Friday, April 22, 2016

the creek path in pictures

Not too many images to share tonight—just four shots that I took while walking during this evening's 15.5K-step march. I've described the creekside path before, so there's little need to elaborate. Without further ado, then, the pics:


Above is a shot that looks forward down the path I'm going to be walking. Not much to look at, I'm sure you'll agree. The path is fairly straight; there are curves, but they're so gentle as to almost not be there. Bikers are supposed to be in the right lane; pedestrians walk in the left lane, which is actually a two-way path. Painted signs on the path enjoin walkers to walk on the right side, but this is Korea, so that instruction is routinely ignored by people who prefer to almost-collide with each other.

The creek path goes under several bridges—both car bridges and foot bridges. There are also occasional stone bridges set into the creek bed: as long as the water isn't high, you can walk from one side of the creek to the other by using those stones. There are also small, arched foot bridges spanning the creek, so a walker has plenty of opportunities to cross to the other side whenever he or she desires.

The walk is also marked with painted distance markers spaced every hundred meters; where I normally hit the path, the first such marker I see says "1000 m." I now usually walk all the way down until I reach "3300 m," but on Thursday evening, I walked farther—almost to 4000. It occurs to me that, assuming the marks have been placed accurately, I can use them to really test out how trustworthy my pedometer is. So I might be doing some experiments soon.

Below: one of the sets of stairs that I'd mentioned before. The stairs (and there are many such staircases all along the path) allow you to move up from the creekside-level path to a path that's halfway up the slope, or you can climb all the way to the top, to street level, and do your walk while all aloof and above it all. A lot of Korean walkers prefer the halfway-up path because it's for walkers only: no bothersome bikes. (The bikers don't always respect their lanes; sometimes this doesn't bother me, and sometimes it's obnoxious.)


Below, this next shot shows a look backward at the path I wouldn't be taking that evening.


Finally, the last shot shows a large group of dancercising ajummas, happily moving together in loose but playful choreography as the group leader counts out the beat in English.

Click the image to enlarge the ajummas:






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2 comments:

John Mac said...

Looks nice. I always appreciate the relatively level river walks after my day on Namsan. It also appears uncrowded which is especially nice.

Bratfink said...

This just in!

http://mentalfloss.com/article/77265/scientists-say-walking-burns-more-calories-previously-thought