Day 6, Leg 5

About 150 of 633 km down.

I keep forgetting how pleasant the walk to Yeoju City is.  Granted, there's a nasty hill at about the 10,000-step mark, but aside from that, the path and the view are both lovely. Pain levels were manageable today, although I wonder about an occasional hot spot on my right sole, on the padded part of the foot that's just back from the space between the second and third toes. Palpating the spot reveals no blistering, so perhaps the Leukotape is doing its job. 

Yes, I'm using Leukotape again despite the bad experience last year, but I'm being more cautious about it this time around.  I'll never again make the mistake of wrapping Leukotape completely around a pinky toe, but after watching some hiker vids on YouTube, I've decided to use Leukotape as prophylaxis against blistering.  Thus far, it seems to be working:  by this point in the two previous walks, I had some nasty blisters on at least one foot. Pre-taping seems like the way to go.

I have an embarrassingly short walk tomorrow:  just 17.3 kilometers. As a result, I'll be leaving Yeosu rather late in the morning, around 9 a.m.  I'll be in no hurry to reach Jangsu Pension; the place is low-tech, and it's out in the middle of nowhere, which leaves me with very little to do.  That's why I've also been in no hurry to write this blog entry:  I can stay up until 2 a.m. and still be up by 8 without feeling too tired.

In preparation for storing my walk-related photos on my phone, I've spent much of the evening uploading my Food Porn folder of photos (several gigs' worth) to Google Drive, then deleting the photos from my phone.  I now have room for around 1100 photos, but if today's photo spree was any indication, that might not be enough. We'll see. 

I took 131 pics today. Here are only a few of them, plus commentary, with a promise to upload the rest once the walk is done.

Last year, I passed by what appeared to be a rainbow-brick shwimteo.  The structure was hollowed out and looked for all the world like some kind of bus stop, which made no sense on a path for walkers and bikers.  It was the happiest little shwimteo I'd ever seen, but my feet took me past it before my brain kicked in and made me regret not having taken a photo of the thing.  This year, I didn't want to repeat the same mistake, so I determined to stop and take a shot.  Two problems:  (1) the structure had been completed, and it was obviously neither a bus stop nor a shwimteo; and (2) I left my motel much earlier than I had last year, which meant that it was dark when I needed more light to take the picture. I used my cell phone's flash function to snap the following shot:

It was light out when I left my motel last year.  This year, I left at 5:30 a.m. on the dot, so all was initially dark:

I found the following scene eldritch and evocative:

The sky continues to lighten, and I swear I didn't use a blue filter; the light was naturally that way:
 

I'm resting at a local sports park that's heavily kid-themed.  Happened upon my favorite jangseung:

A cosmos flower, up close (hi, Mom):

One of many long stretches today:

A glimpse of quasi-suburban living:

I passed two dams today:  Ipo and Yeoju.  Here's a shot of Yeoju-bo (bo means "dam"), not far from Yeoju City, where I am now:

I found the Prince Motel, got my room, then went out for a late meal (5:30 p.m. is late when you normally try to finish eating by 4).

I need to write a memo to myself about the parklands next to both dams.  They're gorgeous, and I'd like to convince my friends to go out there and visit those spaces. 

Today started off rainy and cool, but the weather gradually turned sunny.  I thoroughly enjoyed the scenery, and when the nasty hill appeared around the 10K-step mark, I was ready for it.  I know I've lost at least one inch around my waist; I may even have lost two.  None of the weight loss will be visible to friends and coworkers; when you're as fat as I am, you need to lose at least 30 kg before anyone will notice anything.  And I'm fine with that. 

There was a lot more I wanted to say, but I'll likely add more to this post later, once I've uploaded the other 120-some photos.

PHOTO ESSAY

This worries me:

A vending machine for "adult products":

I love Konglishy names:

Anyone else see this and think "doodoo"?  According to the hangeul rendering (visible in the lower-left corner), it is indeed pronounced dudu (as in "hairdo," I imagine).  Maybe that's better than "dodo" as in "dodo bird."

This, on the other hand, is supposed to be pronounced like the "dodo" in "dodo bird":