Please find below the ambitious photo essay (with some YouTube Shorts) of the overnight walk that went longer than expected when I went looking for a 24-hour convenience store in Bundang. The walk started at 8:10 p.m. Tuesday night and finished at about 7:25 a.m. today. That's 11 hours and 15 minutes to go maybe 39 or 40 km. But we have to factor in a ton of rest stops, about 70 minutes' worth total, or 1 hour and 10 minutes. That puts my walking time at 10:40 to go 39.5 km, or around 3.8 kph, which sounds about right given how cool the night was. For those who don't know: Before my stroke and my heart attack, I used to walk at a human-standard 5 kph, but those days are now long gone. Getting to a mere 4.0 kph is an achievement these days.
About an hour was devoted to looking around Bundang for a 24-hour convenience store to help me slake my thirst and reenergize me. I'd brought plenty of snacks, but they were all of the dried sort, which didn't help the interior of my mouth. I ended up finding a convenience store (fourth time's a charm), where I bought two Coke Zeros, an Orangina, a green-plum drink (maeshil, 매실), and a bottle of water to replace the one I'd drunk during the 18K walk down. (In truth, I had a second bottle with me, but I'd been saving that one for when I finally planned to take my pills.)
I spent the entire first half of the walk with no desire at all to take those pills (heart, diabetes), and I suspect I could have done the whole 39-ish km without taking the pills at all.
It was a fairly cool night for walking, but not cool enough to keep me from sweating. Early in the walk, it rained big, fat, heavy drops for a few minutes. I checked the weather forecast as the rain was happening to see whether the forecast had changed to reflect reality, but nope—just like an hour before I'd started walking, the forecast was for no rain. This happens sometimes in Korea: A single, finger-shaped storm formation will sweep lightly over a region, providing a few minutes of rain. The formation isn't large enough for the weather service to bother mentioning, so you get rained on, and the rain seems to come from out of the blue (almost literally in this case). So while it was raining, I seriously considered quitting, going back to my place, and mumbling something incoherent on the blog about why I'd given up. But no: In the end, I decided to keep on marching forward, hoping the rain would indeed be temporary. After a few minutes, everything stopped. As annoying as the sudden wetness had been to me, I bet the bikers who zipped by me were a lot unhappier thanks to the temporary slickness caused by the rain (or maybe the slickness is an issue only for us heavier folk).
Let's begin with a one-way look at the route I'd walked. I went almost straight south down from my place in southeast Seoul (Gangnam district) along the Tan-cheon ("Coal Creek" as Charles might say) to the Bundang district in Seongnam City (18K one way, confirmed below), then turned around and headed back.
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| 18K one way = 36K total, plus an hour spent being lost in Bundang (about 4K more) |
I don't think my total distance was quite 40K, so if I say it was "39 or 40K," I can split the difference and say it was about 39.5K.
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| Monday's steps, up to midnight |
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| Tuesday's steps, past midnight |
That's 57,912 steps total. Ignore the listed distances; the pedometer exaggerates. In this case, it exaggerated by about 15%.
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| the scene right outside my building as I begin |
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| the fountain built against my building, which will turn off when summer's done |
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| the access road next to my building, which I never photograph, leading to the water-treatment facility |
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| "Clean water, our precious resource" |
My buddy Charles predicts that Korea is in for a water crisis.
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| approaching the ramp to the footbridge out of my neighborhood |
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| the two signs at both the bottom and top of the ramp |
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| This sign asks you to get off your bike and walk up/down the ramp. Most bikers ignore this. |
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| I think this is saying "No throwing garbage or using open flame." Not sure, though. |
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| I held the camera low for this shot. |
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| Jamshil's Lotte World Tower in the distance. I'll be turning right/south and heading away from the tower. |
The Jamshil district is east of where I live. Seongnam City is almost straight south. If you look back up at that map, you can see that my path was a simple one: follow the creek straight south to the Bundang district in Seongnam, hit Jeongja Station, turn around, and head back north. Just follow the water. Impossible to get lost. Only a moron could manage that.
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| Rainbow lights turned on right as I got to the footbridge. |
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| looking right and south at the freeway traffic as I cross the footbridge |
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| Freeway to the right; the ramp I'll take down to the creek level is on the left. |
Were I to stay on the path, I could in theory turn left later, cross some bridges, and walk to Jamshil. But that wasn't the goal, so I went down to the crick.
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| the ramp down and the gate that comes down when the creek floods in the summertime |
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| Jamshil Lotte World Tower (often just called "World Tower"), lit up at night |
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| A few bikers zipped by. You can see the marks of the first raindrops hitting the ground. |
I managed to reach a large bridge after getting lightly soaked by the sudden rain. The rain stopped only a few minutes later, but I took the opportunity to enjoy my first of several breaks so I could dig into the snacks I'd brought along: dried mango, banana chips, mixed nuts with M&Ms, and beef jerky. I saved my water for later. Thirst generally isn't a major issue when the weather is cool. And I can tolerate a little mouth-dryness for a while. The high desert in the Pacific Northwest, by contrast, is not where you want to avoid drinking.
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| Everything's a bit glossy after that brief rain. I'm about to cross the creek, which will be on my right for a while. |
Most of the traffic was cyclists, but there were a few people on foot, and they were almost all runners and joggers, which made me feel very lazy and incapable. I didn't encounter any walkers until much later on.
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| a look up at one of the many restrooms that line the Tan-cheon |
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| an abandoned rental kickboard/scooter with its taillight still bizarrely on |
In US English, I think a kickboard is usually used for swimming. In Konglish, though, the word 킥보드 ("kik-bo-deu") is the word for what we in the West usually call a scooter.
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| The rainwater is already evaporating. |
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| some of those hustling people I'd mentioned |
I generally don't like taking pictures of people, so when I do, the people are usually far off and/or facing away from me. Taking people pics up close, if you're being polite, requires permission, and I'm not generally inclined to address folks I don't know. Koreans are that way, too. But with foreigners, even if they won't normally greet you, they will rudely stare at you. I need to develop a tee shirt that says, "Staring is rude." I've already seen tee shirts that say, "뭘봐?"—a rude way to demand, "Whatchoo lookin' at?" My own design would be: "응시 = 無 싸가지" ("staring = no class"). Most Koreans who stare rudely will drop their stare if you purposely stare back. Which shows they're aware of how rude they're being, so don't listen to the culturally defensive bullshit about "Oh, they're only staring because they're curious." No, they're not. They're staring because they're being self-consciously belligerent.
Luckily, these days, staring is mostly a problem with the older generation and with very young children who probably don't know any better. People from their teens to their sixties know better than to stare. But there are some younger folks, maybe influenced by parents or grandparents into believing nonsense about foreigners, who will keep up the much older generation's tradition of staring, playing their role as part of the cultural immune system that's constantly trying to wish our presence away. In the EFL world, we hear all the time about the Korean desire for AI robots to take over the teaching of EFL. Drive Whitey out! Yeah, good fucking luck with your AI dreams.
In the meantime, for foreigners, living in Korea means having to restart at square one every single day with a new set of people who don't know you but are willing to judge you. This can be enjoyable at first, but over the years, it becomes a bit of a burden as you realize that you'll never truly fit in. Luckily for us introverts, fitting in is rarely a high priority.
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| staring over at the Jangji-cheon route (another creek) |
I've been along the Jangji-cheon route before. It's lame. Narrow path, lots of traffic noise. Traffic noise is everywhere this close to Seoul, but much of the Tan-cheon route is fairly quiet, especially at this time of night.
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| the bridge spanning the confluence between the Jangji and the Tan |
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| Jangji-cheon, the tributary |
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| looking back at that bridge |
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| Sign warning that wildlife likes to pop out in this area—caution! |
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| crossing the Jangji-cheon |
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| another confluence (same creek) |
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| Seongnam City's border isn't far away |
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| Daegok Bridge |
The word bridge is signified by the suffix -gyo in Korean. Hence Daegok-gyo. Often, large bridges will have the suffix -daegyo, i.e., "big bridge," which will still be translated into English as bridge. I guess there's something awkward, in English, about adding "big" or "great" to the name. The 사대강길 (sa dae gang gil) is literally the Four Great Rivers Path, but it's often translated as just the "The Four Rivers Path." Why the deflation in status?
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| Passing under... and there's a single bench. |
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| Daegok-gyo nameplate |
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| a gross and unusually large spiderweb hanging down |
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| They've been adding more and more of these green faerie lights to this path for years. |
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| looking across the Tan-cheon to the west side |
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The sign says: (blue font) "Information for an accident-free and safe Tan-cheon; (black/red font) Bikes, etc., should use only the bike lanes; people should use only the pedestrian lanes." That this has to be spelled out shows you that there's a problem with rule-ignoring idiots who stray into each other's lanes. Late at night or in the wee hours of the early morning, do what you want when nobody's around; otherwise, show some goddamn consideration, and don't be an obnoxious asshole. |
Not long after my stroke in 2021, I challenged myself by crossing the above footbridge at night. I can no longer remember whether I'd cheated by bringing along my trekking pole for balance, but I do recall that the crossing was slow and stressful.
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| trees and their reflections |
As I've noted before, my phone camera absorbs a lot more light than I can see with my own eyes, so the photos you're seeing are brighter than what I see naturally. For instance, the above photo was taken at 10:01 p.m. on June 9 (Tuesday). While the path itself was well lit, the view across the creek was pretty dark, and I was relying on my camera to give me a brighter image, which it did. In a kilometer or two, I'll be coming up on the air base.
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| more of those green faerie lights |
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| A friend of mine calls these "Vienna sausages." |
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| It's an unnaturally straight shot south. |
I don't know the history of this creek, but my impression is the Tan-cheon might have started off as a natural watercourse, but it got partially straightened out into something almost canal-like over time, especially the part of the creek that runs alongside the unmapped air base. Look again at a map of the creek and tell me that that's natural.
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| You see things at night (like those fenceline lights defining the air base) that you don't see during the day. |
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| "DANGER OF FALLING! Don't lean on or climb on the fence because there's a danger of falling." |
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| more trees and reflection |
The base, which appears on no maps, stretches on for several kilometers. It's a nice but monotonous segment of the walk.
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| coming up on a temptation |
In the above photo, the lights signify a spot where I could in theory turn left, head into town (we've been in Seongnam proper for some time by this point), and take the subway from Taepyeong Station back to my place. When my feet start hurting during long walks (and even the most padded, wide-toe-box shoe isn't going to stop my feet from hurting), I often find myself tempted to stop, to give up, to turn around. After how-many-dozens of walks since 2017, I've given in to that temptation maybe twice, maximum. And despite feeling tempted to give up several times this night, I walked every inch of the route.
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| the relatively new building on base that means I'm close to the base's edge (those aren't stars in the sky) |
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| a currently dry sluice... but I like the rough look of the rocks designed to aerate the water |
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| crossing over the sluice (fall-warning sign on the right... Mama Government is always looking out for you) |
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| a footbridge that I used to take as a shortcut, pre-stroke—first of two such footbridges |
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| the "long cut" that I take these days |
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| a look over at that footbridge (jinggeom-dari) |
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| probably not what Neil Diamond was thinking of when he sang "Love on the Rocks" |
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| almost like some weird moonscape |
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| another fall warning |
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| At this point, I'm crossing over to the west side and continuing south with the creek on my left. |
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| looking north as I cross |
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| I'll be resting soon—second break. More snacks, no drinks. I'm 11 km in. The U-turn point is at 18 km. |
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| the Dunjeon Bridge ("doon-junn," not "dungeon") |
Korea has had an official romanization scheme since the year 2000. In this scheme, a letter "u" represents the "ooh" sound, not "uh." And the "eo" combination is meant to be pronounced between "aw" and "uh," not "ee-oh" as in "Neo." But regular Koreans routinely violate the official romanization, with the letter "u" coming in for particular abuse. One girl might be named Sujin ("soo-jeen") while another might be named Sunhee ("suhn-hee"). See the problem? The famous Korean Admiral Yi Sun-shin's name is pronounced "Ee Soon-sheen," not "Ee Suhn-sheen." The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un misuses two vowels. Properly speaking, his name is pronounced something like "Geem Juhng eun," where "eu" represents a sound close to the French "e" or the French way to say "uh" (euh). If the leader's name had been romanized according to the official ROK way, it would have been Gim Jeong-eun (김정은). But even in South Korea, almost no one writes the surname as "Gim," and "Jong-un/Jong Un" is what we're stuck with.
Generally speaking, romanization schemes cause as many problems as they solve, and the problem with using Roman letters is that different cultures that read Roman letters all have their own ways of pronouncing them.
And that's why I've always hated that one dude's stupid Twitter handle, Kim Jung Number Un. The joke only works for ignorant foreigners who have no idea how the dictator pronounces his own name. So basically, you have to be an uneducated moron to appreciate the "joke." To get a feel for the ignorance I'm talking about, imagine a foreigner mispronouncing the name "Fred" as "Frayed" or "Freed," then creating a joke based on his mispronunciation. You'd find that retarded, right?
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| a line of benches in the dark |
After 11K of walking, I felt I deserved a bit of a respite.
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| sitting on a bench, looking across |
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| introvert heaven: no one else here |
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| nice to have a clearly demarcated pedestrian lane |
The project of creating the above-pictured pedestrian lane took years, but at least it happened in my lifetime. We still get idiots (mostly old men not giving a fuck) who bike along this lane, though, just tooling along obnoxiously and studiously ignoring the angry looks they get from me and others. And yes, to be fair, there are pedestrians who violate the rules in the other direction, blundering cluelessly along the bike lanes. Whether coloring inside the lines is a virtue or a vice depends—at least for me—on perspective and current mood, but very often, I side with the respect-the-rules crowd when it comes to showing consideration in public spaces. Don't be a selfish asshole. Unless you're sure you're alone.
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| lance-leaf Coreopsis |
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| moving on, but dithering a bit |
It's only 11K thus far; the laziness is hitting me hard. But I grudgingly rise and shuffle on.
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| onward |
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| a building that can't be more than a few years old |
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| This path means crossing under plenty of bridges—mostly small ones, but some large ones. |
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| Sasong-gyo. Note the flowers lining the top railing. |
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| Sasong-gyo. |
I don't know which hanja (Sino-Korean characters) make up the name Sasong, but I recall joking with a friend that it sounded like "death-sending" (死送/사송/sasong) to me. The bridge that sends you to your death, or that sends death to you.
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| one of many stands with gym equipment, mainly for old people |
Korea has no Chinese-style tradition of crowds of old people in ranks, doing taiqi in the early morning. With no standardization, Korean seniors are left to figure things out on their own. As a result, you see a lot of familiar-looking bodyweight calisthenics, random arm-flapping, dramatic clapping, weird body rotations, etc. On occasion, you'll even see some vaguely sexual-looking stuff that looks like old men slamming themselves against tree trunks as if they were desperately trying to hump the vegetation. I don't get any of it, but when you're over 70, you do whatever the hell you want. Personally, I'll be lucky to live to 60.
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| lots of light-projection as you get deeper into downtown Seongnam |
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| one of many downtown footbridges that are regular footbridges, not jinggeom-dari |
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| more projections (rotating slides, no less) |
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| a new-ish bleacher area/performance space |
While the city of Seongnam has its ups and downs (the creekside area gives you the artificial impression that the rest of the city is just as awesome), I do like this route, which runs like a driven spear straight into the downtown area, taking you to the Bundang district and entertaining you along the way with its light shows, its well-manicured creekside parks, and its romantic little footbridges. The Tan-cheon quietly flows through it all, making its slow way north to merge with the Han River (Han-gang/한강). Some will find all of this boring and artificial and tame and lame, and I can't blame them for thinking that way, especially if they prefer, say, rough Alaskan trails and free-range predators in the wild. This route is, without a doubt, pretty sedate and Disneyfied. But it's also about my speed, given my limitations and disabilities, so it works for me. And I have to give the city credit for doing what it can to make visiting this part of Seongnam as pleasant an experience as possible. Especially with the preponderance of generally clean, creekside restrooms. I never worry about having an explosive emergency anywhere along this path, especially when I'm downtown.
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| The faerie lights never left us. |
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| A sign warning us that wild neoguri/너구리 (raccoon dogs) live here. |
Again, the "eo" is pronounced somewhere between "aw" and "uh," often depending on context. In the word neoguri, it's closer to "aw," so "naw-gooh-ree," not "nee-oh-gooh-ree." The word can also mean raccoon in the American sense, but locally, it almost always refers to raccoon dogs, which are distinctly different. These animals are solitary or social, and they're always found by watercourses, whether creeks or rivers. Late at night, they emit a creepy-sounding screech. One night when I was out camping by the Nakdong River in 2017, I heard these creepy bastards screeching just outside of my tent, and at the time, I had no idea what sort of animal might make such a noise. In a phone call sometime after, my then-boss guessed neoguri, and I've since come to know he was right. That night, though, I calmed myself by realizing that the screech was a social noise, not a hunting noise: Predators usually aren't noisy when hunting. Too much noise would scare their prey away.
In this photo essay, farther down, I've got some bad, blurry photos of neoguri.
Gnaw Guri. Remember. Not Neo Guri.
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| straight shot |
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| another footbridge I didn't cross |
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| Whenever I see the circular areas, I always think of Shakespeare-in-the-park. |
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| one of many well-lit underground passages to get you up to street level |
There are many steps, many staircases, to get one up from creek level to street level.
There are also some ramps, probably for bikers.
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| pavilions and more exercise equipment |
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| fenced-off basketball courts |
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| the spray-painted sign says, "Restroom: 100 m ahead" |
The word jeon/전 is something of an auto-antonym (a.k.a. contranym or Janus word). It comes from a Chinese character (前) than means "before" or "ahead." But because it can mean "before," it can also mean "behind" in a temporal sense, i.e., it's often used to mean "ago."
100 m 전 = 100 meters ahead
30년 전에 = 30 years ago (behind your present moment, i.e. in the past)
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| one of many landscaped "shelves" to aerate the creek water. |
Because of the various shelves and boulder fields and footbridges (jinggeom-dari) interrupting the creek, there's no way for a kayaker to start in Seongnam and travel straight out to the Han River. There'd have to be a lot of portage (definition 3a).
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| that shelf once again |
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| follow the faerie lights |
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| another, more extreme aeration shelf |
Creek critters need oxygen, too!
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| I turned down the ISO on my phone camera to get the Pungnim (풍림/風林, "wind[-blocking] forest") sign. |
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| goddamn park golf |
If you're new to my walk-blogging and walk blogs (see my sidebar and treat yourself), then you're not aware of my constant kvetching about the rise of park golf in Korea. I think the phenomenon started in Japan, as so many Korean trends do, and it's a hit with Korean seniors. On the bright side, park golf is an easier, tamer version of golf with croquet-like elements (shorter distances, larger balls). And it gets the old people off their asses and involved in social activities outdoors. As Korea's population continues its slow, scary plunge over the cliff into widespread senescence, things like park-golf courses are only going to become even more widespread. But the downside of park golf is how it eats up perfectly good green spaces that might otherwise be used for relaxation, nature-appreciation, quiet contemplation, etc. Riverfront property everywhere along major and minor Korean rivers has been snatched up by developers keen to make money off this current trend, and it makes me both sad and angry. But there's an undeniable social benefit to park golf, which responds to a quality-of-life issue for Korea's ever-growing senior population. But I can't help myself: I resent it every time I walk past these courses, which have uglified what used to be pristine riverside views. Everything is being developed now.
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| another bridge with flowers |
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| a sign with information on the use of the park-golf course (only for Seongnam citizens' use) |
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| a sign about (1) having your ID card to get access, and (2) using the appropriate parking spaces |
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| Whoa—no faerie lights! |
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| The construction in this segment isn't done. |
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| under and through |
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| "Construction in Progress" |
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| Even if you don't read Korean, you get this. |
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| footbridge, but maybe temporary given the concrete pipes undergirding it |
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| more projection |
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| about 2 km to go before I turn around |
By this point, I'd had one swallow of water from one of my water bottles, but I was keen to drink something else as well as chow down on more snacks. The above photo is close to the 16K mark, and I decided that I'd like to dip into the city, find a 24-hour convenience store (it was a bit after midnight), grab some real drinks, and have a sit-down mini-feast.
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| The Park View building's sign is normally lit up at night, but it wasn't last night. |
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| Close to the final approach: That's White Castle Bridge up ahead (in my mind, Burger Bridge). |
White Castle Bridge is the literal translation of the bridge's name: Baekgung-gyo (백궁교, "beck-goong-gyo"). The first time I saw the bridge's name, my thoughts turned to the stoner flick with Harold and Kumar, the story of two bumblers in pursuit of a noble dream.
I walked a few hundred meters more, then went up to street level and dipped into town, using Naver Map to find the nearest 24-hour convenience store. Plenty of stores appeared on the map, all just a few hundred meters from my position, but after trying to find three such stores, I got the sinking feeling that Naver Map was being misleading about whether they were really 24-hour stores: The first three stores I tried to find turned out to be inside labyrinthine apartment complexes and quiescent business complexes that had shut down for the day. In such neighborhoods, where everything goes quiet at night, convenience stores don't generally stay open for nighttime stragglers like me.
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| a path I don't normally walk along, next to an apartment complex on the right |
I ended up wasting about an hour wandering around, chasing phantom convenience stores until I finally followed my instincts, went back to the main road paralleling the creek, and almost immediately found a convenience store less than a block away from the water.
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| Koreans love abstract and quasi-abstract sculpture. |
The store I found was thankfully open. I went in, bought two Coke Zeros, one Orangina, one green-plum drink, and a bottle of water to replace the bottle I'd finally drained. Flush with triumph, I limped out (my feet were hurting a lot by then), found a spot under a bridge, and gingerly pulled out my drinks and my snacks with the slow deliberateness of a homeless person. Those must've been the best drinks I'd ever had, and as energy returned to my body in the form of evil carbs, thoughts of giving up the walk left, and I resolved that I'd see the walk through to the end.
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| On my way to my picnic spot, I passed this memorably quasi-Middle Eastern... thing. |
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| Guys, pick a lane. Is it Parkview or Park View? Your front says one thing; the building's side says another. |
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| the "meh" view from my "picnic" bench |
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| heading back north now, about to pass under White Castle Bridge |
In all, including my wasted time and distance thanks to my fruitless wandering, I probably added close to 4K to my distance total, hence my claim to have walked "almost 40K." I don't have one of those GPS trackers that can give me my exact distance (I don't trust those things anyway), but based on experience and the state of my feet, yeah, I think an extra 4K is likely.
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| I became fascinated by the red crescent moon. |
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| through the Burger Bridge |
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| A notice for users of e-bikes and scooters: Try to stay at or below 20 kph. And use lights at night. |
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| In big, bold letters: PEDESTRIAN LANE. |
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| one of those cutesy picnic-tables-for-two |
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| Those are not stars by the moon. |
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| Playing with my ISO settings again to try to capture the moon better. |
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| that probably temporary, concrete-pipe footbridge again |
My feet were really hurting as I began the long, 18K slog back to my place. I had started walking back a bit after 2:30 a.m. and a 25-minute drink/snack break. I knew that, by the time I got back to my place, it'd be broad daylight, especially with dawn happening a bit before 5 a.m. these days. I began to question what condition my feet would be in. They felt bruised, but I refused to take my shoes and socks off to look. One nagging thought was that my right big toe, with its persistent diabetic wound, was turning gangrenous, which is the only reason why I could feel it through the haze of diabetic neuropathy.
I also began to realize that my shoes, worn for over 1000 km of distance walking over the past two years, were finally dying (I normally replace my shoes once a year; 633 km—the length of the Four Rivers trail—is generally enough to do their treads in). On the list for Santa, then: new walking shoes, preferably with a large toe box.
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| past those projections again |
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| through the construction |
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| I bet drivers will be happy to get their bridge back. |
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| still trying to capture the moon |
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| and failing |
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| Those star-like dots are lens artifacts. |
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| another cutesy two-top |
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| the bump where I usually stop and look south for the Park View apartment's sign, meaning 3.5 km to go |
As I'd mentioned earlier, though, the Park View apartment's sign wasn't lit during the night, which confused my sense of distance. In the above pic, I'm facing north because I'm on my way back to my place; to find Park View, I face south while walking toward Bundang.
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| moon... vegetation... it's all connected |
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| looking left at the Unjung-cheon (I think that's its name—"Oonjoong-chuhn"/운중천) |
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| bridge and flowers |
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| a group, pack, or family of neoguri ("naw-goo-ree") |
The above was probably my best photo of the animals. There were three of them, and they didn't seem particularly afraid of people.
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| Two of them basically ignored me, just hanging out. |
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| This one, a younger one, ran at me several times until I hissed at it, amused. |
I probably outweigh these little things by a factor of twenty, so no, I wasn't worried.
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| That funky building again. |
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| And straight away, a straightaway. |
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| A little JJ Abrams-style lens flare never hurt anyone. Right? |
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| Sitting down to rest after 8K walked. Another 11K to go. |
Note how, in the above shot, the jinggeom-dari and the landscaped stones in the creek bed both serve to help aerate the creek's water.
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| another attempt at shooting the moon |
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| from where I sat |
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| Getting up and getting moving again was difficult. I was starting to gas out. |
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| "Water Resource Corporation"(?) |
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| lightening sky, 4:39 a.m. |
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| I'm reminded of baby teeth. |
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| Wedge. "Biggs, Wedge, let's close it up." |
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| The moon still presides. |
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| This limping guy kicked my slow ass as he passed me. Click to see video of him. |
Walker 1
That guy wouldn't be the first to pass me. A bunch of people came out for their morning walks, morning jogs, and morning cycling.
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| Walking alongside the air base; trees and their reflections; faerie lights return. |
Technically, you're not supposed to point your camera toward the base at all. There are even signs warning you about the illegality of doing so.
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| a burd that didn't flap away |
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| burd in context |
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| where the e-bikes all gather and gossip |
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| no park golf along this stretch (but we'll see some courses in a few km) |
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| a still-empty pool |
Walker 2—another old person kicks my ass.
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| Why people insist on buying chairs of that design baffles me. Haven't they seen the YouTube prank videos? |
Those cheap-ass plastic chairs are among the weakest you can buy. So many YouTube videos show how easy it is to kick the legs out from under them, toppling the poor fuckers sitting in them. But I guess no one ever learns.
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| l'arbre |
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| Here, the water is too rippled for us to see a proper reflection. |
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| those Vienna sausages, now in the morning light (5:33 a.m.) |
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| stairs to mystery |
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| old woman, satisfied that she's already kicked my ass |
Walker 3—sturdy, old battleship of a woman. With perfectly black hair.
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| Top line: Walk right. Bottom line: Long strides. |
As you walk along this path and look down, you'll see occasional instructions about how to walk: quick pace, eyes front, long strides, etc. To encourage you, of course.
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| She's way in the distance now. |
One thing I know about the vigorous old folks, though, is that they may go faster than I do (especially after I've walked 20-some km), but they often have to stop and sit down at some point, which gives me a petty sense of satisfaction whenever I manage to lurch by them while they're on a bench. But some of these old folks prevent me from feeling any satisfaction when they walk far ahead, then turn off the main path and disappear. In such moments, I consider myself to have "lost" them. Oh, well. Better luck next time.
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| one of many runners/joggers |
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| jinggeom-dari in the morning light |
I think that that footbridge has 40-something stones (not counting the ones off to the side).
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| ever forward |
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Maybe this is a border marker: "Seongnam City End Point" on the right side. On the left side, in upside-down Korean, it says, "Seongnam City Starting Point." |
Walker 4—dude with a cane kicks my ass.
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| another wildlife-warning sign (looks like a leaping bobtail donkey) |
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| bridge coming up |
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| a jogger passes me |
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| Seoul outskirts |
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| things only get brighter as the day warms up |
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| 6:32 a.m. |
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| Plains Coreopsis |
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| where we all turn left and cross the crick |
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| I still haven't walked the whole Songpa Loop Trail (21 km), but I've done parts of it. |
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| crossing |
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| Photographing these ducks was a chore. |
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| 10X digital zoom |
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| a different kind of sign warning about wildlife appearing |
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| just a few more km to go |
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| But before I go up these stairs for the final part of the path back to my neighborhood, I must rest. |
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| a dude quietly having a morning smoke as we both look creekward |
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| I'm up the stairs and almost at the top of the berm leading to "my" footbridge. |
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| top o' the berm and straight alongside the freeway |
Walker 5—another old lady kicks my ass.
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| "my" footbridge back to my neighborhood...a bit more than 1K to go |
My feet are killing me. Even though it won't help much (only weight loss can truly help), I need to buy new shoes for these longer walks.
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| the ramp up |
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| another old lady jogs past me (she had a lot of energy) |
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| and finally... the ramp down to my building, way ahead and on the right |
It was a great walk, albeit painful. No serious injuries, though. When I got back to my apartment, I took off my shoes and socks, then removed my toe bandages. No gangrene—just the pain of what felt like some minor bone-bruising. Within a few minutes, I drew up a plastic tub of hot water into which I'd scooped four heaping spoonfuls of sea salt (cheaper and milder than Epsom salt and almost as effective), then soaked my screaming foot for 35 minutes. I redressed the toe wound, uploaded the walk photos, then went to sleep and wasted most of my Wednesday in dreamland. 39.5K in my condition is no joke, but I did it. And if I get a job at a university, it's doubtful that I'll ever do a long, trans-Korea walk ever again, so these occasional long walks will be all that are left to me. An era of my life is about to come to an end, sadly. That said, this was a good walk in almost perfect weather.
