it, but I spent a lot of time in there.  The medicinal pool was 38 degrees C. The hottest pool wirh a temperature gauge was 44 C, and the main pool was 41 C.  There were two saunas; one was 77 C and the aromatic one, which I used, was 92 C. The rest of the pools didn't have temperature readings.

There were some waterfall pools, and I let the waterfalls fall on my back and shoulders so the force of the water would massage me. And there was also an outdoor hot spring and cold waterfall pool. There are even places to take naps in between the different baths. There was a also a massage table, but I couldn't figure out what the fee schedule was or where you pay, so I didn't bother with that.  The baths are segregated by gender and everybody is naked. So what I'm describing is in the male area; I have no idea what the female area was like.

You have to take off your shoes before you enter, and there are two different lockers, one for shoes, and another for the rest of your personal effects. Then they give you a little electronic submersible bracelet that unlocks both your lockers. There are also saunas in there as well. Everybody has to shower before entering any of the pools. The hot springs were superb; I spent all morning there. Then I alternated between the hottest, barely tolerable pool and the cold pool to relax before leaving. I've found in the past that alternating between hot and cold water a couple of times (actually, in the gym, I used to do a steambath then a cold shower twice) relaxes me better than Valium...Try it some time, it works for me every time.

I headed back to the hotel, and took a short nap, now I'm going out to check out the city some more.

In the JSA and the DMZ

I decided to visit the Joint Security Area and the Demilitarized Zone while I was in Seoul. The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is the Orwellian name for the demarcation line between North and South Korea, and the several-kilometers-wide buffer zone that was established to keep both sides from easily invading each other. It is an ironic misnomer, because it is actually one of the most militarized zones on earth, with massive numbers of troops on each side, but ostensibly acting as UN peacemakers.

To get to this area, you have to go with a tour that has been approved by the UN. And there are some additional requirements for visiting the Joint Security Area (JSA), which is a region jointly administered by both sides for any meetings or negotiations between the two sides. You have to apply 72 hours in advance, so they can do a security clearance on you. You also have to adhere to the dress code required in the JSA, which requires men to wear a button-down shirt, long pants, and close-toe shoes. Luckily, I brought one button-down shirt with me; it is insulated and also serves as my light jacket, so it will be a little warm, but I was able to take it off and wear my t-shirt underneath after the visit to the JSA. In the entire DMZ, you have to follow all commands that you are given, and if you fail to do so, you could be expelled, fined, or imprisoned, and your tour guide could be blacklisted. It is a serious place. They also let you know that this is an actively hostile area, an if any hostilities broke out between North and South Korea, they might not be able to protect you. Hostilities have definitely broken out, but not too often, luckily. But they get ugly fast if they do. Camp Bonifas, the first major stop, is named after a South Korean dude who was axe-murdered by a party of rampaging North Koreans who decided to come over the demarcation line and stir up some shit. But the Americans and South Koreans showed them, by gum. In response, they launched “Operation Paul Bunyan” in which they forcefully and aggressively cut down a tree that obscured their view. Take that, DPRK.

And you might think that North Korea would be the ones who would be starting all the shit in the area. But you would be wrong. Former Texas Governor Bill Clements, when he was Deputy Secretary of Defense, reported to Henry Kissinger in the 1970s that hundreds of secret sabotage raids of the North by the South had taken place. And who knows what hasn't been declassified yet. But I digress.

Our tour by bus left Seoul in the early morning and headed straight for the JSA, though we stopped briefly at Camp Bonifas near the border of the DMZ first. Shortly before crossing the Unification Bridge, which was the entry point to the DMZ, pictures were strictly forbidden most of the time, though they told us they would allow some photo opportunities later. And they were not kidding around. When we entered the DMZ, a soldier boarded the bus to make sure nobody took any pictures, and at one point, he confiscated someone's camera when he suspected them of taking pictures. I don't know if they actually took pictures or not, but they ended up getting their camera back.

After the brief stop at Camp Bonifas, we arrived at the JSA Headquarters, after passing through Daeseong-dong, a tiny village that is the only civilian community wholly contained within the DMZ. The JSA is in both North and South Korea, and the demarcation line runs right down the middle of the light blue buildings where any negotiations between the two countries takes place. When we got off the bus, pictures were still prohibited. We had to line up getting off the bus, and stay in the line while they told us which way to go. Then when we were facing the actual demarcation line, they allowed a photo op for just a couple of minutes. We had to line up in double file, and were not allowed to cross a line on the ground. We were also not allowed to take any pictures to the side and had to face forward. There was a gray building in the background behind the light blue buildings, which was the North Korean post. There are soldiers constantly facing each other down on each side of the blue buildings between the North and the South sides of Korea.

Then they allowed us to enter one of the blue buildings that straddled the demarcation line. Half of these buildings are in the South, and half are in the North. There are entrances to the buildings on each side of the building from both countries. They brought us in, gave us a brief talk about the rules, and then also allowed two minutes of pictures and an opportunity to cross the demarcation line into North Korea, but only within the building. So I actually got the chance at this point to cross into North Korean territory, briefly, and get my grinning mug photographed by another tourist while I was standing next to a dour security policeman.

Once we returned from the demarcation line, we passed by the Bridge of No Return, which is a bridge directly between the two countries. It has barriers in the middle so no vehicles can cross, and technically, pedestrians could cross but for the fact that they would probably be immediately shot at, as one defector guy found out once (though he did make it across without getting shot). They stopped the bus briefly near there so we could take pictures of the bridge; it was one of the few areas where we could take pictures. Then we headed to the visitor center of the JSA, they were looser about letting us take pictures there, and let us wander around within bounds and take photos fairly freely. But you definitely don't want to wander out of bounds anyway, because if you do, the area is pretty heavily peppered with land mines. I bought a couple of bottles of North Korean wine at the visitor center. It was bloody awful...I ended up abandoning it at the hostel when I left Seoul with a sign on it indicating it was free to any taker.

We then headed out of the JSA and DMZ for a lunch break in the village of Imjingak, safely back in South Korea. There is a little park there, and a cluster of restaurants, and our lunch was provided along with the tour, and was magnificent, consisting of a huge variety of Korean dishes, mostly vegetables but there was also some meat dishes. We all shared from among the bounty of food, and there was plenty to eat. There was an opportunity to walk around the little park and the group of monuments there, and when it was time to go, we changed buses. Some of us went on one bus, and some on another, because apparently all of the people going to the JSA were on two different tours, so the tour group split into two groups to go their separate ways.

Then we headed back into the DMZ again, but not near the JSA, so I was able to take off my button-down shirt and strip down to my t-shirt. We headed through a different checkpoint, and once again, pictures were prohibited for most of the journey. This time we entered a North Korean infiltration tunnel. The North Koreans bored several infiltration tunnels into the South so that soldiers could secretly invade the South. The tunnels were painted black so the North Koreans could cling to the facade that they were coal mines. As of now, four of these tunnels have been discovered, and the one we entered was the Third Infiltration Tunnel, also known as the Third Tunnel of Aggression. Apparently this one was discovered when there was some sort of explosion while they were making it. No pictures were allowed in the tunnel, although people were taking pictures at the visitor center for the entry to the tunnel. There was a steep descent to get down to the tunnel, and then the tunnel far below the surface was so short that I had to stoop to walk through it. Luckily, they issued us hard hats, because I banged my head repeatedly on the ceiling due to the fact that it was so low. Also, there were huge numbers of gas masks lining the walls just in case. You never know what those wild and crazy North Koreans will send through the tunnel...soldiers, gas, flames...many possibilities. After making our way through as much of the tunnel as they would let us into on the tour, we made the steep climb back to the surface.

Then we headed to Dora Observatory, which is on top of a mountain in South Korea, directly overlooking North Korea. You could hear North Korea playing propaganda music through huge speakers down below. They had binoculars up there that had stunning views of the North Korean towns below, but I tried taking pictures through the binoculars, and couldn't get it to work. You could take pictures and videos, but not of a full panorama because South Korean soldiers were standing over everyone's shoulders, making sure nobody took pictures of a fortress compound on the left, because they would have confiscated the camera and blacklisted the guide who brought us up there.

We next visited Dorasan Station, which is the northernmost railroad station in South Korea, and the railroad used to keep going north of there before the Korean War, but stopped running into North Korea once the hostilities happened. This was the last stop on the tour, and after that, we headed back to Seoul. The bus that I was on apparently had some shopping thing going on as the last stop, at some mall in Seoul, but I really didn't want to shop, so I abandoned the tour at this point and just took a subway back to the hostel.

What Do You Do?

What do you do?

What do you do when you are sitting with a group of people at the hostel in Seoul, Korea, just having a good time talking in the common area where everybody is hanging out, and they all want to go clubbing, but you had been, up to that moment, thinking about turning in early.  But they all insist and plead. But you don't even have any nice clothes, just travel bum gear. They all keep cajoling until you and everybody else who is a little reticent finally want to go. Even Claire is going. Besides, it's Jack's birthday. So everybody is going out at eleven to celebrate, and everybody takes off to shower and change.

What do you do?

And then, everybody gets together in front of the hostel to go out. Is everybody there? Not yet. So everybody trickles out, and finally everybody is there.  You all wind down the streets. Some are screaming and howling on the street. Most have alcoholic beverages in their grip, downing them as the horde spins it's way down the street. You take the subway to some place where somebody knows there are some cool clubs, following their lead, but not really paying attention to where you are going. Some are still drinking on the subway. A conversation gets started on the train about black cock; Jenny tells them to shush because people are listening on the subway and many understand English. You get off the train and wind your way through some really shiny and busy alleyways, filled with flashing distractions and packed with people, and you take a while bunch of pictures.  The first couple of clubs don't pan out. The first club offers to let all the women in for free, and give them all free drinks, but screw the men. The second place has too long a line; it snaked around the block, and you can't even tell where exactly the place is.  But then you find a place, and you make your way in through the throbbing, pulsing masses of humanity. You hang out there until the wee hours of the morning, almost 4 am, dancing with everybody who is dancing with you because it is such a novelty to have an old dude there who is really vigorously dancing, and a bunch of people are taking your picture with them, and high-fiving you, and hugging you, and slapping you on the back, introducing themselves, having the kinds of conversations with you that people have that are yelled into each other's ears over the throbbing din, etc.

What do you do?

And then, what happens is what you knew was going to happen. Many of the twentysomethings who were wanting to go clubbing end up hooking up with someone because they are young and similar to everyone else there, while you end up, of course, alone, because you aren't really similar enough to anyone in there, despite the fact that you had great social interactions with everybody in there all night. But it's just not really your thing. It's not your natural habitat and you are an alien looking in, an anthropological observer turned participant in a ritual of passing that you have passed.

What do you do?

Then, the night churns on, and it is very late. You start thinking about leaving,  but you can't find anyone you came with, except for a few who have hooked up with someone in the bar, and they are now busy making out with their paramours, and everybody else is nowhere to be found. So you decide to leave, at around four in the morning. You wind your way out of the crowded bar to the elevator that serves as the entrance, and head to the street level, back out to the neighborhood with the flashing lights everywhere.

What do you do?

You go out into this shiny, flashing, confusing neighborhood that is still packed with people even at four in the morning.  And you realize that you have no idea how to get out of these winding, narrow, flashing streets. So you wander around, mostly aimlessly, until you think you recognize some stuff and you might know the way back to the subway station. But it's not a big deal. You don't have to be anywhere,  and it's not a requirement that you know particularly where you are. So you wander.

What do you do?

And as you are wandering around, one of the most beautiful women you have ever seen in your life calls out to you on the sidewalk, in halting English, "Hello, you are very handsome. "

What do you do?

You know this is not going to be what you might want it to be, but you stare at her for about a minute, and then you say, "You are very beautiful." She looks at you, not breaking her gaze, and says again, "You are very handsome." Maybe she doesn't know how to say much more than this in English. And you say again,  "And you are very beautiful." You look at each other for what seems like an eternity, but is only a few moments.

What do you do?

Experience tells you to move along, though part of you really doesn't want to. Experience. Its a bitch. You walk away, slowly, still looking at her and with her still looking at you. Then you finally avert your eyes and move on. But you know you will think about this moment later. Even if it was not what it seemed.

What do you do?

You finally find your way to the subway station, and go down the stairs to take the subway back to the hostel, but find the corridor to the train platform is shuttered and it is closed, because it doesn't run that late.

What do you do?

You start trying to figure out how to get back to the hostel. Google Maps doesn't work in South Korea, and you downloaded two other alternatives yesterday that do supposedly work in South Korea, but after you downloaded them, you found that they are solely in Korean, and so they are useless to you because you not only can't read Korean, but you can't even remotely figure out how to type Korean words, or even what order the characters are in. Then you turn to the offline maps app you have, which works like a charm, and maps out the path of several kilometers for you to walk back to the hostel. And you take a while bunch of pictures on the way. Then you finally stumble back into the hostel around six in the morning and crawl into bed. And you wake up the next day about four hours later, ready for the challenges and wonders of another day on the road.

I don't know if any of that is what you would do, but that's what I did.