Day 1, Leg 1

First day of the new adventure. It was equal parts tiring and awesome. Naver showed the bike-route distance as 30K, but we can round that down to 29K because I did the last kilometer or two using the walking route (which is always shorter) rather than the biking route. The Naver app always offers you choices, some more orthodox than others.

There was some angina, and there were plenty of energetic old people out kicking my ass on the trail. I almost didn't beat an old woman with a walker. The day turned bright and windy; it remained very cool in the shadows, but otherwise, things warmed up a little as the day progressed. The wind made taking pics of flowers a chore. 

I ended up with some chafing on my left foot, right under my big toe; I think I can do 20K tomorrow, but I'm going to have to watch the irritation and tape it up better. I can't afford broken, ripped, or torn skin, not after only a day of walking.

Perhaps the strangest part of today was seeing no one out on any of the fields of the enormous ecological park—the one that lies alongside the part of the Nakdong River that sits closest to the river's estuary barrage, a dam-like structure with a road running across it. No soccer, no other field sports, and no goddamn park golf. Plenty of bikers, runners, walkers, and joggers, though. 

While I know park golf is a good way to get seniors off their asses and out moving and talking and playing with purpose, I think the game has become an out-of-control blight on Korea's riversides, destroying massive amounts of fallow riverbank just to develop fields for this insane/inane game. Wanna keep the seniors entertained? Take 'em hunting. The mentally coherent ones, anyway.

I had to sit fairly frequently during today's walk, more because of incipient breathlessness than because of angina. But because I left so early to start the trek, I got to Yangsan by 1:30 p.m., way sooner than my 3:00 p.m. ETA. I considered taking an extra day off, for a total of seven rest days and twenty-one walk-calendar days, but I've decided I'll keep going tomorrow morning after a thorough wash, retaping, and rest. I hope that's enough. So—no changes to my itinerary, which you can find on my sidebar. Ask AI for help if you can't read Korean.

I got up at 3:10 a.m. after almost no sleep, dressed and prepped, caught a cab to the trail's starting point, and started the walk at 3:57 a.m. When I arrived in Yangsan at my usual Bliss Motel, a new-to-me male staffer charged me an extra W10,000 as an "early fee," so the room costs W60,000 for a night. This feels like an extortionate "foreigner's tax."

Here's Naver's conceptualization of today's 30K route. Because I was flagging at the end, I shortened it by about 1 km:

Walk stats. 44.6K steps today. With my phone's new system software, I see that the Samsung pedometer now does a better, more accurate distance calculation, and it also has a stingier, arguably more accurate activity-calorie count. Overall, I like these new changes.

The thing told me directly that I'd walked 29.5 km. I think the extra distance comes from in-town walking.

The low calorie consumption even seems to take into account my very slow walking rate and decreased stride length. I generally like these improvements and might even come to trust the pedometer's way of measuring distance.

le léon qui garde le barrage

Sasang-gu's mascot, I guess. Jesus.

where I cross into a lovely, 7K segment of pretty trail

early-morning chiaroscuro

In Korea, they don't have the larger, meatier, more ambitious bracket fungi that we have in the States. A shame.

close to kilometer 13

Tree after tree of bad luck finally gave way to a happy string of 무당거미/mudang geomi (shaman spider, a.k.a. Joro spider—the Japanese term) photos.

low-slung bridges

the Unknown Tenter

the tower that signals it's time to cross over into town

That's a wrap for my first day on the trail. I think this walk is doable, but it's going to be close. Expect more madness tomorrow. 

PHOTO ESSAY

many motels with elevators have key-drop boxes for when you leave

There's no check-out procedure with a typical Korean motel; you just leave your key either in the drop box inside the elevator or at the reception-office window/desk in the lobby, then just walk out.

Adios, K Motel.

I stood and took a blurry pic of a "666 Burger" branch down the street. Suspicious, the motel manager walked out to see why I had stopped. I could have lost my patience and accused her of being unduly suspicious of foreigners, but instead, I smiled and told her I liked taking pics of interesting and unique things. I'm not sure whether she believed me. As a matter of statistics, Koreans commit a larger raw number of crimes in Korea than foreigners do.

Somewhere between the previous photo and the next one, I grabbed a cab and got a ride to my starting point. I wouldn't be stepping into another vehicle for almost three weeks.

top sign: Nakdong River Flood Control Office
center sign: Busan Regional Branch Office (for what?)
bottom sign: Nakdong River Cultural Center, Memorial, and Observation Deck

Where the Nakdong River and Four Rivers (or Trans-Korea) Paths begin. The stone by the arch says, "4 Rivers National Path, Nakdong River Bike Path Starting Point (Estuary Barrage)."

When I'm walking the Four Rivers path from Incheon to Busan, I normally arrive here and see that tall memorial (기념탑/ginyeom-tap; a tap is literally a pagoda) at around 1 or 2 p.m. Right now, it's 3:56 a.m. I'm starting early because I walk so damn slowly now. I also didn't sleep well.

memorial tower again

the park entrance in the early morning

brightest "star" = Jupiter

And thus we begin.

crossing the Nakdong

crossing the estuary barrage (a dam-like structure)

looking right (south, toward the sea)

the towers holding all the chains and gears and motors that control the sluice gates

cascading water

Major Korean rivers are known for their dams, but this—my very first dam of the walk—will be the only dam I encounter for the next few days.

signage and interesting fence/railing design

Guardian lion (not Lion's Club for once); the dark plaque under the lion says "Nakdong River Estuary Barrage" (낙동강하구둑, Nakdong-gang Hagu-duk) in a mixture of Chinese and Korean.

한국 수자원 공사/Hanguk Sujaweon Gongsa = Korea Water Resources Corporation

fa-hunky design

Traveling north in earnest now; the first kilometer gets you across the river from the starting point. I'm on the river's east bank now, and barring a few kinks in the path, I'll be heading almost due north.

Looking northwest across the water; in the daytime, planes landing in the Busan area follow the river on final approach.

We are in Saha-gu. A gu is like a prefecture—a large district of a city. It's not quite as big as a borough, and not quite as small as a ward. Somewhere in between. City addresses usually start off with the city (시/shi), then the [administrative] district (구/gu), then the precinct (동/dong), then possibly the street (길/gil, 로/ro, 대로/daero, etc.). Outside of cities, you might have provinces (도/do), counties (군/gun), towns (읍/eup), townships (면/myeon), and villages (리/li). At the end of all that, there might be a postal code.

river on one side, street on the other

Despite the streets and the traffic, this path is perhaps the nicest way to leave Busan. And I love that the first day's walk is basically just a straight shot north to Yangsan.

A beloved straightaway. There will be many more such photos throughout this whole walk.

very modern-looking shwimteo (rest areas)

click to enlarge and read

We are leaving Saha-gu and entering Sasang-gu.

misuse of the "pro" setting on my camera

on we go

Roughly, "Renewing Sasang and empowering its citizens"—Busan is old, hence periodic renewal.

hardy flowers in the cold

closeup of Ligustrum japonicum(?), or Japanese privet

a sign for agricultural products

Hakjang Bridge #1

the huge pipes that run alongside some of Busan's bridges

long pier in the distance... plus light pollution

We're at about the 5-kilometer mark. It's where I cross over and follow a lovely, tree-lined path for about 7 km. There's traffic on both sides, and it's kind of noisy, but this may be one of my favorite sections of the walk.

a little ramp/hill to get up before continuing on

well lit at 5:32 a.m.

The sign indicates this path is both the Four Rivers path and the Nakdong River path. The two paths are identical up to the city of Sangju, then the Four Rivers path meanders northwest to Seoul and Incheon while the Nakdong River path—my path— veers east at Sangju and heads to the city of Andong.

I like the canopy effect. Some might be nervous, but Korea is generally safe to walk in the dark.

swerving but still heading north

a warning (facing outward, thus backwards to me) about parking or stopping your car or large cargo vehicle all night in an accident-prone area; "crackdown" in force

straight on through to the other side

sunrise as I look right and east

Traffic has been with me for a while now.

Crape Myrtle? Bougainvillea?

Autumn just won't let go. Then again, this is the subtropical southeast.

Hula hoops, used mainly by the old folks who come out in the morning to exercise.

Most Korean cities have tons of apartment complexes.

Crossing an off-ramp and continuing north.

Nakdong Dike Cherry Blossom Path (I didn't see any dikes.)

spider or insect, out of focus

textured tree with interesting fungus

Small, Hyundai-sized bracket fungi? Hard to find large ones in Korea.

tree with knothole or something's lair

a very sexy knothole

crossing another off-ramp

one of many trellised stairs leading down to the street below

Like many bike/walking paths on this trek, my current path is on a long berm, above street level. Traffic is flowing by on both sides of me, but the trees are all along this part of the path. As I said before, it's noisy, but I still enjoy the scenery. Do you expect Busan, a city of 3.4 million, to be silent?

workers, working

Tis the season to be clearing out overgrown foliage. I saw a lot of work like this along almost the whole path, even during the final days of the walk when things were starting to get cold.

the rare, untrellised stairway

Somewhere back a ways, the walking path split from the bike path, which you see off to the left.

bike and foot paths swing together again

One of the quirks of this kind of walk is that, as a walker, you sometimes get a walking path to yourself, and sometimes, you don't. In those cases, I usually do the American thing: when there's no obvious path for walkers, I stay on the left side. Koreans don't seem to have any formal walking etiquette, though, so they'll walk all over the place or actively ignore markings that clearly say "walk on [this side]," and the walkers often don't seem to care whether they're getting in the way of the bikers. The bikers, for their part, are mostly scrupulous about staying in their lanes, but it's not rare to be walking in a walking path when you look up and see a biker, on your path and coming right toward you. Fucking rude. Most bikers will grudgingly swerve out of your way. Some smartasses don't, and they blow by you. I remember one haughty bitch of a teenage girl, a few years back, who distinctly saw me gesturing for her to get off my path and onto the bike path, and she studiously ignored me, rushing by closely. At times like that, I wish I had the Sith power of throat-choking telekinesis. And maybe Force lightning, too. Or at least a nice, sharp sword to swing at her neck as she passes.

Walkers or bikers, rude assholes abound.

approaching the 13K marker

Things are getting more concrete-y.

I've walked 13K by this point. Not quite halfway.

not exactly claustrophobic, but the ambiance reminds me a bit of the Death Star trench

And this stretch is where all the shaman spiders are! I was happy to see my ladies.

—and their fat, juicy abdomens.

The color scheme on these relatives of orb weavers is wild.

Differently angled webs ensure I always get photos from different angles.

Some of these spiders are smaller and sleeker.

A six legger! With tales to tell, I'm sure.

same sleek body, but eight legs

coming up on that funky footbridge (the yellow sign cautions that this is a flood area)

scattered blossoms

Korean Abelia(?)

We'll be walking under the funky footbridge, which is only a couple years old.

The honeycombed structure reminds me of molecules.

There are a lot of willow-like trees in Korea, but they aren't willows.

walking over a tributary

I can't stop staring at the footbridge. Will have to visit again someday and walk that thang.

About here is where we transition to a new phase in the walk.

Soon, we'll reach a point where the path swerves left, and we walk a substantial portion by the river but away from traffic.

Still... can't... look... away.

"Parking lot temporarily closed in the event of a typhoon (heavy rains)."

mallards... like Ducky on NCIS

approaching the leftward swerve

a guide to local fish and other river/riverside life

We get river crabs in Seoul along the Han River and other watercourses.

And here we go, now swerving left:

away from noisy traffic and into the parkland

a strangely empty 파크골프장/park-golf course (or some kind of sports field)

Have I mentioned how much I despise park golf? It started taking over the riverside territories only a couple of years after I began these trans-Korea walks.

packed-earth/dirt path for us walkers; paved luxury for the bikers (on the right)

More park golf; more apartment complexes. This is Busan, and it'll be a while before I leave it.

Where Don King gets his hair. The sign says, "Directly ahead, watch your feet."

It's not just the hills that have eyes. Something feels strangely Muppet-y.

As snide as I'm being, though, I really do enjoy this kilometers-long park.

a boardwalk off to the side, going over a modest marais (marsh, bayou)

"Hello, there," said Kenobi.

Note the differently shaped abdomens. Intra-species variations.

Distant bridges that I will not be crossing, but at least the sky got all purty.

This feels almost European. Like a low-rent Versailles.

with bike paths

funky apartments in the distance

a fall-hazard sign (be careful leaning on railings, etc.) featuring Danger Guy, my favorite sign icon

I'm always impressed by large-scale human engineering.

Admiral! There be 무당거미 here!

another bridge shot

"Watch out for bikes," says the sign. "Check left and right!"

Same sign, up close.

joggers, with their superior hearts, always putting me to shame

10:09 a.m.; the air has warmed up

I remember when this boardwalk was still being built.

tributary

Apartments peek through.

the two paths, walking and biking

I prefer to stay on the bike path in situations like this. The left-side footpath is often used by barefoot walkers.

swerving left, like Syreeta and Clapton ("I'm going left... till you lead me to the right...")

blue sign: Hwamyeong Ecological Park
black sign: (first three) observation deck, Hwamyeong Forest, Hwamyeong Exercise Area; (second three) Entry(?) Plaza, Central Plaza, Ferry Deck; (third set of three) Watersports Area, Tennis Court, Ecological Wetland
trivia: "Hwamyeong" could refer to a flower's (hwa) brilliance (myeong). Or not.

Get used to seeing 국토종주/Gukto Jongju all along this entire path, through November 15.

The path continues.

off-ramp for cars

Finally leaving the city; things will get quieter from here.

낙동강대교/Nakdong-gang Daegyo (Nakdong River Bridge), coming up

The upcoming bridge, 낙동강대교/Nakdong-gang Daegyo, or the Nakdong River Bridge, is the first bridge I hit when I'm walking south to Busan from Incheon along the Four Rivers trail on the final day of that walk. When I pass under the bridge, I normally think to myself, I've officially arrived in Busan, even if that's not technically true. (I'm not sure where the actual border is, frankly, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out. UPDATE: I just checked, and the bridge sits just about right on the municipal border, so my intuition, if you can call it that, seems to be correct.)

old people, still passing me

From the bridge, it's around 5 km to my destination. I've come a long way.

I prefer to walk on bike paths because these dirt trails always give me pebbles in my shoes.

Oh, well. There's nothing for it.

a glance slightly backward

mystery tunnel

So close, yet so far away.

Turned out to be a beautiful day—the first of many on the trail.

goldenrod from a distance

goldenrod, zoomed in

the big ol' rock

le bambou

fallen bamboo

fixated on fallen bamboo

unhealthily fixated on fallen bamboo

rings of power

wider shot

It was getting a bit warm by now.

closer to the bridge

driftwood

I think this is my first shadow pic. One of many.

The bridge looms ever higher.

So, we've passed out of Busan, and we're now in Yangsan.

mysterious camper

I hope he's enjoying himself. Possibly a fisherman, but I don't see any rods.

Gettin' a little too enthusiastic with those shadows there, boy.

yet another straightaway

Little mystery bridges and stairs set off my imagination. I see sprites and elves and pixies.

or Arwen and Aragorn

I'd forgotten that I had taken so many shadow pics on the first day. Sheesh.

The first of many mantis travel companions. They tend to be earth-brown or acid-green. And they're all pregnant.

Cosmos. As I say every year, they remind me of Mom. They were her favorite flowers.

Hey, Mom.

Hey, farmer's ass.

Hey, goats. Show me no goatse.

Getting closer to Yangsan proper and the return of civilization. And I've barely left Busan.

another bridge with big pipes alongside it

squash flower

a small squash (no, I didn't steal it)

People use these in salads, right?

I got a bit turned around and discovered there was no path on the bridge's right side. I doubled back to here.

up the bridge

and into town

getting lapped by someone who breezed right past my tired self

I'll be taking the right fork as well.

I don't know how this works. I'm heading right to Yangsan, but the sign says Yangsan is left and Miryang is right. (Technically, we've been in Yangsan for a while. Yangsan's Mulgeum station, a full-on train station, is up ahead.) Bizarrely enough, I will indeed be heading toward Miryang soon. But not today.

Nevertheless, I know the way.

Coreopsis

This isn't a bad way to end the day's walk.

Guess I didn't note the name of this bridge.

Depending on the size of the bridge, there's a lot of under-the-bridge culture in Korea: food trucks, bike-repair shops, simple benches and stage-like areas, party/dining/festival spaces, bike racks, and shelter for construction equipment.

under and through we go

Last few kilometers. Final approach. Walking with cars now.

Oh, no! Chem trails!

Pretty sure those're deer. Asshole deer leaving tracks in wet concrete.

Assholes.

To the left: another barefoot track that is best when wet and muddy.

Tired of the traffic, I temporarily move off the road. But the ground here is pitted and uneven.

Hwangsan Park, as it says in English.

some kind of festivities

That tower marks the spot where I cross over the train station's rail lines and end up in downtown Yangsan.

By this point, my phone's battery power is getting low, and my power pack, which I've already used, hasn't provided much of a boost. Over the course of this walk, I'll discover that the power pack can never give me more than 50% power. Back when I'd just bought it, the pack could charge my phone to 100% several times before it needed to be recharged. Power packs age fast. Cold doesn't help.

flowery pavilions and tunnels of love

An artist plies his trade.

Signs for a Yangsan Chrysanthemum (국화, gukhwa) Festival. That explains the tents.

Go to the tower, climb the stairs, and cross the bridge over the rail lines to get into town.

a wider shot

up I go

They love their suspension bridges here.

across... so close now

A first peek into downtown Yangsan. It's a nice little town.

My usual motel isn't far from here.

Follow the road that curves to the right. You can see a gray building and, barely visible, a red letter "B." Motel Bliss.

Just a few hundred meters to go so I can put an end to this tiring first day. I really should have trained more before I started this walk. Yeesh.

In my motel room. And despite the name "Bliss Hotel" or "Hotel Bliss," this is a motel for sure.

listo para empezar

I'm in the K Motel in Busan (decent, away from the main street by a block or two, and W50,000 a night, or currently about $35 USD), barely 3 km from my starting point. I'll grab a taxi in the morning and go over there; the route I'll be walking is 29K already, so walking 3K from my motel to the start, then doubling back to redo part of the route I'd just walked would add an extra 4K to that, and tomorrow is going to be about seeing whether I even have it in me to walk 29K. In other words, I don't want to push things.

Final prep in Seoul was the usual mad rush, but I got it all done, so I ought to have a nice apartment to return to. Garbage is thrown out; the toilet valve is shut off; things are about as neat and tidy as they're going to get in my cramped, little space. Good thing I don't have much in the way of possessions. I said goodbye to my place, dropped off the food waste in its yellow bag, then hit the subway with plenty of time to spare to catch my 1:50 bus from Seoul's Express Bus Terminal. Figuring out whether my bus to Busan was in Spot 1 or 2 was as easy as asking an officious-looking guy there. Spot 2 it was. I was over 40 minutes early, so the bus that was in Spot 2 wasn't mine. Your bus ticket provides all sorts of clues to help you figure out which one your bus is; one important clue is to look at the bus company's name (there are many), which in my case was Dongyang ("East/Eastern"). This company name will also be written on the bus itself. So I stood and waited for a Dongyang bus to appear. All the chairs were inside, so standing was the only option. 

In other news: Spring (the tee company) did finally get back to me about my 2025 walk tee shirt, which I'd ordered in late September. It should have arrived by October 10, but there'd been nada. I waited until the 12th, then emailed Spring. Customer service took over a week to get back to me, just to say they'd gotten my emails (fucking auto-reply). Almost another week went by before a human told me that they'd been taken over by another company, hence all the slowness and confusion. I canceled the order, but I will likely try to order a new shirt after the walk. For this walk, I'm wearing an old, 2023 walk shirt that shows the Four Rivers path.

And the shirt attracted attention, as often happens. It may be my best design ever. Two 20ish Korean guys came up to me; one of them spoke very good American English while the other one hung back and, when he did speak, demonstrated that he was several levels of proficiency below his friend. They asked about the tee shirt, and I gave them a brief history of the routes I've walked, and even blabbered about how I'd like to do the Four Rivers again for a fifth time next year (which, frankly, may not be possible). As often happens, the conversation bled over from English to Korean once they realized I could speak the local language. The guys seemed friendly enough, and they had enough nunchi (social perception) to know when to end the conversation before wearing out their welcome. Some people just blabber on and on obliviously, unaware of their imposition.

Also while I was waiting, a not-so-good-looking French family (no father) came to the platform, all big butts, frizzy hair, muffin tops and jowls, and I listened to them talk without letting them know I understood them. We all ended up riding the same bus together to Busan. I was tempted to ask whether they lived in Seoul and were visiting Busan, or vice versa, or if they were visiting Korea. I doubt that last option: they seemed to be familiar with the Korean express-bus system. 

As usual, the four-hour ride south was murder on my own fat ass— not because of the fat but because of where the fat wasn't, e.g., my coccygeal region, a.k.a. the butt bone. The French family was mostly quiet the whole time; the mom muttered "Finally arrived!" when we pulled into the Busan Central Bus Terminal. 

I had plotted the route to the K Motel a few days before, so I knew to hop on the Orange Line (Line 1) and go an hour from Nopo Station to Hadan Station. Up several flights of steps (agh, my heart), and down an alley 200 meters to my motel. Despite its hidden, disreputable-seeming location, the K Motel was right across the alley from, of all things, a Hound Hotel, a very nice chain that I'd stayed at a few years earlier at the end of a different walk. I was surprised to see such a nice hotel in such a seedy location; maybe the hotel had been established here long before the neighborhood had become saturated with nightclubs, karaoke rooms, and streets littered with trading-card-sized ads for "Thai massage" (heh heh).

So here I am. I'll finish this entry up before 9:30 p.m. and be in bed by 10 so I can get up at 3:10 a.m. to begin my journey along the Nakdong River. What follows are all the photos from today's trip south. Don't get spoiled: today is only Day Zero of the walk: from Day 1 to Day 20, I'll be uploading only ten images per day, with the rest being uploaded once I'm back in Seoul. 

saggy walk stats, about to become muscular for three weeks

Danger Guy!

red bus = not my bus

The previous bus occupying Space 2 has shipped out.

Space 2 for Busan and west Busan

Cue all the zombie-movie jokes. 

pre-launch

sunset view from the bus

yet another word for "waiting room": 대합실

Hadan Station, Exit 3, where I popped out

not, as it turns out, the door to the motel's lobby

keto dinner—chicken and water

interior shot; you know it's a love motel with all the mirrors

another shot of my motel's interior 

a peek at the bathroom; slippers are a Korean standard for wet floors

Righto—so I'll now retape a toe and hit the hay. Night. 

ADDENDUM: Uh-oh. I just realized I'm wearing the wrong walking shoes. 

Well, I've worn Skechers on long walks before. Just pray for the condition of my toes.

conversation-starting tee design

how this is going to work

If you're new to these walk blogs, then this post is for you. If you're a veteran, you can ignore this post. Here's the drill for the newbies:

1. During the walk, I will blog every day.
2. Blog posts will appear in the late afternoon, evening, or night, Seoul time. I try to get to sleep my 10 p.m., so posts shouldn't appear any later than that, but I do often fail for various reasons, so late posts are possible.
3. During the walk, I will be taking hundreds of photos per day, but I will slap up only ten per day.
4. After the walk, once I'm back in Seoul, several things will happen: (a) I will write a lengthy postmortem post evaluating the trip, (b) I will slap up the rest of the photos, (c) I will add captions to almost all of them, (d) I will edit my blog posts (typos while traveling are inevitable), and (e) I will add commentary. These things all take time, so don't expect the blog to be finalized until sometime in December, or maybe even January. I know a lot of people lose interest once I finish the hike, but seeing the rest of the photos and the added commentary can be enriching. You might end up documenting your own long walk!

This formula seems to have worked over the past few years. Thank you for following, and I look forward to your commentary along the way. Comments have saved my life in the past.

good to go

 

Since I can't use a transportation app to get tickets (I always have bad luck with Korean apps, which keep locking up on me), I went old-school and simply visited the Express Bus Terminal where I found a 무인/mu-in (automated, lit. "no person") kiosk and got my bus ticket for Busan for this Sunday the 26th, departing at 1:50 p.m. Seat 21 on the bus isn't next to any other seats, which is why I picked it (many express buses have rows of seats where two seats are next to each other, then there's an aisle, then there's a lone window seat). I love how the ticket says the bus could be at 승차홈/seungcha-home (platform) Number 1 or 2. So I'd better keep my eyes open and ask the driver if I'm not sure which bus to get on. Upshot: arrive early.

As Zero Hour draws near, there's less and less for me to do. My backpack is mostly prepped. I got a haircut today; I requested a fairly short cut as I always do before long walks, and I'll be letting the hair and my beard go wild while I amble. I've got my express-bus ticket to head down south. I have few chores left to do (laundry, light cleaning), and few clothes to wash (I never carry much in the way of clothes anyway). I've made the possibly fateful decision not to buy new walking shoes this time around: my shoes from last year are still mostly good if somewhat worn. Normally, I buy new shoes every year if I'm doing something like the Four Rivers route: after 633 km and a million steps (thank you, pedometer, for your hard work), shoes tend to be worn down. But since last year and this year's walks are both relatively short (I have a 20-day walk calendar with six resting days built in, i.e., I'll be walking for only 14 days), I think I can get by with the same pair of shoes. It's a gamble, but hey, life is a gamble. Just stepping outside of your place is a gamble. Cardiac problems? Possible shoe problems? Maybe I should just stay home and be safe. Yeah, fuck that. And miss all that heavenly glory?

What do we say to the god of death? "Not today."

map comparison: learning via tee designs

Below are two of my tee-shirt designs showing routes that have overlapping parts. First is the Four Rivers path, which stretches from Incheon (인천) in the northwest to Busan (부산) in the southeast while passing through the city of Sangju (상주). See how the path is green-colored from Sangju to Busan? That's because that entire portion follows the Nakdong River. It's a lovely section of the Four Rivers path. The second tee design shows the Nakdong River path, which I'm walking from Busan through Sangju and east from Sangju to Andong (안동). 

Notice that, for both maps, the route from Sangju to Busan, or from Busan to Sangju, is identical. This year, since I'm doing the shorter route again (officially 385 km; the Four Rivers is officially 633 km), I'll break east at Sangju and head straight to Andong, which is close to 90 km away from Sangju. As I go north, morning temps might get colder, but they won't be quite freezing. I'll be bringing along a few jacket layers and those nifty chemical hand-warmers this time, along with various hats to protect me from the sun and/or the cold, but I suspect I'm not going to need that much protection even toward the end of the walk in mid-November. Daytime temps in November really shouldn't be that bad as the day goes on, so this won't be like walking in frigid December last year, after a month of convalescing (graphic reminder of last year's injury—scroll down).

Anyway, back to tee shirts. First, the Four Rivers route:

I've done this route four times: 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2023. 2021 = east coast; 2022 = Jeju and Sangju-Andong. Trivia for those who don't read Korean: if you start in the northwest at Incheon, the city names along the Four Rivers path are as follows: Incheon, Seoul, Yangpyeong, Chungju, Sangju, Daegu, Yangsan, Busan.

Next, the Nakdong River route, which I did last year but am redoing this year:

I did Sangju-Andong in 2022, then all of the Nakdong path last year, but in two parts.

The Nakdong is a gorgeous river—wide, old, and stately like the Potomac where I'm from. The path also has a few nasty hills that I'm going to have to take very slowly this year so as not to blow my heart up. We'll see how that goes. Walking with heart failure, after a heart attack, and with possible new blockages is no picnic. But I think that, if I take things slowly, I'll be okay. I just have to keep my ego in check. I can't go rucking with 75 pounds in my pack like Jocko Willink.