Day 3, Leg 3

I've arrived in the town of Hanam-eup, but since I once again strolled into town around noon, I ate a simple lunch and killed time until 2:30 p.m. before I headed over to my usual motel, the 황토방/Hwangtobang. Normally, when I get there early, the lady proprietor is almost never there, so I generally have to call her cell phone (lots of motels leave a cell-phone number to call when the owner/manager is out, and I've learned not to text because texts get ignored). By waiting until 2:30, I guessed there would be a chance she'd be there, and I was right. Alas, my room is making a funny electric noise that I'm going to have to ask the lady about. I may have to change rooms.

[UPDATE: The noise is a crackling sound coming from the room's smoke detector. While I'm tempted to unplug the thing and remove the battery myself, I don't want to trigger the alarm by mistake. I've never worked with Korean smoke detectors before.]

Despite the current problem, this motel is better than the first yeogwan I'd ever stayed at in Hanam-eup. That place was cheap but filthy—full of loose hairs and mysterious flecks of schmutz and Rorschach stains on the blankets. The Hwangtobang is better, but expensive (W50,000 a night) for what it provides. There's also a muin-tel in town (automated, no staff), which is probably nice but almost certainly also expensive—maybe more expensive than the Hwangtobang.

There was beautiful weather for the walk itself today, but it was a study in contrasts as temperatures went from 2°C (about 36°F) before dawn to 17.5°C (63.5°F) by early afternoon. In direct sunlight, temps felt a lot hotter. I finally broke out my gloves and winter vest this morning, then put those away and broke out my hat later in the day to keep my neck from burning. November is ideally late fall in South Korea, but right now, at the end of October, things feel oddly transitional: the October rains have more or less ended, and cool weather is turning cold during the nights and early mornings. But this afternoon heat feels strange and nothing like the lead-up to winter.

Yesterday's stay at the Nakdong-jang Motel was fine except for these shooting pains I've got in my left ankle—pains that are still with me. The AI god suggests that the pains could be related to pinched nerves and/or diabetic neuropathy; pinched nerves make sense since I had wrapped some tape around my ankle to hold a falling bandage in place to protect my Achilles tendon from chafing thanks to my left Skecher (which is otherwise fine so far; the first real test is tomorrow). I probably wrapped the tape too tightly, thus pinching a nerve.

Upshot: I once again barely slept, and it seems as though that's going to happen again tonight. There's no pain when I'm walking and distracted, but the moment I stop and sit for any length of time, the sensation of pins and needles flares up as a simultaneous itch and burn. I want to pour acid all over the site since constant agony would be more understandable than these flareups, which strike like neuronal lightning every 30-60 seconds. 

Tomorrow's walk will be the first on the calendar to be 30 km. I'll be staying at the Heitz Hotel in Namji-eup for two nights. That first day, when I arrive, I'll celebrate with my traditional, carby chicken tenders from NeNe Chicken. But will I enjoy them with this fucking ankle problem? I'd had a similar problem on the flight to Virginia earlier this year: a big guy like me in economy class doesn't have much choice where to put his long legs, and I ended up crossing my ankles for hours, resulting in pinched nerves and shooting pains. It was a rough flight over. And now, the same pain is back, but even more persistent.

Well, in an ideal world, 30K isn't a bad walking distance, and it's not much different from the 29K I did two days ago, so I ought to survive. The plan, then, is to stay in Namji-eup Thursday and Friday night, then do a 33K walk on Saturday to the Jeokgyo-jang Motel. That'll be another 2-night stay, then on Monday, it's 40K to the Daegu Hong-C Motel. That's where I finally stopped and gave up last year so my damaged foot could heal for a month (see last year's blog here; after stopping in October, I picked up the walk again in December—when it was frigid and there was no rain at all). 

Assuming no rain-related injuries this time, I'll leave the Hong-C and walk 25K to west Daegu, where I'll stay at the If Hotel (or the Hotel If—the hotel itself uses both monikers). Again, two nights, plus my favorite Chinese chicken in Daegu on the day I arrive. Woo-hoo!

I have a total of six two-night stays built into my calendar (click the link on the sidebar to see my itinerary), which means twenty days away from home but only fourteen actual walking days. Normally, I rest an extra night after walking 30 or more kilometers, but the day I arrive in west Daegu, I'll have walked only 25 km. Why the extra night after only 25K, then? Because I'd rearranged the calendar so I could enjoy my Chinese food the day of my arrival, then spend the second day fasting to avoid angina during the next segment of the walk.

The Nakdong course's segments are longer on average than the ones I do for the Four Rivers, and to be frank, I'm not looking forward to the 40K day that's coming up soon—and right after doing a 33K segment that includes a huge, mean hill that I'm going to have to take very slowly if I don't want a second heart attack.

But that's all a lot of future talk. Today went well except for the shooting pains that are bothering me even as I type this entry on my tiny cell screen. If this pain persists through the rest of the walk, I'm going to have to see a doctor once I'm back in Seoul. In my defense, I did remove the offending tape from my ankle the very first night of the pain, but my ankle is acting as if the tape were still on it. No way I'll be sleeping tonight.

Your daily stats, route map, and ten images are below. I need to talk with the motel lady about moving to another room. This buzzing noise from the ceiling, which sounds almost like the buzz/crackle of a PA system, will drive me crazy if I stay here. 

Enjoy the images.

goodbye, Nakdong-jang

bridge before dawn, with bullet train

my favorite Korean cookie, memorialized

MasaMasa Tunnel, today's exercise in hill-avoidance

interesting post

walking past a lot of farmland

Korean earthworm versus size-13 shoe

river as seen from Su-san Bridge

a busy glove

under-the-bridge couch cat (and friend)

UPDATE 2: I got moved two rooms down the hall, and they're bringing someone in to look at the smoke detector. 

PHOTO ESSAY

4:38 a.m. and ready to move out. I never make my bed when I leave a motel.

Above, you see the winter vest that my boss gave me as a gift. It was a lifesaver. My bandanna comes standard when I go on these walks. It crushes my hair down and leaves me with ever-graying "hat head." I normally start the day off with either my bandanna or with a winter beanie. As the day goes on and temps warm up, I'll normally change to my wide-brimmed hat, but I didn't wear my hat that often this time around. As a result, my face got a lot more sun (tan + freckles).

standard yeogwan/motel accoutrements: fridge, fan (if you're lucky), vanity table with mirror, electric sockets

Just a reminder: a yeogwan/여관 is a simple inn, a bit downscale from a bona fide motel, but the labels yeogwan and motel are often used interchangeably, creating some category vagueness. The Korean word for motel is motel/모텔.

the quiet mess I leave

The front door says Nakdong-jang Yeogwan. Other signs say Motel.

into the dark, and soon onto the path again

Occasionally, it's moments like the one above that create a vague feeling of anticipation: I had to skip off the path to get my lodging, and this return to the path, while not exactly exciting, per se, still feels like a formal resumption of the main journey. There's a bit of anticipation and even determination: the day has only just begun.

on the path and passing under a bridge; sorry for the blur

brightest star = Sirius (thank you, Sky Map app)

To be clear, I know nothing about the stars or stellar navigation, so I use my phone's Sky Map app to determine what's what. As for navigation, well, in most cases, it comes down to follow the river and remember where the river is, especially when the path wanders away from the water, as it often does.

bright "star" in this case = Jupiter

looking riverward

Straightaway! And look at all that electricity. North Korea can only dream of this.

shwimteo under Sirius

More Korean vocabulary: a shwimteo/쉼터 is a kind of rest area that, in its most traditional form, looks like a square, hexagonal, or octagonal roofed pavilion with a flat floor underneath—a simple place with a simple purpose that is meant for all to use: just sit or lie down, and you might sometimes have to remove your shoes first. The word shwimteo comes from shwim/쉼, the gerundive form of the verb 쉬다/shwida, to rest. One way to make Korean verbs into gerunds is by adding an "m" to the end of the verb's base form. If the verb is hada/하다 (to do/make), take off the da and add "m" to the ha to get ham/함 (doing). If the verb is itda/있다 (to be/exist/have), take off the da and add "eum" to get isseum/있음 (being, existing, having). The teo ("taw/tuh," not "tee-oh"... think: the eo in "George") in shwimteo roughly means "place," with the implication that it's a place with a specific purpose. A noriteo/놀이터, for example, is a kids' playground.

Okay, Korean lesson over. For now.

another bridge

Shwimteo are a huge trope during all of these cross-country walks. They don't normally appear this frequently.

rail bridge, a reminder that I'll be crossing the river soon

looking back at a car bridge

coming up: the bridge I'll be crossing

As always, real life is darker than my camera makes it look.

looking back at the stairs I came down to get off the path and reach my bridge

About to cross the bridge. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Samnanjin Bridge (삼란진교), for walkers and small vehicles that can slip through barriers

The other side of the bridge has large concrete blocks as barriers to prevent larger vehicles like tanks and larger trucks from getting through. Smaller trucks and flatbeds and cars and SUVs slip through just fine. Later in the day, there's a lot of traffic. Ask me how I know.

"Watch Out for Bikes"

So many bridges in the dark; this is a bridge-heavy area. I'd call it strategic during a war.

We are officially in the city of Gimhae, where so many Kims come from. (There are Gimhae Kims, Gyeongju Kims, etc. from different regions.)

The yellow banner is protesting the construction of a new livestock farm. But... beef is what's for dinner!

the rail bridge I always pass under whichever direction I'm walking in—Busanward or Incheonward

bright "star" = airplane

The sky is lightening, but only the camera sees it at 6:04 a.m. With my own eyes, I can't really tell.

So much farmland. It's really incredible. To think that I'd missed this for years.

into a village, right before a mountain and a cheater's tunnel

Had I been in better cardiac shape, I would have tried going over the upcoming mountain. But this was still the beginning of the walk, back when I thought I might croak at any time from a heart attack. I hadn't really started to rebuild my cardiac strength yet, so I took the safe way and opted for the Masa Tunnel instead of following the standard road over the local mountain. Profiles in courage, right? I'm not proud of what I did.

I do love my dilapidation.

The yellow letters scream out "MASA!"—the name of this area.

We continue along the slight rise.

Luckily, I'm not going up the hillier access road. I'm sticking to the main road.

worshiping the monster clown's spinal column

farmland off to the right

end of October and still farming

It never ceases to amaze me how late into the year Koreans will farm—not just harvesting late-growing plants but also planting small crops of hardy vegetables that can endure the cold. Garlic, I've discovered, is an extremely tough plant, and it's often planted after some other main crop has been harvested. At a guess, this is an example of crop rotation, with successive crops feeding the soil after being harvested, their unused parts returning to the earth.

These paths are a constant encounter with the makeshift and slapdash. That's part of the charm—seeing how people in different countries make do.

The mountain and tunnel are coming, I promise. I walk slowly, so this takes a while.

local church

In 2000, I visited Korea while still living in the States and spent three days at Haein-sa, one of the "three jewel" Buddhist temples because it famously houses the Tripitaka Koreana, a set of 80,000-some wooden printing blocks from which to print Buddhist scriptures written in Chinese (thus representing the second jewel, the dharma). After my visit, I unfavorably compared church architecture to Buddhist-temple architecture, saying that the Christian concept imposes its geometry on its surroundings while temples, composed of main structures and multiple outbuildings, tend to follow whatever terrain they're on, "like an octopus settling among coral outcroppings." Since 2000, however, I've seen churches around the world that try to meld with their terrain, and I've noticed certain fixed and rigid patterns in Buddhist temples that hadn't been evident before, so I repent of what I'd written a quarter-century ago, back when I was young and unwise. These days, I'd say that each kind of architecture has its own ethereal beauty. I don't think I was totally wrong in what I'd written, but if I had the chance to rewrite that piece, I'd add a lot of qualifications.

Ah, here we are: the choice. Go right and up the mountain or left through the parking lot and into the tunnel.

the choice in graphical form

I chicken out and choose the Masa (or MasaMasa) Tunnel.

A sign about civil behavior. (1) Don't throw your garbage in unauthorized places. (2) Keep pets on a leash and pick up their mess. (3) No drinking alcohol, smoking, or cooking. (4) Don't damage the facilities. (5) Don't store hazardous materials in the tunnel (who the hell would do that?).

the sculpture that resembles my favorite Korean cookie (see this post and this pic in particular)

The post I just linked to comes from Kevin's Walk 7, done in 2023. I did the Four Rivers walk from Incheon to Busan that year (officially 633 km), so for the segment in question, you'll see many of the same sights you're seeing in this blog post, but at very different times of day because, in 2023, I was walking toward Busan, thus arriving at Nakdong-jang Yeogwan.

the horse-thing with a lot of balls, popular with the ladies

In the cold season, this place, a cafe, isn't very active. At this early hour, it's closed.

As you see, the apostrophe says, "Gimhae."

"International Slow City Gimhae"; the slow-city/Cittaslow movement began in Italy in 1999.

the apostrophe of your dreams

MasaMasa Tunnel

...and the first thing I encounter is a field of mass death.

What could have driven so many earthworms to rise to the surface, seek out hard concrete, then allow themselves to freeze to death on it? Heavy rain? Heavy rain often drives earthworms out of the soil in force: they're air-breathers, after all (well, air + moisture). Maybe it rained, the earthworms came out and sought safety, then the temps fell radically, probably at night, and before the worms had had a chance to return to the soil (which might not have had a chance to drain thoroughly), they all froze to death. My surmise, anyway. Sorry, guys.

all those little corpses

the tunnel isn't even 400 m

at the end

So it's the "Masa Tunnel" (misspelled) on this sign, but the tunnel itself is labeled "MasaMasa."

When you live in Asia, you learn not to take anything literally—not labels for motels/yeogwans, not the indicated names of tunnels, not distance markers, not anything. Nothing can be trusted to be correct, so you earn to live in a floaty fog of mental vagueness where, if you're lucky, language might occasionally match with reality. Learning to navigate such vagueness, such proto-doublethink, is the art of being an expat in Asia. Asians, meanwhile, think you're a sucker for being over-literal.

not going up this hill, not after taking a level tunnel to avoid more hills

not going up this hill, either

Ah—the way lies straight forward. So, en avant, les gars!

through the village and the occasional barking dogs

caught somewhere between farm and suburb (see the sprouting garlic in the foreground?)

pink always reminds me of the predominant building color in Nice, France

Now, that's a crusty old wall.

old-school architecture

dilapidation and persimmon tree

I almost want to live in one of these houses.

an overworked post box in the midst of vomiting back its letters

old houses abound, often mixed with new ones

whew

interesting fence design

the vines

storehouse of some kind...?

a rabbit hidden in the vegetation

a more modern dwelling for someone with money

almost out of that village/neighborhood

I'll cross that bridge in the distance.

a sign confirming I'm on the right path

crossing the Mojeong Bridge/Mojeong-gyo/모정교

The plaque says the bridge is 80 m long and 6 m wide. It's designed to support 13.5 tons, but for loads that are merely passing over, it can support up to 24.3 tons.

Algae. We'll be seeing a lot more of this along the walk.

On traverse.

looking toward the huge drainage gate

and a drainage facility to the left

drainage gate (배수문/baesu-mun), closer

I'm taking a break and resting at a shwimteo by the drainage gate. It felt like time to rest. 7:10 a.m.

The distant line of trees indicates a berm with a bike path. I don't think I'm walking that way.

Here's my berm and my path.

looking right and out toward the river

I did keep wondering whether I'd be going along that path; my memory of the route was vague.

Another farm/suburban neighborhood. Again, plenty of barking dogs.

using all available space for agriculture

Eh bien, continuons. But this is heaven, not hell.

Here's an AI-voiced video on Korean "air houses," a type of greenhouse.

my shadow

I can't remember whether this little creature was alive or dead.

farm life on an ambitious scale

straight along the berm

messed-up lizard losing at life

Access ramps up to the bike path are for farm vehicles, but I often see regular cars and trucks on the path.

neighborhood

the bizarre sight of a shwimteo with chairs

There's something a little weird and meta about seeing a shwimteo with chairs on it: the shwimteo's floor is already there to be rested on—sit or lie down on it!—but some Koreans insist on piling on with chairs and even couches. Some shwimteo have stocked fridges. What's the point?

weird, I tell you

I guess we're going right, just after the tractor (Ltn. trahere, to pull).

And down the path we go.

There's a story to be told here.

more dilapidation

Spaces get used if they're there for long enough.

something drying on a tarp

Up we go.

looking into a property

more barking dogs in this area

interesting combination of colors and shapes

Often, what attracts my eye will be an interesting combination of colors and shapes and angles. Look at the photo below and tell me that that canopy, a kind of makeshift garage with nothing currently in it, isn't interesting.

canopy/garage

downhill and to the right

out of that neighborhood and on to the next shwimteo

Cats are skittish, like so many animals here, so I had to photograph this one at a distance with digital zoom.

the return of goddamn park golf

(mocking, sarcastic voice) Oh, look at how happy they are!

classic Korean architecture (flat, open roof and stairs on the outside), set in farmland

farmland to the left, undeveloped riverland to the right

Riverlands is, I think, primarily George RR Martin's term, for those who've read his still-incomplete and never-to-be-completed A Song of Ice and Fire series. But it's the term that comes to mind whenever I'm doing these walks. These walks along the riverlands are when I'm at my happiest.

unless I'm looking at goddamn park... golf...

grrrr

Onward we press.

what the Brits and Koreans call a rotary or (mainly the Brits) a roundabout; we brutally literal Yanks often unimaginatively say traffic circle, and the French call it a rond point or giratoire

Stick that foot-long thang in a hot-dog bun!

My shoe is (US) size 13 (size 300 in Korea, where they use millimeters for size).

return of the straightaway

Not visible in this pic, but the river is off to the right.

looking uphill and left

small hill

Mysterious concrete gateway... did something use to exist here?

About to descend again.

You can see red chilies peeking out. Chili-growing season is almost over.

more chilies

down the slope (slope = 경사/gyeongsa; steep slope = 급경사/geup-gyeongsa)

...and onto another berm. There are a lot of these along the way.

"Watch out for collisions." (And look at that blue sky!)

Markings indicating that, yes, this is a bike path. Note the lack of a pedestrian path.

Roadwork for a new road. Check back in a couple years.

more of the new road

When that road is ready, there'll be more traffic next to the bike path, i.e. more noise. Space gets whittled away.

We're now at the Changweon (often written Changwon) city limits, Gyeongsang South Province.

wider shot

rice paddies

forward as always

Despite realizing that I can, in theory, rest wherever I want to on these long walks, I normally prefer to rest wherever there are shwimteo or benches. Sitting on the ground invites moisture when the ground is wet, dirt when the ground is dry, and little beasties when you're on the ground for long enough. Most benches along the path are standard, recognizable benches, but some "benches" are huge, rectangular hunks of stone with smoothed-out top surfaces. I'm not picky: if I need a quick nap, I'm fine with almost any bench. And when there are no benches, I'm fine with just continuing to walk until I finally hit a human-made flat surface. You develop an attitude of few expectations and instant gratitude when you're on such walks and encounter something you'd wished for but didn't seriously think would appear—a bench, a shwimteo, or shelter from a downpour. Thank you, bench. Thank you, shwimteo. Thank you, shelter. Didn't know you'd be there, but thank you.

farm equipment put out to pasture

La vache! Fetchez la vache! (Cleese should have said Va chercher instead of Fetchez, which is fake French.)

I'm glad you're there and I'm not.

arfers telling me to get the fuck away from their territory

It's been a long straightaway.

another bovine

closer

YET CLOSER

Venerable structure... still in use?

The hat that I eventually thought had gone missing. (But I still had it.)

Another shwimteo punctuates my route.

utility building of some sort

authorized personnel only

I'm guessing this is for water processing.

the Nakdong in its splendor

coming up on more civilization

the beginning of the apartment complexes

Note the "layered" nature, above, of the mountains in the background. That's where East Asian brush art comes from: it started before the world really had a mathematical notion of perspective; East Asian brush artists used to simulate perspective by "layering" their paintings with background objects so that it was easy to see what was nearer the foreground and what had receded into the background. It was then up to your brain to interpret the scene as showing perspective and dimensionality.

drainage gate

I did not dare this path.

into another village

swerving left

more old buildings

old-school, stairs-outside architecture

Something took a bite out of that corner. The spray-painted sign is for water-leak detection.

a canopy with something in it

Well, somebody believes in walls!

fields ahead and, off to the left (not pictured), a shwimteo

see?

closer look

This village has a lot of old murals.

Let's enjoy the art. While I like some graffiti, I think I prefer this on my village's walls: art, not scribbles.

a field, post-harvest

but not everything is harvested

The farming never stops.

suburban-style village house in the midst of the farmland, with its own gardens

Korean-style bullfighting, with no matadors (a word that literally means "killer," from Spn. matar, to kill)

tank of mystery

You don't see that every day.

Grammar note: The expression every day—two words—is an adverb of frequency: I brush my teeth every day. But everyday—one word—is an adjective meaning "ordinary, normal, regular, mundane." An everyday occurrence. Don't forget.

You don't see that _____ . His morning farts were an _____ ritual that we got used to.
a. everyday, everyday
b. every day, everyday
c. every day, every day
d. everyday, every day

up the ramp

VIDEO: The Flappies.

lots of roofs

Is this a residence?

The road goes ever on and on. I'd like to imagine the building ahead is a restaurant, but no.

nice tree(s?) by a house

wider shot

utility pole, dressed up and ready to party, standing among bamboo like a Westerner among Koreans

See the bamboo on the right? Be careful with bamboo: it takes over everything.

past the fence

river view

What sin did this electric fan commit to earn exile? Oh, and there's a bench.

moving past the bench

What's this here, drying?

another small neighborhood

While life might look simple and serene out here, there are PA systems all over the place prone to blaring out announcements and ruining the blessed silence, always reminding me that Big Brother is never far. That's one aspect of living in Korea that I've never learned to like. Just leave me alone, guys. Alas, I have a PA speaker in my own apartment, blaring its own announcements almost every day.

Oh, no, we ain't stoppin' here.

a very modern-looking shwimteo with a bench

swooping down but passing flowers

then suddenly swooping back up

By the latter part of Day 3 (today), I was getting used to sudden, short hills—a contrast with this morning when I had chickened out and taken the MasaMasa Tunnel.

a temple is on the left

Last year on the path, I met a monk from this temple (Seoweon-sa/서원사) who was just strolling. He and I talked a bit, and he invited me to become a monk (I guess he saw there was nothing else left for me). The above temple's name is written in Chinese on the brown marker on the right.

a closer look

another sign for the temple in both Chinese and Korean: 誓願寺/서원사/Seoweon-sa

It turns out the term 誓願/서원/seoweon refers to taking a sacred vow or making a solemn promise to a divinity. Vows and precepts are as important in Buddhism as they are in Christianity.

Past the temple and down into the bamboo grove we go.

Switchback. Of course, as I was going down, a biker was struggling up.

I didn't bother to photograph the guy as he grunted upward. Would've been rude.

...and we're back on an open path.

back to the agriculture that dominates so much of my route to Andong

Ain't no getting away from it.

straightaway

I photographed this tree because...

...of the fungus it's hosting. Fungus, as you know, is not a plant. It's its own biological kingdom.

looking forward and left

I assume that's a makeshift shwimteo and not a residence.

modern versions of classical Korean architecture out in the fields

when two paths meet

I guess it's a bridge or something bridge-like.

a famous hackberry tree from that Korean TV series I never watched

And it's got its own shwimteo to boot.

I don't remember why I took this shot, but enjoy the wabi-sabi geometry.

UPDATE: I do remember now: look at the hackberry tree in the distance. This is a wide shot.

a rare shot with my wide-brimmed hat

coming up on park golf, picnic areas, and parking lots

a rectangular shwimteo

nearing the end of the recreational area

a map of part of the bike path

entranceway, ticket booth

"Daesan Dream Park Golf Course"—fuck you and your park golf. Cark-it golf, not park golf, I say.

Up we go yet again.

"Beware of falling." (Danger Guy inside his ill-fated car)

bike speed limit: 20 kph (mostly ignored)

little plots, a road, a bridge—all in a wide, wide mountain valley

But on we must go.

Shwimteo coming up.

a little, wriggly travel companion

The trash bags look vulgar, but a shwimteo isn't holy ground, and I'd rather have bags than scattered garbage.

Trash bags and trash cans for random garbage are rare in East Asia, where the logic seems to be, If you can't throw it anywhere, you have to pack it out with you. What really happens, though, is that people just throw their trash on the ground. I've seen the same problem on a bank of the Potomac River back home, between Mount Vernon and Old Town Alexandria.

We need little Mr. Fusions every hundred yards. And a way to get paid for dumping trash.

curving gently left

church in the distance

wider shot for context's sake

still curving left, getting ready to hit a bridge

Coming up on the town of Hanam-eup, where I'll be staying the night. I'm using the bridge to cross into town.

It's diversions like this that add distance to my path. The official length of the Nakdong River bike path is 385 km, but fourteen days of little diversions like this—2 km here, 2 km back to the path the following morning—begin to add up. My total distance was about 403 km, all told.

You see that there's a sign saying the official path also goes across the river, but tomorrow morning, I'll be crossing back to this side of the river again. As I said before: the signs say one thing, but the reality is often another.

approaching the ramp

And up we go.

I guess we need reminders that this is the Nakdong.

As with the other signs, this one says I'm on both the 4 Rivers and the Nakdong River path.

Luckily, there's a lane for bikers/walkers away from traffic.

a shot of the river from the bridge

I tried in vain to get a shot of the river looking the other way, but it didn't work. Nice mountains, though.

Bridges are a great place to find abandoned gloves, one of my fetishes.

In 2017, when I did my first trans-Korea walk, I began to notice the omnipresence of abandoned gloves, and I've been photographing them ever since. I could make a coffee-table book of nothing but abandoned gloves. Or shaman spiders. Or bridges. Or straightaways. Or river views. Or...

a rare shot of an arthropod that isn't a spider

probably more active during the summer, but not at the end of October

another glove, looking a bit more miserable

For whatever reason, the bridge (the Su-san Bridge, 수산대교) felt longer this year. It's about 1.3 km.

I'm trying very hard not to romanize 수산대교 as Susan daegyo. Americans would pronounce that like the woman's name. It's more like "soo-sahn." Hence Su-san daegyo.

Yay! More park golf greets me.

But at least the old folks are happy.

...even if they're all bizarrely masked up.

a third glove, looking lonely

And we're still not done yet.

But I'm getting off here. The sign says "to Hanam." Hanam-eup (하남읍) should not be confused with Hanam-shi (하남시), the small city just east of Seoul.

at last—the ramp down (U-turn coming up)

looks like garbage, but not typical garbage

Remember 국토종주?

"I claim this couch in the name of our rrrrrrrowwwwwler!"

final stretch on the path before entering town in earnest

Life is a series of straightaways.

looking down and left but not going that way (too bad... it's a nice park)

(looking right) It's a town, all right.

(looking left again) performance space, currently unused, and the park beyond

(right) Solar is big in this small country, where it might make a bit more sense.

And I've found a set of steps to go down into town, find my motel, and get lunch.

The first room I was given before the fire alarm's buzzing got me moved into a different room.

The lady was friendly enough about the problem. She later said a guy had come by to make repairs.

When the pants come off, you'd think the traveler would settle down.

VIDEO: The annoying buzz of the fire alarm (listen to the end).

So that's more or less how Day 3 ended. Some minor hills, a lot of straightaways, a small temple that evoked fond memories of last year, and a slightly awkward time in my current lodging. Quite a lot going on for a mere 20 km.