Day 22, Leg 21

A mixed day of no rain, rain, no rain, clouds, sun, and lots of traffic-dodging. Most of today's walk was coastal; part of the walk took me along a freeway, but PTSD from yesterday made me seek an exit off the freeway after I'd been on it for only a few minutes. Is Naver actually concerned for my safety? I think not if it's sending me onto freeways (and that would apply even if I were biking). Stats:

Distance: about 23 or 24 km, with many breaks

Time: 378 minutes (about 3.7 kph)

Steps: 36,651

Calories Burned: 4,994

Calories Consumed: 5,562 (surplus = 568)

As you see, I made up for yesterday's caloric deficit by bingeing today. I was still coming down from my fear-high when lunchtime rolled around yesterday, so I wasn't hungry the rest of the day. Today, though, I woke up hungry and became ravenous over the course of the morning, so I did the walker's equivalent of raiding the fridge when I happened upon some convenience stores along the route.

The route itself was rather temperamental. There were times when I'd have a road shoulder to walk on, or even a dedicated bike path, and other times when there was little to no shoulder, thus forcing me to dodge traffic. The weather added to the moodiness. Today, the forecast pushed the rain back to the afternoon, but the worst rain happened around 11 a.m. I managed to continue taking pictures, though, so you've got 460-some images to get through today. 

I'm officially in Ulsan. Gyeongju was, I guess, just a quickie, probably because I was way out in its margins. Gyeongju is more of an inland city, so all I did was traverse a thin tentacle of it. I believe I'm in the very northern part of Ulsan now; the only major city left for me to cross into is Busan itself, although I see on the map that there's a region called Gijang-gun that sits between me and my ultimate goal. I imagine I'll be through that region in a day. (Ah: I now see that Gijang-gun is labeled as part of Busan.)

As I said before, I'm not really looking forward to the final day of the walk, even if the weather is supposed to be nice. On the final day, I leave the Westin Chosun on the coast and head more or less directly west across town to reach the Nakdong River Estuary. No one's given me any crap about walking without a mask thus far, but I've noticed that the percentage of people who mask up is higher in big cities. Out on the coast, especially in the villages, few people outdoors bother with masks. So I'm once again wondering whether my lack of a mask while outside is going to be a problem. We'll see. I'm betting not: many police vehicles have passed me during this walk, and no one has harassed me about my masklessness. South Korea isn't a police state like Australia... yet. (Videos coming out of Oz these days are frightening.)

I took a lot of breaks while walking today, treating myself to a lazy day before I do another 30-plus-K walk tomorrow. I'll be leaving my current pension, Chorok Eondeok Pension (초록언덕 펜션, or Green Hill Pension), around 4:30 in the morning to get a head start.  With tomorrow done, all the rest of my legs will be in the low 20Ks. Overall, the average length of a leg on this trip has been around 23K. Compare that to the Four Rivers trail, where the average was 26K thanks to some super-lengthy segments. 

The only major complication ahead is weather. Tomorrow will be nice, they say, but the day after and the day after that will be rainy. The final day is supposed to be okay, but that can change. That said, it's still too early in the year for the rain to be truly awful; starting in mid-to-late October, the weather gets markedly colder, and the rain becomes demoralizing. By having started the walk early this year, I avoided that problem completely.

Today's pension was another last-minute change. I had deliberately walked past my original destination, thinking I might find a motel farther down the path. But when I consulted Naver, I didn't see any motels for kilometers, so I settled on my current pension, which is about a kilometer past where I would have originally stopped. It's W80,000 (weekend rate), and I'm sleeping Korean-style, i.e., on the floor, which is fine by me as long as I have a pile of blankets under me, which I do. The ajeossi and ajumma running the place are both very nice, and the place itself is clean. The ajumma gave me a massive chunk of ddeok to eat; after all my bingeing today, I shouldn't have, but I devoured the ddeok, anyway.

So overall, today had some annoyances, but there was far less drama than yesterday. Let's roll on to the photo-essay phase.

PHOTO ESSAY

saying goodbye to Hansol Motel

a dark but nicely paved road

something strange about balloons floating in darkness

some sort of prep going on for a triathlon

one of many new words I learned on this trip is deungdae (등대), which means "lighthouse"

Isn't there some story about a princess who rides a turtle down into the sea to meet a dragon king for something?

megafauna bench

megaflora bench

Eupcheon Port

looks a bit like the shark from "Finding Nemo"

sattvas, rajas, tamas

the first letters of each syllable in Eupcheon-hang, i e., Eupcheon Port

I love all the drowning imagery I see. Hilarious.

Functional art? Eupcheon-hang again.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, this region is Eupcheon-hang.

And again, reinforcing the point.

When you say "whales," do you say the "h" first or the "w" first? I tend to associate "hwales" with a country dialect.

So is this a misspelling of 해맞이, or is it the word for "seahorse"? If you type 해마지 into Google Translate, you get "seahorse," but then again, if you type "seahorse" into Translate, you get 해마, without the 지. Note the sunrise imagery at the top, which leads me to think this is a deliberate, possibly cute, misspelling of 해맞이, which literally means "sun-welcome," but usually translates as "sunrise."

American college students recoil in fear.

The lack of a capital "P" is part of the charm.

myo

I never saw this hole, which looks strong with the dark side of the Force.

Men everywhere rejoice!

It had been so long since I could follow a dedicated, bikes-only path that I had to commemorate the moment.

The sun didn't come out until much later.

Wasn't "Real Steel" a movie with Hugh Jackman?

something unnerving about this

This is saner.

The artist captured the playfulness of dolphins.

At first, I was like, "Cool statue of a mermaid." Then I noticed her knees and began imagining her unevolved leg bones, and she became less attractive.

She looks kind of serious.

some sort of story being told here?

ship in the distance (digital zoom)

go, Granny!

la boum = the party

Ulsan, supposedly 18 km away

turn left... into the sea?

and again—left into the sea?

and once again

finally, some sanity... they really need to work on signage along this route: it's terrible

I believe the Chinese says hae weol sa, or "Sea Moon Temple." What that has to do with pork is beyond my ken.

When I first saw these droopy, mushroom-top roofs, I thought this was a one-off imitation of foreign architecture. Now, I'm not so sure.

up close

The sign is facing the wrong way by 90 degrees.

That's so you!

Mom abandons her pups at the first sign of a stranger. Bad mom.

This is where Naver led me onto a freeway.

looks like a warding gesture

myo

getting off the freeway a few minutes later; the off-freeway path is longer but quieter

Haeparang-gil (Blue Sea Path), partially explained

Position Pension. Heh.
Context matters when you use the word "position." To wit:
"Assume the position... maggot!"
"Assume the position... darling."

The red sign on top says, "Pension Seaside."
The blue signs with white letters say, "Seaside Pension." Word order really is a problem.

I think that's northern Ulsan in the distance.

little context

more context

The city looms closer. There's a crushing sense of inevitability.

colors!

This pigeon was one cool customer. He just stood there on that rock, immobile, the entire time I was slurping down Part One of my breakfast. I guessed he was meditating.

bug-eyed couple in an alcove

a resto

pretty sure this is the coastal northern edge of Ulsan

Wang-saeu, or literally, "king shrimp," is the Korean term for jumbo shrimp.

interesting statues at this café

Is she pregnant? Hard to tell with some women.

Lady Liberty took one look at Korea and turned white.

This was actually a pleasant, well-manicured part of town. 

I've been avoiding photographing all the sashimi places along the coast, but just so you know, the coast is full of such restaurants, with everyone preparing their seafood in pretty much the same way, no one wishing to stand out by doing anything original because, as we all know, originality is the kiss of death.

adult-products store, loud and proud

How can this be "Central Park" when it's on the coast?

shrimp truck... sounds intriguing

fuck Starbucks

I was too early for a scandalous burger.

And would I want a burger from a place that can't spell "quality" or even separate it from the word "high" by using a space? What is "quail-ty," anyway? Is it like royalty, but for birds?

Different font, same misspelling.
Scandalous, indeed.

a whale's dream, 4th floor

bookish

the hole-y rock

I think I took this pic because this was one of several restos that were advertising crabs but displaying fish.

I kept seeing that term, 코스요리 전문점 (koseu-yori jeonmun-jeom), over and over again, so I had to snap a picture. I guess the phrase means something like "specializing in serving courses," which makes me think of French-style eating. I also appreciated that this part of town had so many crab places, but there were no tacky crab sculptures. Are we finally out of the crab-worshiping zone?

Buddha lanterns of the sort you see for the Buddha's birthday (wrong time of year)

distant dolphin sculpture #1

#2

an infinity pool? let's find out

something pool-esque and fountain-ish for sure

If I'm not mistaken, the bottom sign means "Dragon Castle Temple," but I could be very wrong.

another Buddhist temple that doesn't look like a temple... is this a trend in Korean Buddhism?

stare into the man-boobs of madness

I saw a monk get out of a truck while I was on the temple grounds. He had a beard, and he greeted me cheerfully.

What could this place be?

Ah. Bakery and café.

still dodging traffic

The worst is when the plants grow into the road, blinding you even further as to what's coming around that curve.

at least there's flowers

hill

more of those droopy roofs

This cactus pops up in weird places.

A pair of gloves, cast away! And artfully done.

not sure what the writing says

rain clouds rolling in

arfer, arfing

right about now, it's starting to rain

but I'm still shutterbugging

rain lets up

hill

more myo

digital zoom of people under the tarp

madam

logs for growing mushrooms

'nuther granny

When a dog is out of its own territory, it's not aggressive at all.

guilty dawg

I had to use digital zoom and crop this shot because some dumbass stood up there and wouldn't goddamn leave.

when art collides with nature

A sign about my future Camino de Santiago trip with my buddy Michael?

We didn't even know who Moana was until the Disney film. Now, there are cafés named after her. Shameless appropriation of Disney property? You're welcome!

Moana Café

remède is French for "remedy"

I ate lunch here. Lots of families out camping. And it's obvious no one actually knows how to camp. Oh, I'll give everyone credit for knowing how to set up their tents, but beyond that, they have no notion of what surfaces to camp on or anything else camping-related, like how to set and maintain a real fire. Plus, the areas where people camp are overcrowded such that there's nothing real about the camping experience. There are crowded, faux-camping places in America, too, so I'm not saying this problem is unique to Koreans.

Do you dare sit inside the Spiral of Love?

I guess this is a popular spot for vacationers.

Mungday: a new day of the week.

crowded... and I hate people in great numbers

more tents on stony surfaces

I did a double-take when I saw this artwork. At first, I thought it was only a painting, but then I saw it was close to being some kind of three-dimensional bas-relief.

not far from my original destination, but already decided to walk on

The large Chinese characters say hae guk, which you could translate variously as "sea-country" or, more naturally, as "sea realm." The second stone underneath has the place's address, confirming I'm in Ulsan.

I saw this cute, innocent-looking image of a haenyeo (a female diver famous on Jeju island) and thought of how one of those divers screamed angrily at my father in 1986 after he took a picture of her coming out of the water.

According to Naver Dictionary:
만경창파 = boundless expanse of water
만사형통 = tout marche à souhait, tout va bien (For the second phrase, Naver French had a definition; Naver English did not, and Naver Spanish translated the second expression as "prosperidad, " i.e., prosperity)
Did I misread the syllables? Let me know.

look at the dashboard

here, I'll help

The place won a prize for Best Scenery.

a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall

Green Hill, my pension for tonight

rumors of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated