Satellite
  • Day 28

    Hapcheon to random pagoda

    October 21, 2014 in South Korea ⋅ 🌫 18 °C

    I woke to the sight of the sun breaking gently through the fog. Birds chirped in the trees and leaves rustled on the forest floor. The air was cool but not cold. I set about packing my gear slowly, ready for another day.

    The path is wide and decorated with these wind flowers in many places. It is a simple but cheerful decoration that makes me smile.

    I continue to travel through a landscape dominated by agriculture and the every-necessary quest to feed a nation’s population. In some fields the harvest is completed and preparations begin for the new crop. Plastic and reflective sheeting are placed on the ground everywhere to maximise the sun’s warmth as winter approaches. This is my first encounter with four-season farming and the realities of a bitter snow-covered winter.

    There is no escaping the realities of farming here though. It’s hard work and every day there is something to be done. It’s the second Sunday in a row that I’ve noticed the older generation of Koreans working the fields. Walking tractors are pushed to plough the fields.

    A farming village houses the Pak-jin memorial. This was a critical battle in the Korean War and possibly saved South Korea from obliteration. When all seemed lost and the capital had been moved first from Seoul to Daegu and then to Busan, South Korean and US forces took a stand here at Pak-jin. Outnumbered and outgunned they refused to give in, eventually routing the North Korean army and beginning the push to reclaim what had been lost.

    A small museum marks the battle and tells the story of the Korean War. While the War Memorial Museum in Seoul was informative this museum touches me deeply. I am standing at a place of battle. Outside there are old men and women working their farms who are old enough to have been personally touched by the war, whether as soldiers, civilians or children. And it strikes me just how much the people of this country have achieved. Over the past few weeks I have spoken with a few men who were soldiers in the war. I have seen barbed wire, young soldiers, the captured submarine and monuments to mark signicant battles. And now, as I stand here I realise just how resilient the Korean people are. Just 64 years ago their country was flattened by war. Their army was pushed all the way back to this point just 80km north of Busan. Farms would have been destroyed and people killed or maimed. Yet this country is so advanced and the people so welcoming.

    I continue along the cycleway, taking in the wide expansive river views. Green treed mountains drop into the water, reflecting golden in the afternoon sun. The leaves here in the south are not changing as dramatically as further north. It’s noticeably warmer here and perhaps winter will come a week or two later than in the north. This country might be small but it is so diverse and cycling makes this so obvious.

    A particularly beautiful section of trail takes me through riverside reeds in flower. They are beautiful in their fluffy glory. A family walking along the path takes photos of their young children between the flowers. There is a festival here in this area somewhere every October to celebrate the reed flowers. Yet another sign of the seasons changing in a culture steeped in nature’s ebb and flow.

    As the sun sinks lower into the west I come across a disused exercise park with a pagoda. It’s tucked away off the cycle path and I decide it’s a good place to stay.
    Read more