Day 3, Leg 3

Today was only 25 kilometers, but I'm tired as hell. I've got over 60 pics for today, but I'll be posting only a few in this entry because I'm too cross-eyed to post and caption all of them.

I'm in the Baro Hotel in Hanam City, the first city you hit when you go east out of Seoul. Tomorrow's walk will be another tough one, 35 km out to the far end of Yangpyeong, where I'll stay for two nights. In 2017, this was my first time in a long time walking such a distance, and I ended up with a huge blood blister on my sole that stayed with me for the whole walk. Now that's a good way to learn how to cope with pain and discomfort! My first day, this time around, was already a 35-km trek, and thus far, no blisters. I'm tired and my feet ache despite the meds, but no blisters.

Speaking of feet: I forgot to mention the orthotic soles have been working out well. I have my regular insoles, but it's not looking as though I'll need to switch them out, Cthulhu be praised.

I also forgot to mention that the cost of yesterday's hotel stay was only W85,000, cheaper than the W90K I'd paid in 2017, and the W100K I paid on hikes out to Incheon. I had thought I was going to be raped by the usual "foreigner's tax," but I wasn't this time around. Go figure.

Also in the Forgot to Mention category: while I was at my apartment after two days of hiking, I weighed myself the morning of my departure, and I'm down from 125.5 kg to a flat 124. That's 1.5 kg in two days. I can't expect to maintain that rate of weight loss for the whole month (the body does get used to stress), but if I could keep losing at that rate, I'd lose over 20 kilos in 27 days. That's not going to happen, though; I'll be thankful if I make my goal of 15 kilos lost.

Today's walk was fairly straightforward. It took me east along the Han River from my apartment in southeastern Seoul to where I am now, the Baro Hotel in downtown Hanam. As I mentioned above, I have over 60 pics that I could upload and post here, but I'll restrict myself to just a few and upload the rest to Google Docs.

Here's a shot of the Han River path and the Jamshil district as symbolized by the immense Jamshil Lotte World Tower, fifth-tallest building in the world:

A somewhat deformed (and therefore more precious) flower seen along the way:

Your friendly neighborhood Kevin:

Another lovely flower:

A gray praying mantis (never seen one of that color before):

Another big, fat orb-weaver:

A very bright (and therefore possibly poisonous) caterpillar:

A very chill cat:

As you see, I've settled on a "life forms" theme for this entry. I have plenty of other photos of the path and the surrounding landscape, but I just don't have the energy or focus to slap them all up. Sorry. I'll upload everything to Drive and, when I'm in a motel room with a computer, I'll create a link to all my photos so you can flip through them at your leisure.

Oh, yeah: today's stats:

Photo essay: