the bell hath tolled |
| I think I really got it this time. The morning mist. |
30 kilometers today, and I felt it. I left the Hwangtobang Motel at around 5:10 a.m. and schlepped to the town of Namji-eup where, as tradition dictates, I had to pick up a box of NeNe Chicken tenders, thereby undoing all of the hard work of the last few days. And fuck, was that worth it, even if it means I'll die even earlier than expected.
I did manage to get some rest last night, maybe because my body had been so exhausted from walking a gazillion steps, then not sleeping. The ankle flareups are still happening when I stop moving, but they do seem to be lessening in severity.
Weather along the route today wasn't as cold as yesterday, but the temps went down before they went up. At 5 a.m., it was about 4.1°C (about 39 4°F); by 7 a.m., that had gone down to 3.6°F (about 38.5°F), and by the afternoon, despite it being cloudy, the temps had gone up to almost 18°C (about 64.4°F). The clouds were hinting at rain when I was walking the final few kilometers to Namji-eup, and the forecast now shows brief rain for both tomorrow (while I'm resting) and Saturday (when I resume walking). For the moment, the forecast for Saturday is rain starting in the night and not going beyond 3 a.m., but I suspect that Murphy's Law will find a way to fuck things up for my Saturday. Damn. I had hoped that South Korea would be rainless this November. No such luck.
[UPDATE, 7:55 a.m., Friday: No more rain in the forecast.]
There were a few hills today, but nothing on the order of what's coming up this Saturday: the biggest, meanest hill on the Nakdong River path. I'm going to take it slowly, even if that causes drivers and passing bikers to stare. Better to be embarrassed and alive than to be dead. If today's hills were any indication, I ought to be fine on Saturday. Aside from today's few hills, the trail was mostly flat, and we're finally back in dam territory. Today's dam—the final one before the estuary barrage when I'm walking toward Busan—was the hard-to-pronounce 창녕함안보/Changnyeong-Haman-bo (bo being the suffix for weir or dam).
I'm now also almost at the 100K mark after four days' walking. By stopping in Namji-eup, I had to go a little off-piste, but I'll be back on the official trail on Saturday, November 1. 29K on Day 1, 20K on Day 2, 20K on Day 3, and 30K today. Up next: 33K on Saturday the 1st (plus another extra day of rest), 40K on Monday the 3rd (yes, plus another day of rest), 25K on Wednesday the 5th (Hotel If in Daegu, plus the Chinese place, plus one more day of rest), 33K to the Lee Motel by the Chilgok Dam on Friday the 7th (then resting on Saturday), then a brutal 32K to Libertar Pension on Sunday the 9th, where I'll be for only a single night because I had moved the rest day from Libertar to Namji-eup to accommodate tonight's cheat meal.
Ideally, I'm supposed to fast all day tomorrow, but the devil on my shoulder is whispering that I should visit my favorite Chinese resto in town (two doors down from NeNe Chicken) and have lunch there... followed by fasting for the rest of the day. Will I give in to temptation? If history is any guide, yes. Because I am weak. But the next indulgence won't be until I'm in Daegu, then there's nothing after that. Just cans of convenience-store tuna and maybe spam.
100K is significant because I'm supposed to walk the final segment of the Camino de Santiago with my buddy Mike in 2029. That final segment is around 110-120 km; if we do the path in small bits, the whole thing might take us five or six days. Add a couple days for sightseeing and for a possible visit to my French brother Dominique's B&B in Le Vanneau-Irleau (I visited le marais in 2018), and we could be in Europe for two weeks or more.
Anyway, that's all speculation for the moment. In the here and now, I'm in Namji-eup after a pleasant-but-hard walk. I saw a lot of critters today but no Buddhist monk like last year. One foreign biker passed me while randomly screaming out something that sounded like "¡Basura! (Spanish for garbage)" I'm guessing I misheard.
Since I have a rest day tomorrow, I'm going to hand-wash my stinky clothing tonight, take a shower, and change the dressings on my feet. Despite the pounding, I think my feet made it through the 30K more or less unscathed. We'll know in a few minutes.
Oh, yeah: I took a few breaks during this segment, including a rather long one at the dam. I started today's trek at around 5:10 a.m. and arrived at the Heitz Hotel (W60,000/night for two nights) at around 3:40 p.m. Not including about 90 minutes for all of my rest breaks, that's 30K in nine hours, or a pace of 3.33 kph—slightly better than the previous days. While I did feel a wee bit of strain in my chest from today's hills and from walking a long time, I would always recover after resting. Whether this means I'm okay or due for a sudden collapse, I have no idea.
So with today being the day before Halloween, I thought it meet to devote today's set of pics (way more than ten... and the above one, of the morning mist, is a bonus) to a creature feature. Enjoy the stats, the route map, and the faces of life (and death) that I encounter daily on these walks.
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| My daily step average catapults me into the top 1% of walkers. |
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| Above, Naver says "1 bridge," but the map shows four crossings. |
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| Americans use the Japanese designation "Joro spider" for these. |
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| Koreans call them mudang geomi/무당거미, or shaman spiders. |
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| caterpillar with symmetrical bubonic plague |
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| how I normally photograph grasshoppers: dead |
Grasshoppers literally jump at shadows, and they can perceive human-sized shapes at a distance. When the weather is cold, they become sluggish, and it's possible to get close to them. Otherwise, you just have to find dead specimens to photograph. Or creep very quietly and carefully.
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| another slug a-sluggin' |
It's always the same species of slug. Surely, Korea has more than one species, no?
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| digitally zoomed ducks (10X) |
Ducks and other fowl are also skittish, almost as if they had evolved to evade bows and arrows... or the hunter's rifle. The moment you stop moving to take a picture, they take off. Even if you're far away when you stop. Frustrating.
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| Living Chinese grasshopper. How do they function with almost no head? |
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| Squished Chinese grasshopper has eggs suspiciously similar to mantis eggs. Stolen from a mantis? |
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| one of the few live grasshoppers I've managed to photograph |
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| another one of those winter-harbinger caterpillars |
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| tough praying mantis that I refused to fight |
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| seven-legger |
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| tiny, injured-looking mantis |
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| Krushed katydid. Deflate-ydid. |
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| I've got video of this earthworm's struggle. See below. |
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| millipede-like critter not thinking about its legs |
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| FEAR THE POULTRY. |
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| Hundreds of tiny orb weavers dominated the bridge into Namji-eup. |
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| ... and the most frightening creature of all: the chicken tender |
PHOTO ESSAY
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| That stain was already there on the duvet, dammit. |
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| Leaving Hanam-eup. Dark streets. The trail beckons. |
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| a low-ISO, high-shutter-speed shot of the muin motel, the Gung ("goong," i.e., castle) |
I've stayed in muin/무인/無人 motels before. On the inside, they're quite nice. The expression muin literally means no (無) person (人), i.e, automated and unstaffed. It's a bit of a misnomer: there are staffers watching you on camera, waiting to see whether you need help or are just loitering for some sinister reason outside your door. And after you leave, there are staffers who clean up your room and prep it for the next customer. Generally speaking, no automated system can function unassisted forever. It still takes more than AI for machines to stay maintained. Anyway, muin motels are a bit more expensive than average ones, so if I have a choice, I prefer not to stay in them.
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| Yellow signs: "bike path"; the blue signs have Roman letters on them. |
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| crossing back over the river on a different bridge (with a skinny sidewalk) |
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| ...and back into Changweon/Changwon |
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| brief interlude with this awkward, little path |
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| looking back at the bridge I'd just crossed |
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| leaving the scruffy path for the nice, paved bike path |
Above, I'm avoiding the sidewalk because I have no idea where it goes. It parallels the bike path for now, but how about later? Does it veer away? I won't take that gamble.
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| (top to bottom) Jupiter-Procyon-Sirius |
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| the eerie red light in the darkness (and in real life, it's a lot darker than this looks) |
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| I can barely see the path ahead. The camera soaks up a lot more light. |
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| Sunrise. Okay, now there's light that both the camera and I can pick up. |
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| The world reveals itself. Oh, and railing appears. |
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| big sky, river mist |
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| sign warning there's a 24/7 security camera somewhere |
South Korea is very much a surveillance state. What country isn't these days?
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| access roads but little to no other development by the river |
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| straightaway |
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| tunnel to mystery |
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| Railing/fencing on both sides. Feeling corralled? |
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| bridge ahead in the mist |
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| animal assholes... probably cats |
The most likely animal assholes to make tracks across wet concrete are cats, dogs, deer, and raccoon dogs (neoguri, like the ramyeon brand name—"naw-goo-ree"). The latter live near watercourses from small creeks to huge rivers, traveling singly or in groups.
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| 국토종주 makes its appearance yet again. Click the sidebar link if you've already forgotten what this means. |
If there's one Korean expression I want you learn from this walk, 국토종주 is it.
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| 9% grade for 75 meters... not the most horrible thing |
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| respect, ladies, for being out in the cold |
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| Note that it's too cold for dew on the webs. |
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| river mist, fading |
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| I guess we go straight. |
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| Madame Seven-legger |
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| a different seven-legger |
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| six legs...? |
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| The 국토종주 marking reassures us that we're on the right path. |
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| No picking the persimmons! This is someone's precious property! |
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| "sharp curve" (geup keobeu) |
It's amusing to me that curve is hangeulized as phonetic English: keobeu. There's a Korean word for curve: 곡선/gokseon. (A seon is a line.)
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| a steep, uphill trail to mystery (glad I'm not on it) |
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| No, gentle people, my path leads downhill. For now. |
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| 국토종주, always and forever |
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| shwimteo and bike stand (and tiny, makeshift trash bag) |
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| Changnyeong-Haman Dam ahead, 13 km |
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| looking left at concrete nostrils |
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| across the bridge |
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| very odd to use fractions of a kilometer on these signposts |
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| asters |
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| closeup |
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| Mr. (or Ms.) Bubonic |
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| campground (of the "Hey, we're really roughing it!" variety, where a bunch of "campers" crowd together) |
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| In the end, Nature claims everything. |
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| swerving left |
There are several ways the path tells you you're going the right way. One way is with painted arrows and labels on the ground. Another is with red strips, like what you see above, appearing at places where different turns are possible and indicating which way is the main path. There have been times when I've goofily gone off-piste despite these signs' shouting at me. You can't fix stupid.
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| Nature: "The Yamaha will soon be mine." |
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| eventually turning left |
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| and here we are |
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| "Complete ban on all fire-related activities: cooking (gas), charcoal, wood, etc.—also in camping areas." |
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| swerving right, transitioning to a boardwalk |
Part of the charm of these paths is noticing when they change in character. As you see above, we're going from concrete to a wooden boardwalk. Sometimes, it's a paved, asphalt-like surface; sometimes, it's the pressed, rubbery, painted surface you might see on a high-school track. And that's not the only change: you might find yourself flanked by walls or guardrails—on one side or both—or maybe it's just you and the open sky, with the mountains far in the distance, which signals that you're in a very wide mountain valley. And then there's the terrain: most often flat, often straight, but also undulating, curvy, and sometimes painfully uphill. And these changes can all happen gradually or in rapid succession. The path has many moods and many faces.
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| probably ggachi (magpie) nests up in that tree |
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| a bit of a haze |
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| yet another one of many buildings whose purposes remain a mystery to me (garage?) |
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| passing the tree with the nests |
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red font: "Oxygen Family" (some kind of pun? "oxygen" is 산소/sanso in Korean)
black font: "Long Live Noodles"
bottom row, black font: "Bonpo Crossroads" |
The Chinese character above is 가/家/ga, which means family or home. The O2 could represent the aforementioned sanso, but what does Sanso-ga/산소가 mean? If pronounced the English way, "O2" would be written as 오투/o-tu in Korean. But what does 오투가 mean? Is this really a pun I'm looking at, or is it just Konglish, i.e., something that makes sense mainly to Koreans for cultural reasons?
By the way, what I translated as "long live" is 만세/manse, or literally "10,000 years." Manse ("mahn-seh") is the Korean pronunciation of what the Japanese pronounce as Banzai, and the number "10,000" is a symbolic number meaning something like "myriad" or "infinite." So the kamikaze pilots shouting "Banzai!" were shouting, "Eternity!"
Come on, you apes! Do you wanna live forever?
The Chinese weren't like Indians, who wrote ridiculously huge numbers into their sutras—one billion trillion gazillion gajillion. Ten thousand seems to be about the limit of the symbolic imagination of the Chinese mind back in the day—not that the Chinese were incapable of visualizing huge numbers. But I guess every culture has its limits. If ten thousand is the symbolic limit in East Asia, well, I've heard French farmers in northwest France, speaking in their ch'ti accent, jokingly counting, "Un, deux, trop"—i.e., "One, two, too many"—as opposed to "Un, deux, trois," or "One, two, three." So in some cultures, two is the (joking) limit of the imagination.
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| could use better maintenance |
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| irrigation canal, a hallmark of farmland |
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| Lion's Club lions, often guarding municipal boundaries |
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top: "Changweon, city of a different class"/"a different kind of city"
middle: "Come again!"
bottom: I think you can read that. |
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| I confess I've never really liked these lions. There's something wrong with their expressions and proportions. |
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| crossing the river again (the path often does that) at the Bonpo Bridge (본포교) |
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| river mist and boardwalk, 7:33 a.m. |
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| a glance to the right |
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| Looking left, I can see that it's quite a sight. |
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| Heeeeeeeelp meeeee |
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| walking along the bike lane; not much traffic yet (and this isn't Seoul, Busan, or Daegu) |
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| Huh. Not something you see every day. |
Years ago, someone had tossed away a cylindrical wooden trinket on one of these bridges, and I'd picked it up. It proved to be a perfectly good container holding Buddhist scriptures, with a sutra (the Heart Sutra, which is short at around 270 syllables in Korean) carved on the cylinder's exterior. You never know what you might stumble upon.
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| glove, vainly reaching for something and not making it |
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| This one appears to have died a horrible death. |
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| Inside-out glove (I thought it was), or something else? Retreating into itself like a slug? |
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| nearing the end of Bonpo Bridge |
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| The leftward-pointing sign says "Nakdong Street." |
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| onward we go |
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| It's nice to be safely off the road. |
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| probably garlic |
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| swerving away from traffic |
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| 10K to go for Changnyeon-Haman Dam (Weir, whatever) |
From what I understand, a weir ("weer") is a small-scale dam.
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| greenhouses, open to the weather |
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| about to sweep right |
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| farm tropes: equipment, giant marshmallows (wrapped hay bales) |
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| going down the ramp now; JJ Abrams lens flare |
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| Yes, this is the right way. |
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| entering a park/picnic area |
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dark panel, first set: Hakpo Flower Garden (505 m); Exercise Facilities (555 m); Grassy Plaza (605 m); Parking Lot (715 m); Observation Deck (845 m) dark panel, second set: Cheongdo Stream Movable Beam (is that right? what is that?—530 m); Half-moon Wetland (920 m); Half-moon Marsh (925 m); Half-moon Flower Garden (2.14 km)
|
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| under the bridge |
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| This straightaway is enchanting enough to become desktop wallpaper, I think. |
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| It met its ugly fate, but at least it's over. |
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| the exercise facilities foretold in the prophecy |
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| picnicky-looking shwimteo |
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| most of this equipment is great for old people and their mobility |
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| another lovely straightaway |
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| paint spatter 1 |
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| paint spatter 2 |
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| Coreopsis, wide shot |
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| Coreopsis, closeup |
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| another of that same slug... maybe this is a real life Slug Club |
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| "When snow or rain comes, watch for slippage." We're out of the park and on our way. |
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| 5% grade for 120 meters; 대피통로/daepi tongno means "evacuation route" (for flooding, etc.) |
Flooding is a big reality for the riverlands. There's a price to be paid for living too close to a river when the monsoon arrives. Higher ground—and the routes to it—becomes important. So expect a lot of signs about flooding and evacuation, words having nothing to do with bodily functions in this case.
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| Another nice day. Look at the sky. |
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| More of those old mountains I've come to love. |
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| some kind of admin building |
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| Even the defiant, long-lived trees look small and petty in the context of the mountains. |
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| No signage to help me figure out what kind of building this is. (I'm on the wrong side.) |
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| onward |
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| A 휴게소/hyugeso (rest area with facilities) that is frustratingly out of reach unless I do some climbing. |
You'd think that the makers of this bike trail would carve out some stairs and paint a crosswalk for us hungry/thirsty proles, we who trudge this path.
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| to my left: an island that has created a kind of side channel that is really just the waters of the Nakdong |
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| more side-channel action |
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| looking left and back a bit at the mountain that haunts this part of the path |
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| obligatory shadow pic |
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| straight on we go |
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| digitally zoomed skittish ducks |
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| wide shot for context |
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| tucked-away mountainside village, coming up |
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| The stone sign on the left identifies this as Nori Village (노리마을/Nori maeul). |
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| NORI VILLAGE, I SAY! |
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| Surprise! A welcome presence on a tree. |
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| eventually curving left |
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| out-of-focus shaman spider (무당거미/mudang geomi) |
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| now in focus |
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| gooey sap; craggy, leprous bark |
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| a pair of trees, standing out |
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| looking across the water |
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| I'm not a beer drinker, but I've tried Heineken. It sucks. No wonder this guy abandoned his can. |
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| I took a rest at this bench. 9:17 a.m. |
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| On we go. |
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| leading up to a hill |
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| nice, round tree in the distance |
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| good enough for a closeup |
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| another mountainside village |
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| outlet for water running into the river |
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| Drainage. I bet this gushes when it rains a lot. |
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| village again |
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| rubbing/irritation from the weird way I grip my trekking pole |
Yes, I cleaned the wound and bandaged myself up.
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| ...and here's that big hill |
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| no rolling backward (what a bizarre restriction... what does that really mean?) |
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| This hill necessitated several pauses to make sure my heart didn't explode. |
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| looking right and uphill |
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| at the top |
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| nice view as I start down |
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| anti-avalanche barrier, one of many to come in rapid succession |
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| almost no space to walk, but traffic is fairly light |
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| peeking across |
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| "Beware of falling rock" |
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| up again, but not for long |
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| maybe longer than I'd thought—and more anti-avalanche barriers ahead |
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| This is the "Vive la France!" section. |
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| barriers, barriers, barriers |
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| looming vegetation |
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| another splendid view |
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| stairs to mystery guarded by a forbidding-looking fence |
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| down we go |
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| spray-paint can with the life crushed out of it |
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| barrier |
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| You can see why there are so many "beware of falling rock" signs. |
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| a temporary uphill (not as bad as it looks) |
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| I think this is the final barrier. |
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| And down we go, leaving this section of today's segment. |
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| No, I guess that previous barrier wasn't the last one. |
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| Okay, now we're clear. |
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| back down almost to the river's level |
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| We're heading left toward Namji-eup. |
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| but before we go—here's a shrine (I think) |
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| away from the mountain shadows and out in the open |
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| I've broken the 300K mark. Less than 300K to go. |
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| gonna be sunny as I head toward the dam |
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| ...which is 5K away |
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| Gotta love the clouds. |
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| more hill than mountain |
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| another nearly headless Chinese grasshopper |
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| another helpful bike-route map with explanations |
On the map's upper right, inside the biker's wheels, you see 창녕군/Changnyeong-gun, or Changnyeong Province. The dam's name is Changnyeong-Haman Dam.
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| crossing the tributary creek via a low bridge |
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| "No fishing" warnings abound—on signs and on the ground. |
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| where the tributary spills out |
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다리위/Dari wi means "on the bridge." 낚시 금지/Nakshi geumji means—you guessed it—"No fishing." The Sino-Korean term geumji means something like "forbidden." Nakshi is the pure-Korean way to say "fishing." |
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| some pollution |
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| up from the low bridge and back to berm/riverside level |
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| The sign gives a biking speed limit of 20 kph and warns to watch out for the passage of bikes and farm equipment. |
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| strange to see undeveloped land on both sides: to the right... |
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| ...and to the left. |
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| My eye is attracted to the bald spot. Looks like natural scalloping at first, but there's a man-made structure there. |
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| a closer, digitally zoomed look |
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| Chinese grasshopper, a pregnant mom, has met her story's end. |
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| Obnoxious, but I suppose this is legal. |
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| can't stop staring |
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| another possible wallpaper |
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| necropolis, full view |
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| If this were landscape instead of portrait, it'd be a great wallpaper. |
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| distant bridge (do you see the gravesite beyond?) |
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| zooming in on the gravesite |
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| getting closer to the dam |
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| choices, choices |
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| another gorgeous, possible wallpaper |
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| It really is a lovely day. |
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| slight chicane |
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| As long as the path ahead and the path behind add up to 385K, I feel secure about the math. |
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| all-natural, except for the path running through it |
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| another live one |
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| 2.9K to go to the dam |
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| Korea has no woolly bears. But it does have this fellow. |
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| funky design on the lamp |
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| looking left and slightly uphill |
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| Andong Dam, 296 km; Nakdong River Estuary Barrage, 89 km. These guys politely waved me through. |
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| We're a bit away from the river. |
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| self-explanatory, I think |
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| a simple shwimteo in a stark park (whoops, unintended rhyme) |
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| swooping right |
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| We'll soon be close enough to see parts of the dam. |
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| 급커브/geup keobeu = sharp curve |
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| The bottom signs say "Bike path." |
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| Picnic tables... I wonder what it's like in the summer. Hornets? Horseflies? Lots of ants? |
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| simple, square shwimteo |
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| could almost be America |
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| tables, tabling in the distance |
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| location-number plaque in case you need someone to find you |
But like everywhere in the modern world, trauma teams can find you via your cell signal if you have a heart attack or stroke (as long as you successfully dial emergency, i.e., 119 in Korea), so I don't know how necessary these signs are anymore.
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| roughly, "A healing trip together with (or surrounded by) Nature" |
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| rounding a corner |
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| Here we go. |
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| Are we getting a glimpse of the dam down there...? (Yes, I think so.) |
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| This bridge used to be in rough shape, but it obviously got repaired. |
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| Mask pollution. I've skipped over many other such tossed-away masks. This is one of many, alas. |
Masking up, effective or not, has been a thing in East Asia since forever‚ since long before the pandemic thanks to the poor air quality in places like China and South Korea. Korea often blames China for the "yellow dust" (황사/hwangsa) that blows in from the Gobi Desert, but Korea also manufactures much of its own lung-choking filth. Another reason I love these walks is to get away from most of that, but you can never escape it entirely. Anyway, masking up has several reasons behind it: (1) consideration for others when one has a cold so as not to spray when sneezing or coughing; (2) supposed protection (probably ineffective)—against microparticles of dust (미세먼지/misemeonji); (3) protection (probably ineffective) against others who might have a cold, the flu, COVID, or whatever. Anyway, when the order came to mask up, Koreans did so without question. As a friend told me, however, South Korea never had a mandatory "mask up while outside" policy, except to recommend masking at outdoor events where groups of 50 or more people were present. I'm an introvert, so I never attended outdoor concerts or any of that nonsense, and I never masked up while outside on these walks. I saw the mask merely as a passport to keep receiving services, i.e., to be able to shop indoors, get on buses or in taxis, to enter motels, etc. (unmasking once I was in my motel room, of course). The whole thing felt like theater to me. I didn't catch COVID for three years, then right at the tail end of the pandemic, as masks were coming off in subways and such, I got COVID twice. I was disappointed the second time because I had thought the first bout of COVID would give me an immunity boost, but it apparently didn't, perhaps because the second bout came from a variant. Anyway, I never got the shot, and everyone around me who had gotten some version of the shot also got infected afterward, so that proved to be a bunch of bullshit. Have we learned any lessons from all of this? What will happen during the next pandemic?
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| more ugliness |
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| looking toward the water |
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| The dam lies ahead! Admiral, there be dams here! |
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| heading up to freeway level |
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| a look over at Changnyeong-Hanam Dam (we have to cross it) |
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| another funky fence design |
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| still heading Namjiward |
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| Haman-gun (Haman County) |
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| about to cross over |
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| Gukto Jongju Nakdong River Bike Path (direction Busan) |
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| red arrow points to Busan |
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| This sign and red arrow indicate the Seoulward direction. I'm going that way until I reach Sangju City. |
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| fish-shaped outer structure for something |
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| Maybe it's Poseidon's ATM. |
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| eodo/어도/魚道, lit. "fish way" = fish ladder, one of many at every dam |
Remember that the eo in romanized Korean is pronounced like the eo in George, somewhere between "aw" and "uh" in American English. So: eodo = "aw-doh." Eo is Sino-Korean (hanja) for fish. Do is the Korean (and Japanese) pronunciation of the Chinese Tao (way, road, path—both physical and metaphysical), as when we talk about Taoism (道敎, 도교, dogyo in Korean). In the martial arts taekwondo and hapkido, you see the do particle at the end, meaning these are supposed to be "martial ways" and not just "martial arts," i.e., philosophies of life and not just fighting techniques. Some dispute whether taekwondo really qualifies as a do. I'd say it does, but that's just my opinion. Have a debate! Then mud wrestle afterwards to work off that pent-up energy, and let me video you.
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| a glance rightward as I cross (it's getting cloudier) |
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| a glance leftward |
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| little orb weavers on the dam as I cross |
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| sun-bleached life ring |
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| "No Fishing According to Statute Number blah-blah-blah, etc." |
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| one of the prow-like projections along the way |
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| sorry for the tilt |
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| peering down at the water being aerated as it falls |
Aeration, done for the sake of the life in these watercourses, is a feature of Korean rivers and streams and creeks. Something is used to churn the water and allow for mixing with oxygen-rich air—a shelf of concrete, a jumble of rocks, etc.
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| standing on one projection and looking over at another |
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| prow-like, as I said |
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| Danger Guy says, "Watch Out for Falls" |
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| what the French might call un îlot, and we might call an islet |
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| more falling water (paging Frank Lloyd Wright) |
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| sorry about the trekking-pole grip (lower left) |
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| The translator didn't get that prepositions often need objects. Lean on what? Better to say, No leaning. |
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| no evocations of Frank Lloyd Wright here |
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| an unreachable prow |
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| observation deck for tourists |
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| a few more shots of aeration |
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| ploosh |
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| There was so little traffic that I dared this pic from the middle of the road as I crossed the dam. |
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| I don't think I've ever seen these doorways to the observation decks unlocked. Maybe only in summer...? |
Except for 2017, when I walked in the spring, I always do my walks in the fall, sometime during the September-November period. Last year, because of injury and convalescence, my walk extended until early December—the beginning of winter. I never see these dams in the summer.
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| mountainside agriculture |
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| another anti-suicide message ("What were you thinking? Wait! Also try thinking this: Let's live! Let's fight!") |
As my Korean prof in college used to joke, "Koreans are bad psychologists." This is true. They can usually be counted on to say the wrong thing to people who need to hear encouragement or kindness. Listen to Asian stand-up comics as they describe growing up and dealing with parents and spouses who verbally shit on them as "an expression of care." It's supposed to toughen you up, but you have to wonder whether Asian harshness and lack of sympathy have something to do with high suicide rates. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that cheering on a suicidal person with "Let's live!" won't do much to prevent suicide. Which makes me dread what services a suicide hotline might offer. "Go on, do it! You too fat and ugly anyway!"
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| no parking—towing zone (as if you needed the translation) |
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| îlot |
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| almost at the other side |
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| I think this is a hydroelectric power-generation plant. |
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| looking upriver |
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| Most dams have an admin building. Most (but not all) admin buildings have convenience stores in them. |
It's almost a ritual or tradition for me to stop at this admin building, grab some snacks, and rest for about an hour while I munch and contemplate the beautiful scenery. I wrestled with my conscience this time since I'd wanted to make more of an effort to cut down on snacking, but the devil on my shoulder won this particular battle, so I went into the admin building and fueled up on carbs. Luckily, with all of the walking over the past few days, I didn't end up feeling much or any angina for the rest of the walk. This may have given rise to a false sense of invincibility.
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| In leaving Yangsan on Day 2, it was too early in the morning to see the above-referenced water-culture center. |
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| admin-building entrance |
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| Maybe the bird is trying to carry her somewhere. She doesn't seem to be helping. |
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| The black sign announces the convenience store. |
I got my booty and went back out to sit in the sun, eat, and drink. To my credit, I did get diet drinks. I also got carby snacks like Snickers and a Korean yakgwa (a grease-and-honey-filled "cookie"). The roof where I would normally sit was closed for repairs (dammit), so I found a bench one floor up from the ground level and enjoyed my quiet time there while my poor phone recharged with what little juice was in my power pack (a constant issue the entire walk).
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| Well, she might not be helping the bird, but she looks nice from behind. |
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| A 0.5X zoom to get a wider shot. |
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| "Please don't throw tissue into the toilet (in the garbage can)!" |
Americans will find this gross (as I still do), but certain public restrooms in Korea, knowing that their plumbing can't handle the load, will ask people not to throw things like used toilet tissue into the toilet. There's generally a trash can next to the toilet in such cases, and yes, you can see all the previous users' proud leavings staring brownly back at you from inside the trash can, which is also lined with foul blotches and smears from where the wads of tissue rolled and tumbled and hit the sides. It's profoundly disgusting, and I can't wait for the day when pipe-cleaning becomes a thing of the past everywhere in the world once Elon Musk develops nanoswarm technology to clean all of the world's pipes and sewers. And while he's at it, let him invent a similar nanoswarm technology to clean out all of my arterial plaque and micro-inject rejuvenating drugs into the walls of my blood vessels to make my insides young and healthy again. (I know, I know—"Just exercise, asshole!")
In contrast, there are other Korean restrooms with signs saying to please throw your tissue into the toilet. I always appreciate those signs.
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| Maybe the bird is lifting the woman, and she's using telekinesis to carry the treble clef somewhere. |
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| But it really looks as though the bird is doing all of the work. |
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| the "certification center" (인증센터/injeungsenteo) for Changnyeong-Haman Dam |
In 2017, I hit every certification center along the Four Rivers path even though I didn't have an official passbook in which to place my stamps. After that, I only collected stamps when I did different paths, like the east-coast trail or the Jeju Olle path. These red booths, or "certification centers" (to use their overly lofty name), have stamps and stamp pads in them so that bikers vying for an official completion certificate can collect all of the required stamp images, present them to an official at the very end, and be "certified" for such-and-such trail. I don't care about such validation; all I've ever wanted are the stamps themselves, not "grand slam" certificates (for doing a set of several trails) and such.
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If I'm not mistaken, that weird squiggle at the lower left of the sign isn't a rip in the blue paint: it's a high-altitude image of the Nakdong River itself. We'll see this again soon. |
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| now continuing on and looking back lovingly |
Every dam has its own character.
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| up a gentle rise |
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| See the shwimteo under the tree? |
Once you get out of a crowded space like Seoul, Korea has a lot of little, private, (semi-)romantic spots. Finding a private place in hyperpopulated Seoul isn't easy.
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| a closer look |
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| as I walk past |
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What's up with this rock? In Hinduism, this might represent Śiva's phallus (Śivalinga, a term used but never explained in Temple of Doom; a lingam is a penis, and a yoni is a vagina) |
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| looking over yonder |
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| shaman spider, out of focus |
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| closing in |
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| another wistful look back to the dam |
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| distracted by the mountain's large breasts |
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| looking back up at the mountainside agriculture |
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After years of passing by this thing, I still have no idea what it does. But wait—here's AI to the rescue! AI says that it could be a boat lift or docking system for boat storage. Thank you, AI! That's very helpful! Always remember to be polite to AI because of Roko's Basilisk. |
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| This almost looks like an American suburban home. |
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| Along the boardwalk, where I will soon meet a fierce warrior. |
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| glancing distractedly right |
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| nice view, but... |
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| Aha! (Click for the video.) |
VIDEO: Mantis encounter!
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| possibly a red hailstone or mile-a-minute vine |
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| flower, peeking out |
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| another snow/rain/slippage warning (for the deck ahead) |
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| There's an out-of-focus spider in there somewhere. |
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| zoomed and focused |
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| The boardwalk continues. |
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| a sickly mantis |
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| over the little bridge; to Namji we go |
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| an ad for the motel I'll be staying at: the Heitz |
Again, this is a motel billing itself as a hotel, but its rates are manifestly not hotel rates, and its accoutrements aren't as plush as a hotel's. It's a motel, guys. The ad, meanwhile, says the motel is for bikers. The number for reservations is given (I always just walk in), and the address is at the very bottom. I love the spelling of "Welcom," as though the translator couldn't figure out which European language to use. And where's the damn vocative comma?
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| The yellow signs point along the Nakdong River path (my path). |
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| farmland and standard Korean fencing (US-style chain-link fences do exist here, but this green type is more prevalent) |
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| And we roll on. |
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| As I said: there's no stopping the agriculture. Even now, it continues. |
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| back on a berm |
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| Smooshed katydid... I guess Katie didn't. |
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| You have to wonder at the spelling of "Andongdam." |
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| paralleling the farm road |
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| crates, crates, crates |
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| glove in the grass and leaves |
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| wide shot for context |
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| —and yet more tracts of land |
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| orchard in the distance |
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| cabbage in the middle distance |
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| veering left |
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| swooping into the farm area |
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| drainage gate (배수문/baesumun) |
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| drainage-pump center on the left |
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| 291K to Andong Dam; 94K back to the beginning in Busan (Nakdong River Estuary Barrage) |
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| Coreopsis |
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| up close |
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| skimming through a village |
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| farm equipment |
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| an interesting, rusty wheel |
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| tattered canopy |
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| We're not done with the village yet. |
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| yellow persimmons |
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| These are the tomato-shaped variety; there's another kind that's heart-shaped. |
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| persimmon—the butt shot |
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| healthy-looking, but don't steal them off the tree: stealing is bad, and they're not ripe |
An unripe persimmon is still full of bitter tannins, making it horrible to eat.
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| Just as the spice must flow, the fruit must ripen. |
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| sign of patriotism |
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| dwelling next to irrigation channel |
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| blue roof (sounds like the name of a downtown restaurant in a big city) |
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| drainage into an irrigation channel |
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| I had to lean over to get this shot. |
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| two options for the bike path |
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| arrêt de bus |
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| along a main road through a village |
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| The flowers say hey. |
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| They're a rowdy group when they've had something to drink. |
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| And like most Asians, they turn red after only a little liquoring up. |
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| Gomphrena globosa, or the globe amaranth |
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| zinnias |
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| Amazing to think some rice paddies are still green at the very end of October. |
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| traditional house and courtyard |
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| I believe I was aiming at a spider I'd seen. |
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| Here it is. |
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| nothing if not colorful |
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| and even this has a weird sort of beauty about it |
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| You often see old farmers putt-putting along the road in these slow things. |
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| I'm going to swing out from the path a bit to photograph this gravesite. I see it every time I come this way. |
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| Old people can contemplate their fate while they exercise next to the burial ground. |
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| Flowers determinedly grow everywhere. |
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| It's 1:50 p.m. Before my stroke and heart attack, I'd have been done by about now. |
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| Celosia? A type of aster? A type of amaranth? |
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| Madagascar periwinkle flower, or Catharanthus |
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| more mystery flowers |
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| I'm leaning toward cockscomb myself. |
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| house behind fence |
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| It's probably not nice to be photographing a property this obsessively. |
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| finally, the gravesite |
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| with a truck parked obnoxiously in front of it |
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| two trucks, dammit |
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| looking back as I walk on |
There were truckers there. I did my best not to photograph them.
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| a whole family of people with money; these kinds of gravesites aren't cheap these days |
I plan to be cremated and scattered somewhere geographically or spiritually important or mixed in with mulch and used for soil. Why take up space? And why require people to visit you at a particular cemetery address, especially a boneyard with a painfully corny name like "Loving Arms Cemetery" or "Forest Lawn" or some shit? I'd rather be associated with something grand like an ocean or a mountain or, hell, even a church or a temple.
Otherwise, seriously, just toss me or mulch my ashes. I'll be dead, so I really won't care what happens to my remains. Assuming there is an afterlife, and further assuming it follows the Christian tradition, I'll be experiencing either rarefied bliss or eternal torment, neither state of which will predispose me to care about what the hell happened to my ashes. And if you're not going to cremate me, then chop me into meaty pieces, Tibetan Buddhism-style, and leave me out for the carrion birds. And no ceremonies—I really don't want to impose. If a few friends and relatives want to get together for a bit to celebrate my life, knock back a few, and never see each other again, then that's fine. Just no ceremonies, songs, or other rituals, please, I beg you. I do care about people going out of their way to do things. Just let me disappear in peace—a sand pattern erased by beach waves.
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| So none of this, please. |
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| whatever that says |
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| Moving on. Farmland. |
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| Namji-eup ahead. |
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| The afternoon continues with its afternooning. |
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| looking out to the river |
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| As campsites go, that's a lot better that the crowded campsites shown before. |
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| Chilseo Village (Chilseo-myeon). The curved road ahead is actually a bridge. |
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| Luckily, there's a decent shoulder. |
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| A startled-looking tree guards a fisherman's little tent. |
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| what most fields look like at this time of year |
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| almost done with the bridge |
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| I don't think this one will survive unless it somehow finds moist soil soon. |
VIDEO: Earthworm encounter!
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| past the bridge and back down |
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| onward and onward |
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| riverlands |
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| plenty of places to bike around randomly if you're not in a hurry |
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| My trail goes thataway. |
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| "Path for use by bikes. No (motor) vehicles." |
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| Animal assholes. Probably a dog, given the visible claws. |
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| I guess one could say that the defacing gives the concrete character. |
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| follow the arrow |
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| gymnastic hand |
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| pulled back for context |
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| I remember sheltering from the heavy rain under this bridge last year (2024). |
After sheltering for nearly an hour, I unwisely chose to keep walking the final ten or so kilometers. This messed my feet up, and a few days later, I decided to halt and pause for a month after seeing how badly I had injured myself. It was a rookie mistake, and I'm a veteran walker. At the time, I had done seven previous long walks, so I had plenty of experience and should have known better. I guess you could call last year a teaching moment.
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| As I've said elsewhere, I'm always fascinated by la géométricité des ponts. |
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| Koreans do love converting shipping containers. Those are admin offices. |
I'd love telling my hypothetical wife that I work under a bridge.
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| Forward, march. No rain today. |
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| I think a Gangnaru/강나루 is a river ferry. |
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| High fences for fly balls. A baseball field...? |
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| No matter. Straight on we go. |
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| Not far from here, we'll be crossing a bridge into Namji-eup. |
I'm so ready for my NeNe Chicken.
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| Didn't I meet your cousin earlier? |
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| "Chilseo [Green Barley?] Peony Festival" |
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| nearing the end of this part of the trail |
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| Let us focus for a moment on some lawn-maintenance equipment. |
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| Plenty of places to sit if you're willing to go off-piste, which I'm not, not so close to the end. |
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| But someone else is having a grand time. |
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| serene ascent |
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| ...interrupted by another animal asshole |
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| Trust the process. |
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| Afternoon sun, peeking through clouds. The day turned gloomy a while back. |
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| The hospital signaling that I'm close to my bridge. |
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| à droite |
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| under this bridge |
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| this double bridge, I mean (a bit like the 14th Street Bridge into DC, which is actually two bridges) |
I just checked Google Maps. Is the 14th Street Bridge into DC now a toll road? As if this were New York? What is this shit?
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| The hospital is sinisterly named "Our Hospital." It's a mental hospital, which is befitting. |
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| up the rise/ramp and over to the next bridge, where I will cross the river into town |
Once again, the camera is getting low on power.
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| looking back at Changnyeong Nakdong River Bridge (창녕낙동강교) |
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| looking ahead to Namji Bridge (남지대교/Namji-daegyo) |
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| I should stop by this place sometime. It specializes in duck dishes. |
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| farms, farms, farms all the way to the bridge |
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| still in business |
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| lotsa green |
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| and sentient beings, too |
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| Do you feel the power of the poultry? Or are you a... poltroon? (Fr. poltron = coward) |
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| Namji Bridge coming up. |
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| And up we go. |
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| This crossing doesn't feel nearly as long as the crossing into Hanam-eup felt. |
From what I can determine, the Namji Bridge is only 0.7 km long, about half the other bridge.
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| Bonjour, Madame. |
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| ambling across |
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| Rain had been forecast for later in the day. I'm staying here for two days, though, so the rain'll miss me. |
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| a look left |
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| the baleful sun |
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| more mask pollution |
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| Oho, what lies ahead?! |
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| and of course, my fetish |
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| closing in on the end of the bridge |
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| Gang sign? I swear, these gloves are winking at me. |
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| almost |
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| And here's my ramp off. |
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| what greets me in town |
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| an important rotary |
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| I have to cross to the other side |
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| making my way to the misnamed Heitz Hotel (motel!) |
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| I believe that that is unharvested (and green-looking) rice. |
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| A stonework place. Yes, that's a swastika on the left. Remember what I'd said about swastikas and Buddhism. |
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| motels in the distance, including the Heitz |
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| If you're gonna die, die in pairs. (I don't think these gloves are abandoned, though.) |
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| Heitz Hotel! |
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It may be advertised as a "biker's hotel," but the curtaining at the parking-lot entrance of the Heitz means this is a "love motel," i.e., it charges both nightly rates for sad, partnerless people like me and hourly rates for frisky couples looking for an illicit quickie. Bang, wipe each other off, get dressed again, and go back to the office before the end of the work day. Adultery used to be illegal in South Korea, but that law got struck down in 2015. |
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| my room |
God help me, I did try that massage chair. It felt weird and kinky. I didn't like it.
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| a view of the baffroom |
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| Mr. Sulu, you have the conn. |
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| electric fan (yay!) and standard fridge (yay!); strong WiFi router on the vanity table |
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| a place to hang-dry laundered clothes |
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| the view out my window |
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| the menu at NeNe Chicken |
The guy at NeNe Chicken knows me by now. I've been by his place maybe six out of the last eight years. He now compliments me on my having lost weight even though I haven't lost much since last year. Friendly but perfunctory conversation until I get my dead-bird flesh.
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| NeNe Chicken never lets you forget that it's NeNe Chicken. |
"NeNe" is basically "YesYes." It'd be like going to France and finding a "OuiOui Poulet."
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| Male Korean stars often seem to be some combination of nerdy and effeminate. Stars like Lee Byung-hun are in the minority. They look more like the guy above (Yoo Jae-suk/유재석, which should be romanized as "Yoo Jae-seok"). |
The miracle of my W17,000 ($11.50, US) box of chicken:
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| Remember the power of the poultry? I'm about to put that power inside me! |
Walking a long distance, then settling down to a hot meal, gives you a deep appreciation for the simpler things in life. Relief floods into you when you realize the arduous day is now over. Gratitude comes more easily, and problems that afflicted you in your city existence seem silly and superficial. As Colin Fletcher, author of many walking books, asked, Which world is more real? The urban one you left behind or the natural one you're currently in?
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| the yangnyeom (sauce) |
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| In seconds, the chicken and I will meld. |
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| This is the real Hotel Bliss. |
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| From that angle, it looks almost like a McNugget. |
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| Dip it in salt, in honey mustard, in yangnyeom... |
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The chikin-mu = diced, pickled turnips (mu), often eaten with chicken (치킨/chikin). These taste great and are very crunchy, but when you open the package, it smells like farts. You get used to it, though. Just think of it as eating ass. |
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| I had removed the offending nerve-pinching tape and replaced it with a large bandage. |
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| Leukotape-adjacent wrapping around my foot (no nerve problems there) |
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| My sock left linty traces of itself on my sole. Yecchh. |
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| But the tape on my right ankle needed to come off. |
To be clear, the tape on my right ankle hadn't been the problem: the problem was the left ankle. But as you'll see below, I'd taped my right ankle a little too tightly all the same.
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| no obvious leakage |
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| a look into my tortured sole |
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| I've got those little capillaries. What's that condition called? |
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| The bandage on my second toe was to stop bleeding from when I'd used a nail clipper before the walk. |
Clipping my toenails is always a gamble because I always end up with bleeders. Good thing I'm not a hemophiliac, or I'd be soaking bandages nonstop.
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| left foot, bared |
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| right foot, also bared (and see how tight the tape had been?) |
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| last image: my old diabetic ulcer (red-ringed, gray in the middle) and my recent nail-clipper wound (black) |
The nail-clipper wound ended up getting worse over the course of the rest of the walk while the original ulcer healed up better than it had in years. I really need to start seeing a pedicurist instead of trying to maintain my own feet.
