Day 8, Leg 6

My record for this walk. And I did not walk 46.2K. 18% exaggeration.

It now says 39K, not 40K. That's right—diminish my victory.

a good shot of the Big Dipper, interrupted by wire

sunrise, kind of

a tributary to the Nakdong

geese fleeing North Korea

smashing pumpkins ('tis the season)

mist, mist, and more damn mist

the scrote-spider sculpture by the dam (Hapcheon-Changnyeong-bo/합천창녕보)

persimmon trees, and persimmons, everywhere

lovely tree with almost lime-green leaves in front of Dodong Confucian academy (도동서원)

I'm attracted to dilapidation, which has a weird beauty.

40K done, and the Hong-C Motel sits on its own steep hill, so that ascent was the final kick in the ass for my arrival. I left the Jeokgyo-jang Motel at around 4:20 a.m. and arrived in southwest Daegu (the little town of Hyeonpoong-eup in the peripheral municipality of Daegu) at around 6:30 p.m., the one-hour early start having served its purpose. At the Hong-C, the guy who gave me a room wanted to charge me W20,000 extra just because I wanted the room for two straight nights without my having to leave and come back (what the fuck kind of stipulation is that?), but he ended up charging me only an extra W10,000. Gee, thanks, guy! A lot of motels will scam you with extra costs these days—any excuse to milk an extra few tens of thousands of won out of you, especially if you're a foreigner. I don't think I'll be coming back here. There are better-placed motels of equal quality.

But some good did come of my being tired and refusing to step out and find food: I finally downloaded and learned how to use the popular food-ordering app called "Yogiyo." It was surprisingly easy to create an account; Korean apps normally require you to take several steps backward before you can move forward (e.g., by asking you to jump outside the app to register with some other certification app before you can continue to create an account on the app you were originally working on). Yogiyo was, by contrast, up and running in no time. I was impressed. So I used my newfound superpower to order some extremely carby bunshik (think: street foods mostly made with flour), which came to me within 40 minutes. Nice.

It was another gorgeous day for a walk, but around 5:00 a.m. or so, temps dropped to freezing. Luckily, I had anticipated this: I'd broken out the chemical-heat pads before stepping out of Jeokgyo-jang Motel; they lasted a couple of hours and produced modest amounts of heat—just enough to keep my fingers from freezing. 

My feet, well taped as usual, seem to be none the worse for wear. From here on in, no segment after today will ever again be 40K (or as Naver currently says, 39K). I have a 36K day on November 12, just three days before the end of the walk, but 36K shouldn't be hard after doing 40K. Besides, I've walked 60K before—nearly 100,000 steps. 

So at this point, it's an endurance game. I've done the worst hill, and today, I've done the longest segment of the whole walk. There are a couple mean hills left, but none that combine the steepness and length of the hill I'd done the other day. Today's hills were occasionally steep, too, but they were all relatively short. The final day of the walk features one mean (but shorter) hill, but once that's done, the rest of the segment is as flat as a pancake (if your pancakes are normally flat).

I'd forgotten that today was the day I would take the detour around the mountain where Mushim-sa 무심사/無心寺 is located. Approaching from Busan actually made finding the detour easier. For those who don't understand what I'm talking about, I should provide a little background: Normally, when I'm walking from Incheon to Busan along the Four Rivers path, I leave Daegu and find myself heading toward Mushim-sa, a temple on a modest mountainside (literally "No-mind Temple," no-mind being an important concept in Seon Bulgyo, a.k.a. Zen Buddhism). In 2017, when I did my first trans-Korea walk and knew nothing about anything, I elected to follow the bike path past Mushim-sa and up the mountainside, not knowing any better. It was a horrible experience, filled with a succession of steep, switchbacking slopes. A colleague of mine who had biked that same route had said he'd nearly broken his chain on the climb by the temple. The next time I came near Mushim-sa, in 2019, I was savvier, and I saw a sign that I'd missed last time: It was for a detour around the entire mountain. I say without shame that, since 2019, I have only ever used the detour, and I have never taken the Mushim-sa path ever again. So when I say that the Mushim-sa detour is easier to find when coming from Busan, that's a good thing. Will I ever try the Mushim-sa route ever again? I might, but only if I'm in a particularly masochistic mood.

Today's walk was, all in all, a good one despite a series of small, steep hills. The path just north of Mushim-sa is a kind of "Spider Alley," full of shaman spiders even in early November. So I have a ton of spider pics just from today's walk. Parts of today's walk felt interminable, but I got through it, and while my feet are a bit achy, they survived the segment. 

I now look forward to moving from southwest Daegu to west Daegu on Wednesday, where I'll experience what I hope will be the culinary high point of this trip: my meal at An Shi Seong, my favorite Korean-style Chinese resto on this trip. I'm looking forward to some crunchy gganpoonggi, i.e., crispy, sweet-spicy chicken poppers with mixed veggies—Korea's answer to General Tso's chicken. Go to my Kevin's Walk 8 blog (link on the sidebar) and write "An Shi Seong" in the blog's search window, find the relevant blog post, and scroll way down to see the deliciousness for yourself.

After Daegu will be Gumi City, and after Gumi City will be two stops in Sangju, marking the beginning of this walk's final phase. I'm beginning to think this schlep might be doable. I'd been fully expecting to die during this trek, but perhaps I can get away with saying Not today to the god of death.

I hope you enjoyed the above images. I have almost 400 more. Once again, I had to curb my shutterbugging to conserve battery power, and it worked. 

And now: laundry, shower, YouTube, sleep. Night.

ADDENDUM: Per the yearly ritual, I've lost an item. This time around, it's a winter hat. So I'll have to pick up another one when I'm at my next stop, which is downtown-ish in nature. In the meantime, I have plenty of other headgear to protect me.

ADDENDUM 2: I spoke too soon. My right big toe has a blister. So far, the skin is intact, and it doesn't really hurt, so I'm leaving it alone for the moment. I've got extra layers of bandages on it; we'll see if that helps.

PHOTO ESSAY

4:27 a.m. and looking back as I leave 천덕면/Cheondeok-myeon ("Heavenly Virtue Town") and Jeokgyo-jang Motel

Big Dipper (Bukdu-chilseong/북두칠성)

It was, strangely, a comfortable darkness. 4:34 a.m.

light pollution

barely lit

plodding along in the dark

a lone bus stop under a light, looking stark

a lot of electricity in that village

light pollution, not the dawn

Here's the dawn.

Boardwalks will remain a feature of this walk.

That splashy symbol that you see on the upper left of the blue sign is the official symbol of the Four Rivers path. As before, this sign shows I'm on both the Four Rivers and the Nakdong River paths, which remain identical at this point, not diverging until I reach Sangju.

Just glancing. I didn't go this way. so many roads not taken.

There are times I wish I had the power to split into multiple Kevins, each iteration of me able to explore a totally different route. But as metaphysics would have it, we must go through life without being able to split and simultaneously explore different routes. Some things will always remain a mystery. In one of my grad-school classes in religious studies, I learned the term "horizoned existence" to describe how ontologically and epistemically limited we are: no matter how much we learn, there will always be mysteries—even if we could split up and branch out.

about to cross the Hwang River

Hwang (often written as Huang in romanized Chinese) probably comes from the character for "yellow" (黃/황/hwang). So maybe this little tributary to the Nakdong is its own little Yellow River. Of course, I remember joking with classmates in elementary school about "yellow rivers" and wetting your pants. I could also be wrong about "yellow": in hanja, several characters are called hwang.

"Danger: construction vehicles coming and going on this road." (The stone says "Cheongdeok Bridge" in hanja, with gyo/橋/교 meaning "bridge." Cheongdeok is explained under the next image.)

The Cheongdeok Bridge (Cheongdeok-gyo/청덕교); cheongdeok/청덕 is from 淸德, pure virtue. 

Come on, push that Jersey barrier!

6:36 a.m.

rocks, aerating

Migok Village (Migok-maeul/미곡마을), Rice-grain Village

heavily corralled for the moment

I saw two "vee"s of geese fly overhead. Here's the second one.

The second one before it disappears. I didn't catch the first one.

a little more breathing room with the fence gone

배수장/baesujang = drainage facility/station

baesumun/배수문: drainage gate

Baesumun and baesujang are usually never far apart.

whittling down that distance to the end

coming up on the dam the signs have been warning about for so long

view, with smashed pumpkins

They sucked his brains out. (I'm thinking of Michael Ironside in Starship Troopers.)

Looks as though it's going to be another nice day.

an unexpected hello

Madame in focus

different spider, seven legs

of course: my obsession

It's so early (7:29 a.m.) that even the pebbles have long shadows.

A tree wards the dam.

See what I mean? That squiggle on the sign is a satellite view of the Nakdong.

Hapcheon-Changnyeong Dam (Hapcheon-changnyeong-bo/합천창녕보)

I could have chosen to walk on the left, where it's sunnier. But I was lazy.

the morning light and the mist

nifty design

Mist II: The Revenge (looking rightward)

looking leftward

No dam is without towers to lift the sluice gates.

This dam has crooked, crone-like fingers.

admin building in the distance, not open at this hour and no convenience store in any case

Above, you can also see how the sun is getting ready to peek out from behind the mountains. I was trying for a sunrise shot, but the moment hadn't quite arrived.

By now, you will have noticed the distinctive sculpture.

what the St. Louis Arch looks like after a night of drunken partying as it lurches and stumbles forward

There it is: the scrote-spider in all of its splendor.

The route sign says to go left, but Naver says to go right.

looking back

We must walk under the thing's crotch. It is the law. It is the ritual. The cosmos must be kept in balance.

Damn—it only now occurs to me that I've never taken a photo looking straight up from directly beneath that monster ball sack.

Bless me, O Scrotum of the Mightiest Arachnid.

the red booth of a cert center; admin building looming in the background

more fields

The sign that greets bikers and drivers who enter the grounds: "Hapcheon-Changnyeong Dam—We welcome your visit."

Sorry, sign. I'm definitely going right.

I think the explanation for this divergence from the official path is that I had plotted my route, not from certification center to certification center, but from motel to motel—from the Jeokgyo-jang to the Hong-C. In a few kilometers, though, my path with be paralleling the official path, then becoming it, so no harm done.

Residence or office? I see a port-a-John out back.

bellflower?

Chinese/Japanese bellflower. Why not Korean?

Google Translate says: "A monument to the filial piety of Han Aji, 12 years old." It says more, but I'm not copy-pasting the rest here. The boy apparently died as a martyr, saving his father's life during a wintertime river crossing.

very old-style Chinese script (but on a newish-looking marker)

This text is about a devoted couple who died crossing the river.

a much older-looking marker

persimmon tree

heart-shaped persimmons

big shade trees, but no shwimteo or benches

marshmallows or giant's teeth?

more garlic

That's either a lot of s'mores or a lot of giants with toothless smiles.

farm equipment—another repeating trope on this walk

and village markers! this one with pottery (Guhak Village)

I know this route.

It's amusing to me how much I remember and don't remember. I travel long routes like this only once a year, but traveling "backward" along this path—i.e., starting in Busan—is something I've done only twice (counting this time), so I'm often slow to recognize where I am since everything is coming to me in reverse order from what I'm used to (see Kevin's Walk 2, 3, 4, and 7, all linked on the sidebar, to see that this route looks like when walked the "proper" way from Incheon to Busan). I now realize I'm on the detour route around the mountain on which is found the fearsome trail that runs by Mushim (No-mind) Temple. This route, basically a farm-vehicle route, is nice and flat, but it takes a bit longer to go around the mountain than over it.

I'm imagining this area stacked high with hay bales. That's probably wrong.

another Guhak Village marker (I wonder if guhak is "nine cranes")

across the way: the shop I always pass when doing this detour (there's a grave across the street)

tortoise-shaped grave marker (I think)

The shop is called Gang San Ae. I've never gone in, and today, I'm too early (8:37 a.m.) for it to be open.

If you can read Chinese/hanja, all will be revealed.

Gang San Ae

Driftwood that looks to be somewhere between a seal pup and an iguana. I was fascinated.

art, pottery, plants along the building's side as I pass

back to obediently following the signs

This glove has been flattened into abstractness.

This glove, by contrast, remains defiant.

Ipomoea or morning glories?

wider shot for context

irrigation channel

farm facilities passed while I follow this detour

I call this enemy... the sun.

They do love their walls and gates.

I am walking this way for once.

Plant that garlic!

many workers, much work

Yes, the detour goes this way.

gravesite above the fields

"Walk your bike with you." (i.e., Get off your bike.)

If I'm not mistaken, the verb used in the red sign above, 끌다/ggeulda, means "to pull" or "to drag." At some points along the path, bikers are enjoined to get off and walk their bikes safely across.

pretty sure this is a man-made canal

unnatural straightness is a major clue

down the farm road toward the end of the detour

So, logically speaking, I've been back on the official path since before that moment, earlier, where I recognized where I was. I was off-piste for at most a couple of kilometers.

gravesite, water, big ol' rocks... and blue, blue sky

pulled off and cast aside

This road gets muddy and slippery during and just after a rain.

cabbages (say it like Craig Ferguson when he's flirting with Gwendolyn Christie)

drainage facility (baesujang/배수장)

shwimteo at the end of the detour

I'm stopping here for a breather, then going up the hill/ramp behind the shwimteo. At the top of the ramp is a sign showing two options: head toward Mushim Temple or head to the detour. Normally, if you were heading toward Busan, this is the sign you'd encounter before having to make the choice. I'm coming from Busan, so...

Setgol shwimteo/셋골쉼터... Three Valleys Rest Area...? I don't know whether that even makes sense.

The word 셋 (set) could mean "three" in pure Korean. And 골/gol is, I think, also pure Korean; it means "valley." Hence "Three Valleys."

bizarre clumps after something mud-like pours and hardens

lantern for the Buddha's birthday (still up despite his b-day being in the spring)

up the ramp after a rest

the start of a "Spider Alley" (see the spider?)

lookin' nicely plump there, ma'am

a different ass

lantern: 부처님 오신날/Bucheo-nim oshin-nal = the day (날/nal) of the Buddha's (부처님/Bucheo-nim, or "honored Buddha") coming (오신/oshin, past-participial-adjective form of 오다/oda, "to come")

I'm trying very hard not to give the literal translation of "the day the Buddha came." Stop thinking that, you cheeky money.

spider and... molted exoskeleton?

The sign that offers you a choice. I missed this sign in 2017 and naively walked up the Mushim-sa way, which was a terrible, terrible hill—terrible in both its modern ("awful") and somewhat older ("terrifying") meanings. It really was a steep, awful climb—maybe the worst—full of angled switchbacks and merciless rises. I haven't done the climb since 2017. Ever since I paid more attention and saw this sign in 2019, thus learning of the detour, I've always taken the longer-but-easier route... as I did today.

국토종주—I'm on the right path.

Spider Alley continues ahead.

a smaller one

Judging by the arrangement of the legs, I think this one might be dead. They don't all survive the cold nights.

another praying mantis mom who met her fate a while ago

cocoon (for a butterfly? a moth?)

different cocoon

primed and ready for action

a gallery of victims

weaving... but not Hugo Weaving

a huge patch of algae

The algae was especially bad this year. I saw it all over. AI says this about algae on the Nakdong:

Algae growth (Harmful Algal Blooms, HABs) in the Nakdong River poses severe hazards, including producing toxins like microcystin that threaten drinking water for millions, causing illness in humans/livestock, creating bad tastes/odors, killing fish, and impacting ecosystem health due to nutrient pollution (eutrophication) from factors like high phosphorus and weir construction. These blooms (often Microcystis) can become aerosolized, posing inhalation risks and affecting neurodegenerative disease rates in South Korea, leading to water advisories and recreational restrictions.

How much of the above is true and how much is AI slop, I have no idea. Use caution. But even I can see, with my unprofessional eye, that algae growth is worse this year, and that it doesn't bode well for the river's local environment.

looks almost like a golf course or Astroturf

Come play with us, Kevin... come play with us...

observation deck (jeonmangdae/전망대)

Yup, that's algae, too.

soup with a dash of litter on top

When you see webs like these, you know the shaman spiders are related to orb weavers.

But some shaman spiderwebs are rather chaotic-looking. Like below.

dead mantis... and this one also looks pregnant

How many legs do you have left, ma'am?

big ass and many victims

These from-the-top views are a bit rarer for me.

Okay, this one is definitely dead. I guess it died while off its web and trying to cross the path.

Occasionally, you'll see an accidental community of shaman spiders.

fleabane daisies...?

six-legger

five-legger that might be dead (you can lose only so many legs)

crunchy leaves, signs of fall

seven-legger

국토종주 in both directions

We're done with this Spider Alley.

Dae-am 2nd Village bus stop (Daeam 2-li/대암2리)

Down I go.

Litter is an ugly reality here, just like in some parts of the States (e.g., the GW Parkway bike trail, close to where I used to live—not filthy, but definitely a good bit of litter). I don't always photograph litter on the trail, but I do pass a lot of it. While I'm not a tree-hugger, I'm old enough to get crotchety about people who have no care for where they live.

bridge up ahead

chalk another one up in the dead-mom list

ahead to Goryeong (near Daegu), left to Dalseong (Daegu)

closer sign: Nakdong River bike route; straight ahead to Goryeong or left along the Nakdong River bike route (to Dalseong Dam).

sign that's farther back: left to Goryeong; right to Changnyeong-Haman Dam (two dams ago)

looking back

a place to stop and rest a few minutes (10:25 a.m.)

We're a long way from this morning's 4:30 a.m. darkness.

slight ramp uphill

When I think of "big hills" along my route, I never consider slight uphills like the one above. I only consider the hills that are long and steep and memorable.

gravesite

looking back, I see a sign for Mushim-sa (Mushim Temple)

old-school home

signs for Mushim-sa, in Korean (blue background) and Chinese (white background)

still on the right (and official) path

some big homes out here

turning left here; going up and into the woods

into the neighborhood

Dae-am Church (Presbyterian)

the road up into the woods

dead, dry bamboo

bit of a hill (but again, not enough to note for future reference)

Dae-am Church from the side (sorry about the trekking-pole grip)

already topping that rise

Thank God I'm not going up that right-hand road. Must be a bitch in the winter.

Mr. Buboes! We meet again!

...and back out to the riverside

A dog is barking somewhere.

another gravesite

This is, I believe, the beginning of a series of minor hills. They're all kind of steep, but they're all also very short. So again, I don't file these away for future reference.

Imagine tobogganing down that.

Lulled into false tranquility by how the path has leveled off, but soon enough...

산불조심/sanbul joshim = literally, "Be careful of mountain fires," but meant as a generic warning re: forest fires.

where there's a catwalk, there's a drainage gate (baesumun/배수문)

a gravesite with several myo

up another little hill

my dwarfish arms (and another rare hat sighting)

The girl up ahead (see her on the left?) walked briskly past me as she chatted away obliviously on her phone. I like how she filled out her pants, though. Nothing wrong with having some meat on your bones.

a bunch of hangari/항아리 (earthenware pots for gochujang or kimchi)

During kimjang season (late fall/very early winter), containers of kimchi are buried in the ground to ferment all winter long. There are so many varieties of kimchi out there that quite a few don't require a winter-long fermentation period. Recipes for kimchi abound. Here's a standard one.

squash leaves and squash flowers

and a squash, cowering

Ssangyong Korean Buffet Restaurant (12:02 p.m.)

I almost gave in to temptation and stopped here to eat. I pass this place every time I come this way, and I've longed to try it, but somehow, I never do. This time as well, I forced myself to move on.

Here's why I moved on. It's a buffet. A buffet would be the death of me during a long walk: I'd stuff myself too full to be able to walk right away without first taking a couple hours to digest my meal. Waste of time, that. And even though a 한식부페/hanshik-bupe (Korean-food buffet) tends to serve only mediocre food that's easy and cheap to prepare in large quantities, as the proverb goes, Hunger is the best sauce. It would have been so delicious just to sit down and slaughter a pile of nice, hot food. By this point, with it being a normal person's lunchtime, I would be very hungry. But as I said above, I forced myself to move on. With the day's walk being a bit more than half over, and with a two-day rest coming up, I knew I could afford to wait and eat late once I got to my destination.

I think these are two kinds of lettuce.

Solar panel much? (Here's the other side of the buffet as I passed.)

Ssangyong (ssangyong/쌍용/雙龍) literally means "Twin Dragons" or "Two Dragons."

a closeup of the sign for the resto—쌍용부페식당/Ssangyong Bupe Shikdang (Ssangyong Buffet Resto)

Flowers pop up everywhere.

a rare bee seen in the wild (there are lots of apiaries), on a gardenia

cosmos

Believe it or not, that's a church. With the unfortunate name of Jeonweon Church (Jeonweon-gyohoe/전원교회), which sounds like Electricity Church. But Google Translate tells me that Jeonweon can also mean "all members." I can see how that might work (전/jeon from 전부/jeonbu [everything], 원/weon from 회원/hoeweon [member]), but I'm very curious as to what hanja are actually used to form the church's name. Further research: Google's AI suggests the hanja are likely 田園敎會, or roughly, a pastoral or countryside church (with 田園 meaning, roughly, "countryside").

Moving on to the "Two Elders Pavilion" (i no-jeong/이노정/二老亭). You'll see the sign in a moment.

wide shot (I'll be following the left path down)

I guess the public entrance is thataway.

a concrete boardwalk

"Illegal occupation forbidden"—so no camping, stealth campers

finally swerving past a bunch of buildings I can't photograph (there are signs) and passing over those small hills

tiny spider = probably a male spider: mate, get eaten... what a life

risking a shot

last year when I passed by, this place was swarming with landscapers, all buzzing away with their equipment

foreground litter, background gravesite

marker for the dead

"Driving-test site: no filming/photographing."

before I follow this curve to the left...

...I have to zoom in on the dead people and the sign, which says, "Guji Presbyterian Church Resurrection Garden." With resurrection, maybe it's for Cylons. Lotsa graves back there.

"I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

wild chrysanthemum

drainage gate (baesumun/배수문)

the ramp to nowhere

1:13 p.m. Nice straightaway.

myo

wide shot for context

another not-quite-woolly-bear

digital zoom of the workers in the field

in context

Glamping... I hate it almost as much as park golf.

Daegu Education Nakdong River Training Center (that's the word order... does it make sense?)

Frankly, I'd reword that as: Daegu Nakdong River Education Training Center.

There were a lot of people out when I passed... almost like a break between classes. November 3 is a Monday.

cosmos and other flowers (and many more to come)

hard to get good pics in the wind

zinnia, with its flowers-within-a-flower look

All the trees have their hands up: We surrender!

looking riverward

more glamping

and yet more glamping

God, when these people "camp," they love to camp in crowds. What the fuck is wrong with them?

There's a center coming up. I've never tried to get inside.

damaged tree

국토종주

neighborhood

I don't know what wood is used to make these images, but they split and decay very easily.

dry for now

2:45 p.m.

And now, I'm fantasizing about blue(berry) marshmallows.

Dodong 2nd Village (Dodong 2-li/도동2리)

There's a famous Confucian academy down the road that's also called Dodong: Dodong-seoweon (도동서원/道東書院; Tao of the East Academy or maybe Eastern Way Academy).

I'm always shaking my head in astonishment at all of the agriculture. Hard to believe how many years it took for me to get out of the big cities to see all of this. This is, I think, what most of Korea is—not the cities, as much as the city folk might fancy themselves the center of the universe.

gloriously shredded

stairs outside, flat roof: Korean style

charmingly pastoral

"Vehicles: no entry."

ladies

Sing to me!

des odeurs champêtres

Bonjour, Madame.

Vous semblez être en bonne forme.

picturesque

Dodong Village (not 1st Village, not 2nd Village—just Village)

fall colors

nestled shwimteo

more of that old-school, cracked concrete

Korea is just outside the Ring of Fire and thus not as susceptible to frequent earthquakes as Japan is, but there are still earthquakes here, felt even as far north as Seoul. You'd think that Korean builders would take those quakes into consideration and build sturdier buildings. People never learn. Just build whatever's cheap and can be sold quickly.

algae, reaching out

big-ass roofing tiles

can't get much more classically Korean than this

rotting or under construction? or both?

persimmon tree

academy up ahead

academy outskirts

main complex (which I've never visited)

If I had the time and energy, I'd stop to visit some of these interesting places. The best I can do is note them on this blog and perhaps, one day, make a list of places to visit before I get too old to do so. South Korea's a tiny country, but it has so many tucked-away sites to visit. I'll never see everything.

Everyone's standing around, nodding importantly.

gorgeous verdure

what appears to be a very strategically planted pine grove (but it works)

This old guy tried, intentionally or unintentionally, to get into all of my shots for several minutes.

shaman spider, undeterred

moving on toward a crucial tunnel

The tunnel marks an important phase in today's walk.

In I go.

out of the tunnel and resting here a few minutes

Last year, by the time I reached this tunnel, I could feel that my foot was torn up, so I relied on ibuprofen to dull the pain. This allowed me to finish the day's walk, reach my motel, look at my foot, and make the command decision to stop and give myself time to heal.

The rain from several days earlier (I'm still talking about last year), coupled with my decision to keep on walking over 10 km in it, had done a real number on my foot. (I've walked in rain many times before, but this was a very bad rain, and it had been a long walk in soaked footwear.) After a month of convalescing, I went right back to where I'd stopped and picked up the path, needing the first part of December to finish the whole trek. I have good memories of how last year's walk ended, but it still felt like a failure to me. I have friends who reassure me that getting back on the path to do the rest of the walk was a victory in itself, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to do the walk right this time, for redemption's sake. So that's what I did this year.

Leaving the tunnel, I now enter the long final phase of this walk as I march into Daegu proper. The Hong-C Motel is in southwestern Daegu, in a nice, little town called Hyeonpoong (part of Daegu municipality). It's a bit like Kingston upon Thames in London: a town unto itself (part of a borough of the same name), but also part of the larger city.

more of that green water

I curve away from the main road.

bike-path straightaway taking me closer to town

shwimteo in the distance

dawg, just chillin' amongst the litter

I'd love to live in a small village like the one I'm passing were it not for these random burns of things that shouldn't be burned, like plastics. I wouldn't want to raise kids in this. 

4:47 p.m., and the sun is saying that it's had about enough for the day.

But I have to continue on.

Boat, grounded. This one is called the Jinu (or by some spellings, the Jinwoo).

no getting away from massively cracked concrete

See the handprint? I photographed this in the spirit of photographing gloves.

handprint again (fingers pointing to 3 o'clock)

closer and closer to town, and my phone's battery is waning despite a recharge earlier during a rest break

I believe I'll be crossing over this bridge.

350 m long, 12 m wide, designed load 43.2 (metric) tons, completed in April of 2019. Fairly new, then.

There's nothing for it but to do it.

nice shot

the moon, making its appearance before the sky has darkened

zoomed back for context

bridge guardian

the schlep into town

but still a few kilometers to go

the evening pink of the setting sun through the atmosphere

Bikes get through; cars can't.

Evening descends.

walkways alongside creeks are common everywhere

15% grade as I go down

greeted by a lovely sight

But that's no sarcastic joke: piles of trash have their own colors and geometries, and while there's the ugly reality that these piles are basically garbage, they're still fascinating to my eye.

soon at the bottom

another lonely glove

It's always the shipping containers that are the worst off, I'm telling you.

If you're one of those enterprising people planning to make your off-grid home out of shipping containers, be sure to apply several thousand coats of some kind of weatherproofing agent to protect your dwelling from the elements. Otherwise, what you see above will be your home's fate. Not pretty.

schlepping into town

again: 천/cheon here is "creek," not "river"

It's been almost 40 km. I'm dead fucking tired.

Too tired even to stare like a pervert at the kiddies.

With my phone's battery about to run out, I failed to photograph a lot of the walk to my motel, but I did manage to catch some of the final uphill push. Look at the next pic:

The walk to the Hong-C Motels entrance involves going off the main street and up a very steep hill (not pictured here), but the hill is relatively short. Just enough to ensure I'm out of breath when I slog into the garage and up to the motel's front office.

panels by the motel's entrance

into the garage and over to the front office

As mentioned previously, at the front desk, I got hit with a W10,000 surcharge for the crime of wanting to stay in my room two days in a row without leaving it. The guy said the "normal" surcharge would have been W20,000, but he was being generous and giving me a discount. Fucker. Wallet-rapist. I wasn't happy, and I determined then and there not to use the Hong-C ever again. There are other motels of similar quality that don't require an uphill walk and probably don't have such a stupid "foreigner tax" surcharge. That said, my room was nice:

standing in the anteroom

the bed area (this is a smaller room than ones I've stayed in before, but I'm okay with that)

the bathroom

With the fading wisps of my consciousness, I quickly uploaded, installed, and used the Yogiyo app, which people use when ordering food. I was too tired to care what I ate, so I shrugged and went full-on Korean bunshik/분식 (roughly, carby street food made with flour—mandu, noodles, fried stuff, etc.; the bun in bunshik ("boon-sheek") comes from a hanja character meaning "flour": 粉食 = bun/분 + shik/식 = flour + food). I ended up getting ddeokbokgi/덕볶이 (rice cakes in spicy sauce with slices of fish paste), some kind of udong/우동 (Jpn. udon, thick noodles in soup), and some very basic gimbap/김밥 (rice rolled in seaweed). All bad for you, but hey: Hunger is the best sauce.