the walking never stops

I'm back from a segment hike with my buddy JW.  Today's walk was the second-to-last piece of the puzzle as JW looks to complete the 120K axis between Incheon and Yangpyeong.  This was a 15K stretch that took us from Gyeyang Station, by the Ara Canal, all the way west to the Ara West Sea Lock (아라서해 갑문).  It was only 13-ish kilometers from Gyeyang Station to the start of the Four Rivers bike path, then another 2 kilometers up the road to the nearest subway stop:  Cheongna International City Station.

Over the years, I've taken so many pictures of this portion of the walk that I wasn't motivated to take many pics today.  Here are the few that I did take:  

A metaphoto of JW taking a photo:

JW strikes a pose at the trail's official starting point:

Full-frontal JW:

My Jeonju bibimbap meal at the rest stop that sits at the beginning of the Four Rivers path.  Two days in a row of bibimbap won't make me tired of the dish:

Next week, JW and I will do the segment from Hanam City to Yangsu Station—the final piece of the puzzle, the last link in the chain.  Meantime, I'm seeing about having a special plaque made for JW to commemorate his achievement.

color me skeptical

Saw this from a commenter at Instapundit:

The question "Where's Hunter?" has been asked and re-asked multiple times over the past week or so.  If the above claims are true, this is huge news, but I have my doubts.  Back in 2016, this sort of anonymous tip was a popular thing to quote, but I lost all trust in these supposed tips when one such entry predicted in late 2016 that Bill Clinton was at death's door and "would not last the year."  This was obviously based on photos of Clinton at the time, which showed a pale, emaciated ex-president who did indeed look kind of sickly.  As they say:  if you're going to lie, lie big.*  I think that's why people keep snapping up these anonymous rumors:  the rumors play to people's wishful thinking and, being completely unverified, have little to nothing to do with reality.  So color me skeptical—radically skeptical—until I get outside confirmation that Hunter Biden is indeed being grilled by Bill Barr et al. and has "flipped," giving all sorts of damning information to the GOP just to spite Daddy.

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*You might say that a prediction isn't a lie:  at best, it's a misguided statement based on erroneous information.  I counter that there's something mendacious about making sure-sounding predictions based on little to no evidence.  Think you can't lie about the future?  How about, "Your loved one is going to be just fine"?  That might be an expression of optimism, or it might be an outright falsehood uttered by a doctor who knows better.

today's lunch

Bibimbap was on the menu as the October Surprise luncheon put out by the cheffy Korean wife of my American coworker (the wife really is a professionally trained chef).  I brought the dried rice and cooked it in the office, and I also cooked the sunny-side-up eggs. 

what JW doesn't know

This weekend, I'll be doing a 20K walk with my friend JW.  We'll be starting at Gyeyang Station, close to Incheon, and walking along the Ara Canal up to the starting point of the Four Rivers bike path.  Once at the starting point, we'll eat lunch at the rest station that sits a half-kilometer away from the certification center, then we'll walk the final two kilometers to the nearest subway station (Cheongra International City Station) and head home.  

The following weekend, we'll head out to Hanam City and do the walk from Hanam to Yangsu Station.  Months ago, JW, his son, and I walked together from Yangsu Station to Yangpyeong City—the final 20K of my crazy 60K walk.

What JW doesn't know is that I plan to give him a bespoke plaque as a Christmas gift, done up to look official and dignified, to celebrate the fact that, once he does the above two segments, he will have completed the 120-kilometer axis from Incheon to Yangpyeong—one of my very favorite segments to walk along the Four Rivers trail.  Who knows—I might also make a tee design for him, and maybe make one for his kids (although I'd have to ask him about routes and distances they've walked:  the kids have walked along paths that I haven't).  We'll see.

back in the world

And here's what your Humble Narrator looks like now, 12.5 kg lighter and a bit weatherbeaten (with his Irish genes providing the freckles that Koreans find so ugly):

It really was a fun and interesting walk.  I'm sad it's over, and I'm sad that I won't be returning to the Four Rivers bike path for a few years, but there are other paths to explore.  When I do finally come back to this path, it'll be like revisiting an old friend, I think.

Meanwhile, enjoy my pale forehead, which spent a month protected by a bandanna, shielded from the unrelenting sun.  My dark hands and pale forearms look just as ridiculous thanks to the toshi (protective sleevelets) I wore during the walk.  The suntan on my hands makes it look as if I'm wearing gloves, but when you look closer, you see that my tanned skin looks dry, cracked, and timeworn.  I'm almost tempted to say that my time exposed to nature left me looking like a Person of the Soil, but that would be insulting to people who actually work with the earth:  my skin is still relatively soft and uncallused, showing that all I did was walk across the country, not toil day after day and year after year, working the land.  My recent effort was nothing compared to those good folks' daily effort.

As much as I enjoyed my time on the trail, I have to say it's good to be back in the warm embrace of civilization.  While your time on the path can teach you martial virtues like stoically delaying gratification until you're at the end of the day's walk, it's also nice to have the benefits of society within easy reach.  The point is not to give in to those temptations too frequently, thus backsliding into corpulence and indolence.

truth in advertising

just how biased are the regular media?

As the Biden scandal continues to unfold, the mainstream media utter not a single word about recent revelations of how deeply in cooperation with China the Bidens have been:

UPDATE:  90% of media political donations to Biden, Sanders, AOC, Democrats: Report

video dump: random election-related thoughts

This video is definitely worth your while:

This one is a reminder not to heed the biased polls: to do so would be to rehash 2016:

video dump: for your entertainment

video dump: movie-related stuff

video dump: Felix Rex (Black Pigeon)

video dump: Tim Pool

video dump: Styx

The Pence/Harris debate postmortem:

Degenerate Hunter Biden's stupidity pays dividends:

Final presidential debate postmortem:


Yet more joy from Hunter Biden, the gift who keeps on giving:

ye gods

I'm back from my walk and back to blogging here at the Hairy Chasms.  Let's celebrate my return to this blog by embedding a tweet from conservative (and therefore out-of-work) actor James Woods, who calls this recent video of Joe Biden speaking "genuinely disturbing":

This is genuinely disturbing. It is mind-boggling. https://t.co/AP1bCrMxx6 via @YouTube

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 27, 2020

Granted, the video's been spliced and edited for the maximum unflattering effect, but even if you correct for the obvious editorial bias, the clip still paints a pitiable picture of a man in mental and physical decline.  Are you sure you wanna vote for Creepy Uncle Joe?  Styx suggests otherwise:

a sneaky post

Technically, I'm out on the trail, and I'm not supposed to blog here until I'm back from my walk to Busan, but I've been quietly collecting a set of GIFs and memes that I'd like to dump now before I forget and before they're no longer fresh. So here goes. 

And the best of them all: