Day 19, Leg 13

One more day, one more leg to go. I left the Gangnam Motel at 4:45 a.m. and arrived at the Songhak Motel in Pungsan-eup, western Andong, at almost exactly 4 p.m. Factoring in breaks, my average pace was about 2.92 kph, which is par for the course lately.

It was a freezing, foggy morning, and I was happy to break out the chemical hand warmers. For about two or three hours, I ended up tucking my trekking pole under my backpack so I could warm both of my hands in my pockets at the same time. Once the day warmed up, however, I put away (then eventually threw away) the warmers and got rid of my jacket as the sun finally beat back the fog, burning it away to reveal a bright, blue sky.

On the bike trail, there were plenty of motor vehicles—cars, trucks, vans, mopeds, farm equipment, etc. It got a bit tedious at several points, but it still wasn't as bad as being on a road with no shoulder while traffic bears down on you. 

About two-thirds of the way to west Andong, I met a lone construction worker who was working on making a new bike path. Presumably, this sort of work is a team effort, but my man was the only one out there at the time. Unwisely ignoring Naver yet again, I had tried to follow a sign-marked bike path that culminated in a dead end, so I'd asked this guy what was up with that. He said a new path was being built and would be done in a few months, but in the meantime, I shouldn't trust the signs. I'd figured that part out on my own. At first, in good drinking-on-the-job fashion, the construction guy offered me some makkeolli, but when I told him I don't drink alcohol, he offered me a fresh apple, which I took and thanked him for. The nice thing about eating fruit while on a walk is that there's no reason to feel bad about throwing the apple core into the grass for Nature to take back and recycle. I left the man to his project and continued onward.

30K is substantially easier than doing 36K, but I was still glad to arrive at the Songhak Motel, which sits at the ass-end of town. I'm not nearly as wiped out as I'd been two days ago, but I'm still pleasantly tired. As had happened twice before, there was no one at the motel's information desk, so I called the phone number on one of the signs and was answered by a very loud ajumma who said she'd be right over. When she got to the motel, she told me a single night would be only W35,000 if I paid in cash, but W40,000 if I paid by card. This was obviously an old-school place. She also complained that I had arrived "quickly" (bballi oshyeot-ne!/빨리 오셨네!) and that no rooms in the motel were ready for me. She led me to a small house next to the motel and told me I could stay there, minbak-style. She then left me to my devices, and I sank down tiredly, contemplating my situation and noticing the lack of an electric fan, which greatly speeds up clothes drying. I elected not to do laundry or shower, so I'll be going back to Seoul smelling rather ripe. Back of the bus for Kevin.

As I sat half-unpacked and staring into space, there was a brusque knock on the door. Ajumma again. She said she now had a room ready in her motel—Room 106—which she claimed would have a better shower than the minbak had. I was actually kind of relieved despite the inconvenience of having to repack and go back to the motel: the minbak was roomy, but the blankets on the not-a-real-sofa had looked rumpled and used, not freshly laundered and folded. So I'm now in Room 106. I wasn't given a key, so I'll just leave early tomorrow morning. There's nowhere I need to go tonight.

So tonight, after I finish this entry, I'll just relax, watch YouTube, sleep, and get up early. If 30K is short, 28K tomorrow will be shorter. I have a couple of hills tomorrow, but they won't be so bad. I also won't be eating anything until I'm back in Seoul. And once I'm back at my shoebox studio, I'll gratefully shower and do all my laundry. 

As I've mentioned several times, tomorrow might be the last day of the walk, but it's not over for the blog: I'll write up the entry for the final day tomorrow night, then I need to do several more things: write up my traditional trip postmortem, upload all of my thousands of photographs, resize all the photos to make them presentable, and add captions and commentary to every day's entry. This is probably going to take me well into December, and in the meantime, I'll be working like a madman to create more material for Substack and my other ventures. The Mythbusters might have disproved this, but I'll be hitting the ground running. No sleep till Christmas. Or Brooklyn. Whichever comes first.

Enjoy today's selection of images.

Just 30K today, not 36.

almost straight east (look at the compass)

the Gangnam Motel as I was leaving

Big Dipper again

hay ready for baling

cheap plug protection

"Is this Earth?"

When I displayed this foggy pic on Instapundit, one commenter wrote, "Is this Earth?" It's just fog, though, not Beijing's smog.

the longest straightaway ever

Plinking is apparently pancultural.

one of many, many dead snakes today

the road where I met the construction guy

the minbak I almost stayed in

BONUS VIDEO: 

What the hell is this?

PHOTO ESSAY

It's O Holy Night over the Gangnam Motel.

Orion's belt and sword

electric light in the darkness

I somehow managed not to trip, this time, when walking out of town.

Jupiter, Procyon, Sirius

Big Dipper (see it? with weird lens effects?)

where I hit the trail again and continued on

Kinda' hard to see anything at this time of the morning.

Tree(s) ahead; the path is barely visible.

Never go full Lovecraft.

In spite of itself, the world wakes up.

VIDEO: Appalachian Horror.

낙석 주의/nakseok jueui = "Watch for falling rocks"

They're all brave at a distance.

8:00 a.m. sun, second-to-last day of the walk... wow

Thank you, restroom.

sigh... glamping area

Publishing. A book-making company. I need to look these people up.

"sewage reception"...?

Fuck the CM Park hotel, which was unfriendly to me a few years back.

How best to translate this? "(Do) you see this right here(?)." ...?

red font: 知足/지족/jijok (knowledge...?)
black font: The heart (mind) is comfortable, and (things) become pleasant.

Songhak-jang Inn (Songhak-jang Yeogwan)

the vertical sign says "Songhak Motel"

A yeogwan/여관 is technically an inn—a very modest lodging and, these days, pretty much the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. (Maybe a minbak is lower, but that depends on the location.) A motel is, generally speaking, a slight step up in quality. A yeogwan might cost you W25,000-W35,000 a night; a motel will set you back anywhere from W35,000 to W70,000 a night, and in many cases, the motel's price does not reflect its quality. A lot of unscrupulous motel managers will charge a "foreigner's tax" when they see a non-Korean face. They usually hide the racist nature of the "tax" by saying it's a surcharge for having arrived early, or for having arrived on a Friday, or for having arrived on a weekend or some other bullshit. They know that a guy like me, walking in after a day of walking, will not be in a mood to argue, and for places like the Songhak, they're the only game in town. Luckily, the Songhak's owner treated her place more like a yeogwan than a motel; these days, W35,000 is a reasonable yeogwan price (a decade ago, that would've been W25,000 for the same quality of lodging). Note how one sign calls the Songhak a yeogwan, while the sign on the building itself bills this as a motel. A lot of mislabeling occurs with lodging: many motels, for example, have signage declaring they are hotels. Generally speaking, hotels are a little higher-end in quality, but not always. You can expect to pay anywhere from W60,000 to W250,000 a night at a hotel. Pensions, which normally have kitchen facilities, are in roughly the same range. But for the most part, you have to reserve pension rooms in advance: most don't take walk-ins although, during my east-coast walk, I found many exceptions, maybe because they were desperate for cash.

the yeogwan's reception area, with rate charts

I had to call the manager to tell her I was at her office. When she arrived, she said I'd come too early for her to have a regular room ready, so she moved me into a kind of minbak area. Traditionally, minbak started out as bedrooms rented out by families; you had the option of eating dinner with the house's owners. These days, minbak are entire buildings with rentable rooms, but they might have communal bathroom/shower areas. I've been in one traditional minbak situation (2017), and the place you see below might be considered another; I've never tried the more modern minbak, though, so I can't personally confirm what facilities a modern minbak has.

Huge armoires—holding blankets, etc.—are a feature of traditional Korean housing.

large bathroom/shower area, with the standard rubber slippers for walking on wet floors

I didn't see any laundry facilities. Not unexpected, but disappointing.

living-room area, with a view of the entrance

The lady gave me a quick tutorial on how to use the water-heating system, a thermostat-box on the wall by the kitchenette.

a bed already apread on the ground

Below is an interesting piece of living-room furniture sometimes found in East Asian culture: the couch that is not a couch. It has the shape, but as you can see, the sides—the "arms"—are barley padded, and the couch's seat has almost no cushioning except whatever is is being grudgingly provided by the blankets. Otherwise, it's as hard as a table. East Asians are brutal when it comes to furniture made for rest.

the not-a-couch

As I wrote above, the manager moved me out of the minbak to a regular yeogwan room.

goodbye, minbak

And here's the regular room I got moved to (main building):

This actually felt more comfortable. More normal.

with the standard bathroom