this weekend: from Yeoju-si to Gangcheon-seom and back

This weekend, I'll be hiking out from Yeoju City to Gangcheon Island and back.  The walk out to the island is about 13 kilometers, so JW and I will be doing a round-trip walk:  we'll take the bus to Yeoju City this coming Sunday morning, walk out to Gangcheon Island (which has a huge, sprawling picnic/camping area), then turn around and walk back.

This is part of the walk I did on Day 7 of last year's hike (see here).  That hike actually went past Gangcheon Island and terminated at Jangsu Pension.  Unfortunately, Jangsu Pension is in the middle of nowhere, which makes it a less-than ideal spot for either stopping outright or making a U-turn.  The pension is 17 km out from Yeoju City, so if JW and I were to walk all the way out to the pension and only then turn around, our total walk would be 34 km.  That's a bit more than I can swallow when I'm not in the middle of a trans-Korea walk, and given how tired JW was, last time, after only 30 kilometers, I'd rather not tempt fate.

Upshot: we're doing the truncated walk from Yeoju to the island and back, then we'll take a nice, cramped bus ride back to Seoul. (There's no social distancing on express buses:  everyone's squeezed together, like it or not, which is yet another reason to view Korea's pandemic policies as confused, irrational, and wildly inconsistent.)

Things are ratcheting up at work:  we've got a May deadline for six(!) textbooks that we're currently working on, so I have to come in to the office on Saturday.  Lovely.  And that's what my weekend will be:  work on Saturday, walk on Sunday.  I might have some pics of the Sunday walk to show you, so stay tuned.