Day 15, Leg 10

I'm at the Bonghwang Motel, just down the street from the Havana, where that unpleasant woman works. Only W40,000 a night at Bonghwang. The fairly laid-back dude who manages the place was outside sweeping when I lumbered up: he spoke with a heavy southern accent but was very nice. He showed me a room with a bed, then decided the room would be too cold since it lacked an ondol (traditional floor heating), so he showed me to a bedless room (Korean-style, sleep on the floor), then he took me up one floor and showed me to another bedless room before letting me go. 

Naver once again jiggered the distances, claiming that today's walk was not 23K, but only 19K, as you see below. I did walk a few extra kilometers, though, because I'd gotten to my destination ridiculously early—before 11 a.m. So I went to a pharmacy to buy some more waterproof "aqua" bandages (it was a quiet pharmacy, and the older lady running the place was friendly and chatty), then I resupplied myself at a local convenience store and, since it was after 11 a.m. by that point, I went to have lunch at my favorite local Chinese place... only to discover it had been bulldozed to the ground. 

Luckily or unluckily, there was another Chinese place a couple lots down, so I went there. They've got good fried rice with lots of wok hey, but their jjajang-myeon somehow managed to be flavorless. I normally love jjajang-myeon, but it was as if I'd paid W7000 for a bowl of fog. I missed the other, now-defunct restaurant. 

After lunch, I still had too much time on my hands, so I went exploring to see what my other motel options might be. And that's how I stumbled upon Bonghwang, a "biketel" catering to cross-country bikers going south to Busan or north to Incheon. I knew better than to try the motel before 2 p.m., though, and since I still had almost two hours, I decided to keep walking, both to kill time and to digest my carby lunch. 

So I walked a slow loop that look me across the Nakdan Dam, taking pictures as I went. I paused before this dam's hydroelectric-power plant and snapped a few shots. This apparently prompted the young lady working in one of the dam's outbuilding offices to pop out without a coat and ask me whether she could help me by taking some shots of me. I politely declined while noticing she was kind of cute, but she was also way too young for me. I asked her whether she was cold, standing out there in tight pants and a figure-hugging sweater, but she said she was okay. We talked about my walk project; I explained about starting in October, getting injured, then restarting at the end of November. I told her I'd been by this way several times and was a little bit familiar with the region. I asked her again whether she was cold. She again said she was okay; I joked that she must be from New York. She laughed and told me about a temple that was nearby; it was called Ma-ae. Since I don't know the hanja for Ma-ae, I jokingly guessed it meant "devil love (마애/魔愛)," i.e., (my) love of the devil, or maybe the devil's love (of me). I didn't give this thought voice, though; it would've been a lame joke, and the poor girl was freezing. Anyway, I thanked the young lady for her explanation and let her retreat into her warm office while I went in search of Devil Love Temple. 

It turned out to be right next door to the dam, but even though the lady had said the temple was centuries old, a lot about it simply didn't look right to me. The main dharma hall's color scheme, for example, was varying shades of brown from the unpainted(?) brown wood. Korean Buddhist temples are usually red-brown with almost-pastel colors adorning them: blue-green, yellow, white, etc. There was none of that—just brown. Sure, there are temples that are exceptions (I saw quite a few on Jeju Island), but as a rule, most Korean temples aren't brown. The temple grounds also had one modern building, which only heightened the sense of incongruity and wrongness. I didn't see any monks or nuns bustling about, either, but the modern building's parking lot was full of cars, so somebody was home. Probably laypeople.

I regretted not taking a picture of the young lady. I'm already starting to forget what she looked like. Not that I would've started anything with her; as I said, she was too young. 

Last night, before I went to sleep, I started compulsively picking at a callus on my right big toe. This callus had nothing to do with my injury, nor with my diabetic ulcer; it was just a random thing. Nevertheless, it annoyed the hell out of me, so as is my wont, I started picking at it. My brain was screaming at me to stop because these compulsive-picking sessions never end well. Just clip off the callus! yelled my brain. A perfectly rational thought that most reasonable people would heed. I ignored my brain's entreaties, though, and eventually paid the price: with a satisfying rip, a chunk of callus came off my toe, followed by big, fat droplets of dark blood. Fuck, another bleeder. And I had no one but myself to blame. As usually happens in such cases, I had once again ripped off too much skin. 

I hopped across the floor of my room at Libertar Pension, leaving heavy droplets of blood to mark my path. I grabbed some wet wipes, cleaned the floor, and hopped back to the couch to minister to my toe, stanching the bleed with a combination of "aqua" bandages and thick-gauze bandages (so you now see why I needed to buy more waterproof bandages today). Several layers of bandages and tape were enough to stop any further leakage, and when I checked my bandage this afternoon after walking over 21K, I saw to my delight that there had been no more bleeding. My wool sock was pristine (on the outside at least), and while some blood had welled to the surface of the bandages, nothing had seeped through. Thank Cthulhu. I'm leaving the bandages on and not washing my feet so that the dried blood has a chance to scab over and create a seal. Tomorrow should be no worse than today. Theoretically.

Which brings me to the issue of laundry, washing, and body odor. Because I restarted the walk so late in the year, I haven't really had to worry about my usual sweatiness and funk. I'm also wearing layers of clothing on these hikes, so when I reach my destination for the day, I simply strip off any inner layers and wear only my outer layers. The only daily laundry I do is my underwear; everything else is more or less okay so far. I might do my laundry after the 36K segment, but we'll see. I might be able to ride the bus home from Andong without worrying about being too stinky. One of the advantages of distance walking in cold weather. 

Otherwise, today was another straightforward walk. Tomorrow's segment will be a bit strange: it's 25K to the Bobos Motel, which I've never been to before. Bobos is in the same neighborhood as Sangju Bus Terminal (I'm technically in Sangju now); my turn east toward Andong will happen the day after tomorrow, when I do the big 36K segment. After that, there'll be one last rest day, then the final two days: 30K and 27K. Then a bus home the same day (December 10). Back to work on the 11th. 

Hard to believe this is almost over.

I did more than 19K, though. Closer to 22K.

about 4500 calories total

crossing Gumi Dam on my way to Nakdan Dam

Betelgeuse and Jupiter

church in the morning light

the five chairs

baesu-mun/배수문, drainage gate

Ducks! Lovely, delicious ducks!

the first of three bridges at the end of the walk

in town at my destination

Nakdan Dam from a distance

Sangju, Nakdan-myeon: the kind of site I could spend all day photographing

PHOTO ESSAY

Porta-John

Look.

Look closer.

Nakdan Bridge

I don't think any fish is ever getting up this fish ladder.

Nor this one.

sports field by the river; the Bonghwang biketel is on the right, in the distance