this will have to do

I'm still rather miffed that my alternate path took me away from Sangju Dam and the 700-li rock.  Anyway, I'm now officially at the Nakdong River, the final (and longest) phase of this journey, so I've done what I can to celebrate the moment by taking a few extra pics today.  (A man can't stay cooped up in his motel room forever.)

Late lunch.  Dr. Atkins would have been proud:

I saw the sign:

I had wanted to provide a better view of the Nakdan Dam (낙단보), but you'll have to make do with this distant one:

A look the other way:

At this point, I've walked down into a riverside park to just chill, sip my evil fluids (yes, I got sodas), and just take in the quiet flow of the river.  You can sort-of see the dam:

Your Humble Narrator, with his scabbed-over, leathery nose and bloodied-but-unbowed demeanor:

The local GS25 convenience store was selling the sexually named Big Ball ice cups, so I bought one.  It was a revelation:  why the hell haven't people thought of this before now?  I don't know the physics, but at a guess, the lower surface-area-to-volume ratio is what makes the solid ball of ice last far longer in your cup than regular tiny ice cubes, which are usually all melted by the time I'm through my second soda.  

At a further guess, spherical ice became popular after "Star Trek Into Darkness" came out.  You may recall the scene where Kirk is at the bar, depressed, when Pike appears and tells Kirk that he (Pike) is now captain of the Enterprise, and Kirk is to be his first officer.  That scene famously opens with a shot of a big ball of ice plopping into a glass, then getting baptized by whiskey.  I'm sure the ice-sphere thing has been around longer than "Into Darkness," but I bet the movie popularized it.

After two sodas, a lot was left:

As I said, sexually named:

A pharmacy was sitting right next to the GS25, so I went in there first to restock my meds.  I asked whether the guy had 400-mg ibuprofen tablets, but all he had was the good stuff:  600-mg tablets!  Hail Satan! 

Here's the back if you're interested in trivia:

And that concludes this bonus episode.  I was pleased to know that the ibuprofen I took was doing much to dull the pain in my left foot.  That bodes well for tomorrow's walk to Libertar Pension, which is only 18.6 km away-- a light stroll compared to the hell I just went through.  I'm happy that I at least managed to get you a picture of the Nakdong River; arriving here is an occasion worth celebrating.