Only four more walking days left.
Tuesday, 11/7: Namji-Hanam, 30K
Wednesday, 11/8: Hanam-Miryang, 19K
Thursday, 11/9: Miryang-Yangsan, 20K
Saturday, 11/10: Yangsan-Busan, 30K
As you may have guessed, Friday will be my final rest day, in Yangsan, before the big push to the end. The current forecast for Saturday is sunny with a high of 17°C (a very pleasant 63°F). The last day of the walk is usually a happy and energetic day for me. After a month of walking at around 3.2-3.5 kph, I often top 4 kph on that day (but with my left big toe the way it is, that might not happen this year). If all goes as planned, I'll be meeting my buddy Neil for dinner that evening at my decadent hotel, the Westin Joseon (or Josun, as they spell it). I'll stay overnight at the Westin and leave for Seoul via KTX on Sunday.
What happens after that? I've got a postmortem to write, and I'll write it from the comfort of my apartment. I've also got a huge photo dump for every day of the trek: hundreds of pictures that, when seen together, will weave a slightly more coherent narrative than the impressionistic pastiche offered by my uploading of only ten pics per day. The pic dump will take a while to accomplish, so I'll have to ask for your patience. It's not just a matter of uploading images: I also enlarge them for viewer convenience, and I add captions plus additional commentary.
After that, I have to decide what to do about next year's walk. My two options right now are (1) walk the Nakdong River Gukto Jongju from Busan to Andong, or (2) walk the Four Rivers path again, but without my big backpack and without camping. If I opt for the latter course next year, I'll need to confirm that a pension I saw near the Sangpoong Bridge (Sangju City) is in fact in operation. The pension sits maybe a kilometer or less before the bridge, which means the next day's walk will actually be longer by about a kilometer. No big deal, I guess: 29K versus 28K. If I opt for the former course, though, I'll need to plot out exactly how I'll be handling the Sangju City portion of the path, which turns straight east toward Andong there. While I've walked both Sangju to Busan and Sangju to Andong, these were two broken, separated segments walked at different times. If I walk the entire Nakdong River Gukto Jongju in one go, then I have to figure out how I'm going to handle motels and such.
In later years, I might consider walking along the west coast, which my boss claims is much quieter than South Korea's east coast. But before I do that, I need to reconnoiter the coast for myself since I've never been to that part of the country before (except for Incheon/Weolmido). Beyond the west coast, there are plenty of other bike trails I can walk—maybe more as long-weekend projects than as month-long projects. We'll see. And when I turn 60, there's the Camino de Santiago to look forward to.
But that's all in the future. Right now, today, I'm still at the Heitz Hotel. In a few hours, I'll visit a pharmacy and grab some supplies, then head over to NeNe Chicken (and a convenience store) to grab my eats for the day. No way I'm leaving Namji without my NeNe. Watch this space for food photos later in the day. Meanwhile, here are pictures of that affectionate cat:
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| not quite a kitty loaf |
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| But this is definitely a people cat. |
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| It's claiming me as its own. |
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| But it does this to everyone, I'm sure. |
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| Sniff deeply, little one. |
UPDATE: achievement unlocked. I scored my NeNe Chicken and have eaten it. Never let anyone tell you that eating something is a spiritually hollow act. For me, this chicken—when I first had it back in 2017—was just the thing to restore my pep near the end of a month of walking. I now associate it with a deep sense of solace and gratification. I'm not sure what parts of the chicken the guy uses, truth be told: some pieces look like tenderloin; others look curled and crunchy like chicken skin; still others look a bit like dark meat. The pieces are smaller than typical tenders (which are usually tenderloins or, occasionally, strips of breast meat), but that just means more breading. The guy gave me an extra bottle of soda—some weird thing called Ice Whale, which didn't taste like much of anything. The owner and I had a pleasant enough conversation, and though he mentioned my weight, he said I looked thinner than I did three years ago. So that was nice.
I can now look forward to a nice walk to Hanam-eup tomorrow. I wasn't able to track down the previous motel I'd stayed at in 2020, so Naver is taking me to a slightly different part of town.
The series of pics below can be considered my clunky version of an unboxing video as I seductively reveal the bird. Enjoy.
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| The hunter returns with his NeNe Chicken. I'm so ready to eat this. |
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| The Ice Whale ended up being not much, but the Pepsi was good. |
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| Hoo, the unboxing is about to begin. |
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| The wedding dress is off the bride! And the smell is awesome. |
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| poultrygasm |
PHOTO ESSAY
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| big pottery and decorative stonework |
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| sit on a tiger, beg with authority |
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| miniature versions of temple guardians; owls being owlish |
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| Jeju-style harubang (stone grandfathers) |
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| stone sundries |
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| a frog for a fountain |
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| Tiger mom licks her cub. |
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| dragon-turtles (see here) |
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| haetae and lion |
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| a row of goofy guardians |
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| Who will jump in first? |
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| carved columns |
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| little Buddhas and big pagodas |
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| Is she taking a shower under the mushroom? Jangseung and Podae-sunim at her feet. |
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| teeny, weeny Buddha |
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| some celestial authority next to some very happy pottery |
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| pottery in focus |
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| Koreans love their disembodied hands. |
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| Note the lack of a "4," the bad-luck number (rhymes with "death" in Chinese). |
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| one view out of my window |
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| another view... looks and feels like a prison courtyard |
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| looking over the courtyard to the city |
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| the lucky bag of NeNe |
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| sodas |
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| NeNe! = Yes, yes! |
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| exposed to the world |
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| I was in poulet heaven. |
I've cycled down the west coast. Parts of it are really lovely. It was about 1,000km from Pyeongtaek to Mokpo. Can also highly recommend the path from Yeonpung to Gunsan
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think you've mentioned cycling down the west coast before. Didn't you say that parts of it were empty enough that finding lodging was difficult?
DeleteI never considered that the west coast would be so much longer than the east coast. 600K or so is about my limit because of time constraints at work. If I were to do Incheon to Gwangju, then, I'd have to do it in two parts over two years, maybe 500K and 500K.
The area beneath byeonsan was a bit bleak. The reason it's so long is because the coast isn't smooth at all. If you follow the coast strictly, you've got lots of bits that jut out here and there thus significantly adding to the distance.
DeleteI haven't examined your PDFs closely, but is there a 국토종주 that goes down the west coast?
DeleteWhen I went down the east coast two years ago, I started off following the official trail, but somewhere along the way, I lost the plot and ended up taking a route that was only 610 km long and not the advertised 720 km. As I theorized at the time, I probably skipped a lot of the finger-shaped mini-peninsulas along the way in favor of a more direct path down to Busan. Were I to do the west coast, there's a good chance that history would repeat itself.
No official bike path, although I wouldn't be surprised if there was a walking path of some kind. I was just trying to stick next to the water, which led me down all manner of gravel paths, along sea walls and even a couple of kms trying to ride along a sandy beach etc. I guess that kind of thing wouldn't bother you too much. You can also add and subtract distance by doing or avoiding the islands that are linked to the west coast (e.g. walking around anmyeondo adds around 120km in and of itself and there are a few other islands walks available.)
DeleteThe chicken doesn't look like much, but I'm sure it tastes delectable. What kind of sauce did it come with?
ReplyDeleteStandard 양념 and honey mustard sauces, plus a bit of salt. Nothing special, but still Oh So Good.
DeleteLooks to have been a fine day of rest and you scored your chicken and had some pussy for company.
ReplyDeleteI only visited the west coast a couple of times but it did seem less dense/more rural than the east coast. Of course, those were only tiny fragments of both sides of the peninsula.
Good luck out there today!