future walks

I'm all sunburned from yesterday's bright, warm, springtime walk, but a little sun won't deter me from further walking. In that spirit, I've been discussing future walks with JW. I want him to get a taste of the rest of the Four Rivers trail, so I've decided that he and I will do the following trail-sampling segments during the April-May period:

1. Saejae path:

Yeonpoong-myeon through Mungyeong City to San Gwa Gang Pension 

괴산군 연풍면 ➝ 문경시 ➝ 산과강 펜션

Distance: 26.4 km

This was the Day 13, Leg 11 segment from 2019 (see here).

2. Nakdong River path:
Sangju Sangpoong Bridge Cert Center to Nakdan Dam Cert Center
상주 상풍교 자전거길 인증센터 ➝ 낙단보 자전거길 인증센터
Distance: approx. 28 km
This was the Day 15, Leg 13 segment in 2019 (see here).

3. Final Day:
Yangsan City to Nakdong River Barrage Cert Center

양산시 ➝ 낙동강 하굿둑 자전거길 인증센터

Distance: 29 km

This was the Day 29, Leg 24 segment in 2019 (see here).

The Saejae segment shown above is fairly representative, I think, and it contains that early 5-kilometer uphill to get the heart pumping. It's not really that serious of a hill, but it's long and steady. In theory, it can be done without stopping. Then you get to the top, where there's a gate called Ihwaryeong ("ee-hwa-ryuhng"), with a beautiful view back down into the valley whose side you just climbed up, after which it's a comfortable, 5-kilometer descent back to regular ground. It's not a bad way to start one's day, really.

I also wanted to complete the Oksu-to-Uijeongbu trek that JW and I had aborted recently; we finished early, that day, because of rain, but I'd like to go back and do the whole thing. However, as we walked and talked things over yesterday, JW revealed that he hadn't really liked that walk: it was too noisy. I sort of agreed with him, but my innate completism demands that I finish the walk on my own and reward myself with some budae-jjigae, which originated in the Uijeongbu area. I do most of my walks without a partner, anyway, so when it comes to walking alone, well, as my Kiwi buddy used to say, it's no skin off my balls.

Once summer arrives, it'll be too hot to walk during the day, so I'll be back to nighttime walking until sometime in September. I'm also going to have to talk with the hospital about my subsequent appointments, which happen about every 110-120 days. If my next appointment is this coming July 21, then the following appointment, 110 days later, will be on Tuesday, November 8 or, if they insist on keeping these appointments on Thursday, then 112 days later on November 10. Originally, I had thought we were going for 100-day intervals, but now, I'm no longer sure. If the appointment after July is 100 days later, that could put me in October, which might clash with my fall walking schedule. Upshot: this coming July, I'll have to negotiate with the docs about what day to come in. Moving the date several weeks forward or backward shouldn't be a huge issue, although I know that, for the purposes of the A1c reading, they normally want at least 90 days between appointments.

Then again, late October might actually be okay: Chuseok is coming way early this year: it's on Saturday, September 10, which means I might start and end my long walk even earlier than usual (the weather will still be pretty hot: September is when Korean summer starts to peter out, and things don't really start to cool down until around the final week of September). 

Of course, I could take advantage of the arrival of fall by walking the trail backward this year, starting southeast in Busan and walking northwest to Incheon. Normally, there's a "temperature paradox" that occurs when I do the walk the normal way: as time goes on, the weather gets cooler through October, but as I go south, the local temperature gets warmer, so overall, I don't experience much of a temperature change. However, if I start in Busan and go north, the weather will cool down, and the progressively more northern latitudes will guarantee even further cooling. 

The only problem is that walking to Incheon means walking my final two or three days mostly through Seoul, and Incheon itself is actually a pretty anticlimactic destination. Normally, when I walk south on the final day on the Four Rivers trail, I experience the urban aspect of Busan only peripherally because the walk is alongside the last part of the Nakdong River, and there's a seven-kilometer stretch of the walk that's tree-lined. When you finally step out beyond the trees, the giant Nakdong River is there to keep you company the rest of the way. Walking through Seoul will mean walking alongside the Han River, granted, but the path is generally way crowded on sunny days, and then you turn left away from the Han to follow the Ara Canal to Incheon. The Ara Canal stretch is nice, too, and it goes on about 15 kilometers, but the very last part of the trail takes you into a nondescript part of town before you end up at the western shore, where you can't even see all the way out to the ocean because there are manmade structures sitting right on the horizon, blocking your view of the open sea. Kind of disappointing. I'd rather end in Busan, where your arrival is heralded by a big, tower-like commemorative statue and other happy-looking structures. Do I want to end my experience by walking to Incheon? I'll have to think about it.