a day later

Some photos from my Wednesday-evening walk:

staring down the stairs and thinking, This ought to have drained more

compare this with the photo from yesterday

this one, too

and this

and this same from-the-bridge pic

another bridge farther along

this ramp was too tempting not to walk down

...so I did, getting close to the water's edge

moving along the high path again and passing a shwimteo

another angle

stairs-to-water below, with the Lotte World Tower in the distance

moving along the Tan Creek toward the Han River, wondering whether I can get all the way there

looking backward at the Tan Creek

another Lotte Tower shot

slight digital-zoom closeup

Samseong Bridge, one angle

Samseong Bridge, another angle

one of the arenas at Jamshil Jonghap Undongjang (Jamshil Stadium Complex)

As you see by the decorative rings, this stadium is a holdover from the '88 Olympics.

crossing the creek and moving toward the stadium, still hoping to hit the Han

I hate this slogan, mainly because I don't get what it's going for. Me, me, we?

confluence of the Tan Creek and Han River, looking out toward the Han

festivities were ongoing despite low attendance due to rain

Samseong-dong, where the World Trade Tower is

Seoul Festa 2022! You guys lovin' this rain?

tried and failed to reach the Han; turning back now

scooter dude, glowing

the new, ritzy apartment complex, "The H," just down the street from my old building

I walked 153 minutes, so this was a full walk, but it was done on high ground (go ahead and bring out your Obi-wan Kenobi jokes), which meant mixing it up with traffic. I tried to wend my way over to the Han River, but the path I chose terminated in a freeway, with no sidewalks or trails to follow. After last year's east-coast walk, I have no desire to tangle further with traffic, so I turned around and headed back to my place. It didn't rain for about the first 90 minutes, but then the skies opened, and it rained for the rest of the walk. Once again, my "rain jacket" proved to be useless. Apparently, I need to buy a waterproofing spray. I didn't realize that waterproof jackets actually lose their water-repelling properties after a while, so they need periodic re-spraying. The things you learn on YouTube, right?

It was shocking to see that the flooding hadn't died down at all, despite there having been no rain during the daytime for quite a few hours. I may have mentioned before that Yangjae Creek, which is local to me, gets flooded from both ends: the Yangjae is a tributary to the Tan Creek, which is itself a tributary to the Han River, so when the Han gets flooded, that water backs up into the Tan, which in turn backs up into the Yangjae. But on the other end of the Yangjae, to the west, there's the nearby Cheonggye Mountain, whose runoff sloughs into the Yeoui-cheon, a creek that feeds into Yangjae Creek. So with Han River buildup flowing in from the east and Cheonggye Mountain runoff flowing in from the west, the Yangjae Creek really swells up when there's a lot of rain. This seems to happen around twice a year: in the spring, and later during the July/August monsoon. Sucks for us creek-walkers as we're forced to stick with higher ground. No matter: this, too, shall pass. I do have to wonder, though, why nothing more has been done to manage local flooding despite its yearly occurrence. I can draw a sort of parallel with us DC-Metro drivers: every winter, much to the amusement of New Yorkers, we freak out when there's only two inches of snow on the ground. Every year, then, we all collectively lose our shit and forget how to drive. Year on year, no one ever learns. Maybe it's the same human dynamic at work here in Seoul, with people never learning how to manage yearly floods. It's easier just to be lazy and stupid, I guess.

In a comment, Charles pointed out that nine people have been killed by the recent floods, which are the most intense that South Korea has seen in 115 years. I always wonder how people get killed in floods on the assumption that the buildup of water is relatively slow. Of course, if you're caught in a mountainside deluge, there's nothing slow about that, and you're shit out of luck. Maybe that's how most of these deaths happened.

It's August, though, so the monsoon season ought to be over soon, and the water levels will all return to normal. Eventually. We'll need more than a day without rain.