down by the Yangjae Stream

There's a lovely little...ah, screw it. Just look at the dang pictures.

I see these occasionally in the broader areas of Daemosan Station or out here in the secluded shade of the Yangjae Stream: group exercise classes. Always elderly or middle-aged women and always with sugary American pop music playing in the background. 

Not only does Korea go to the trouble of landscaping all these marvelous stream- and riverbanks, but they stick up exercise equipment as well...completely for free! Even halfway up the sides of mountains!

Noshember (No-Shave November)

I'm participating, in case you didn't know. I'm going to try and grow myself a full beard. Never done that before. I got pretty close last spring, when I was looking at the cherry blossoms in Jamsil:

Then I shaved most of that horrid thing off and cultivated a sort of Gordon Freeman-esque Van Dyke for the intervening summer and autumn:

When November rolled around, I put my razor to bed. In the past few weeks, I've sprouted a bit. You saw how scruffy I looked when I went to Namiseom:

But get this: I'm not going to shave when we reach December. I'm going to keep going through January and possibly February. I'm going to grow this baby out. It took me two months to achieve that Van Dyke; now I'm going to see what four months can do to my entire face.

Hopefully this:

Say whatever you like about Robert Redford, he can grow himself a beardly beard.

Jeremiah Johnson-style. Yeah. Now we're cooking with gas. That's what I'm aiming for. By the time I tromp back to Korea from Hokkaido, Australia, and New Zealand (latest addition to the itinerary), I wanna be sporting a full beard.

Wish me luck...

Gapyeong and Namiseom

Yesterday, my usual day off, I was up early and thought the weather too nice to spend inside. So I went forth to Cheongnyangni Station and caught the ITX for Gapyeong. It's a small city on the Bukhan (North Han) River in eastern Gyeonggi-do, right on the border with Gangwon-do and not far from Chuncheon.

The main tourist attractions in Gapyeong aren't in Gapyeong at all. They're in the middle of the river: Jaraseom and Namiseom, two tiny islands just a few hundred meters upstream. My target was Namiseom. I got off the ITX at Gapyeong Station, took a five-minute, minimum-fare taxi ride to the wharf, and stepped out into the autumn chill.

As I threaded my way through the bus parking lot and the crowds of chattering middle-aged ajummas and ajusshis (immaculate in their hiking gear and backpacks), I heard a hissing, rasping sound from overhead. I looked up. High above me, two hooting people in harness were sliding down a zip-line from a tall tower to Namiseom Island.

I was delighted. I knew I had to try this novel way of traversing the Bukhan; a humdrum ferry ride wouldn't suffice. I wanted to zip-line in like a ninja or a U.S. Marine.

After stumping up ₩38,000 (and stepping on a scale, to my shame), I and seven other would-be ninjas crammed ourselves onto a creaky elevator and found ourselves on a wobbly platform 80 meters above the wharf.

My zipping partner and I climbed into our chairs and placed our knees against the departure gate while the attendants gave us a safety briefing and strapped us in. Then, with a "three, two, one" (in English) we were off. I stuck my legs straight out as ordered. My considerably greater weight caused me to gain speed and outdistance my partner. I hissed down the 940-meter cable, whistling one of the triumphal numbers from the movie Dumbo, my hair flying off my brow and the greenish-brown river water gurgling by hundreds of feet below. After a spring-loaded halt at the bottom, I detached myself, snapped the only picture I could of the run, and entered Namiseom proper.

You can call it "Nami Island" if you're confused. "Seom" is, I take it, the Korean word for a smallish island. The big ones are just called "do" (Jeju-do, Ganghwa-do, Geoje-do)...but this is the same suffix used for provinces as well, causing confusion. "Nami" comes from the name of a general who is buried on the island. His story is...well, reprinted here for your convenience (click to embiggen).

I didn't know this at the time I toured the island, but apparently—and only half-jokingly—it considers itself a micronation. There were signs everywhere promoting the "Naminara Republic." I didn't buy a ticket at the wharf, I bought a "tourist visa" (for ₩8,000). There were flag-draped "embassies" everywhere on the island; it has its own minister of culture, foreign secretary, currency (though Korean bills are accepted), passport, and postage stamps; and, if Wikipedia is to be believed, the tiny island has sent emissaries to foreign countries. The island is a literal stone's throw from Gapyeong in Gyeonggi Province, but technically belongs to Chuncheon...so hey, I guess I can say I've finally been to Gangwon.

It's tiny. Namiseom is only 430,000 square meters in area and about 4 kilometers in diameter. (To give you some perspective, the New South China Mall in Dongguan has 430,000 square meters of floor area; most of it unused, sadly.) But the miniscule dot of land in the middle of the Bukhan is jam-packed with museums, art galleries, cafés, restaurants (even one that served Peking duck), scenic pathways, trails, open fields, picnic areas, open-air stages, ateliers, bungalows, gardens, ponds, even a friggin' ostrich paddock.

Here, take a look through my eyes (and camera lens):

The tomb of Nami, the boy general.

 

The east side of the island. That's Gangwon Province over there. Pretty, huh?

World-famous Nami sausage.

Your not-so-humble correspondent.

...scribbled by an Iranian poet.

The Metasequoia Path.

The Gingko Path.

The carpeting of the Gingko Path.

If I've read that sign on the left there correctly, this odd wigwam-like structures were once used for fermenting kimchi. Not sure how that works. Kimchi is usually stuck in a pot and buried for months while it ferments. These look more like smokehouses. Mmm...smoked kimchi. There's a vivid thought.

No idea.

Outdoor library (?) by one of the for-rent bungalows.

The west (Gyeonggi-do) side.

The ferry landing.

Some other zip-line ninjas came whirring overhead as the ferry crossed the river.