It's now the day after Christmas, around 1:30 a.m. I'm about to hit the hay, so this is just a quick note to announce that I'll be heading out to the Korean east coast later today. I've made a reservation to stay overnight at the Haedanghwa Pension north of the Unification Observatory, which is itself about 22 km north of the county of Goseong—not to be confused with the Goseong that sits just west of Busan, way down south. I'll be taking a bus to Goseong (making sure to specify that I mean the northern one), then taking a cab north from the Goseong bus terminal to the pension, at which point I'll be on my own two feet for the next few days. The schedule looks like this:
12/27: walk to Unification Cert. Center, then to Bukcheon Rail Bridge Cert. Center, then finally to Hanjin Motel; stay overnight
12/28: walk to Bongpo Coastal Cert. Center, then to Cruise Pension; stay overnight
12/29: walk to Yeonggeumjeong Cert. Center, then to Dongho Coastal Cert. Center, then finally to Ashoka Pension; stay overnight
12/30: walk 8.4 km to Yangyang Intercity Bus Terminal; ride back to Seoul
The calendar I've created has two-thirds of my total route down to Busan plotted out. If you read Korean, feel free to check it out. Everything I've written above is marked on the calendar, along with precise addresses and even some phone numbers—which are for my own use, for when I need to call people to make reservations... although I've discovered that many of these pensions use an online-reservation system called Yanolja, which literally means, "Hey! Let's play!" or "Hey! Let's have fun!" I've just downloaded that app and have yet to learn how to use it. The thing most likely to confuse me is the payment mechanism. I might have to hook it up to my bank account somehow.
These reservation apps strike me as being of limited use. During my Four Rivers walks, I often found myself in areas with only a single scraggly yeogwan or pension—the kind of facility not listed in any of these apps, thus requiring me to do my own legwork to arrange a room. I'm actually not a big fan of reserving in advance; I'd rather walk into town unannounced and grab a room that way. We'll see what I discover during this reconnoiter; while I've seen nothing but pensions and minbak along the way, it could be that there are motels out there that take walk-ins. And maybe some of these pensions take walk-ins, too. I'm going to test that theory on Day 2 of this walk.
Righto—off to bed. I'll be sure to upload photos and insights once I'm out by the big, wintry ocean.
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