in Yangpyeong

I'm in Yangpyeong, chilling in my usual motel by the South Han River. Tomorrow morning, I'll check out around 8 a.m. and walk over to Yangpyeong Station to await the arrival of my buddy JW. Our plan is to walk about 30 kilometers (possibly 32, but I didn't tell JW that) from Yangpyeong to Yeoju, the next city over. It's a nice, scenic route with one nasty hill at about the 9000-step mark; most of the route is by the river, and we get to pass by two dams: the Ipo Dam and the Yeoju Dam. 

The weather forecast calls for perfect early-spring distance-walking weather: sunny and only barely cool, with almost no chance of rain. I decided not to bring my heavy winter coat along, and I suspect I'll be fine with just a thin windbreaker and a button-down short-sleeve shirt. 

On previous long walks, JW had ended up more tired than hungry, so I don't know whether we'll be eating dinner in Yeoju. Anyway, once we're there, we have the option of taking a bus or a train back to Seoul. 

It's going to be a full day of walking, but assuming we begin at 9 a.m. (JW often tends to be late, so nothing is guaranteed), we should, in theory, end the trek before sundown. In checking out my progress last year, I saw that I'd taken a whopping 10.6 hours to do the route. Because I'll be unencumbered this time, I project I'll be significantly faster. At an intuitive guess, I'd say we'll take about 8 hours if we include a few short rest breaks. That puts us in Yeoju around 5 p.m. We'll be back in Seoul a few hours after that. 

I might or might not take photos. My phone is still unable to upload pics to the blog, so I'm not all that motivated to take pics. Check out the Day 6 images over at Kevin's Walk 4 if you want a refresher on what tomorrow's route looks like.