Riverside run

Yesterday I ran along the river. The weather was perfect for outdoor exercise, mid 60s, slightly overcast. Since I haven't run for over four months, I took it easy, stopping to take pictures when something interesting took my fancy. I managed 4 miles.

It's only a few minutes from our apartment to the river. When I got there, I was surprised to find a bunch of ultimate frisbee games underway.

The players seemed to be mostly if not all foreigners. I heard a lot of American-accented English as I ran by. There were a few Asian faces, but of course impossible to know if they were locals or not. After my run I chatted with a few of the Americans. They told me that this was the opening weekend of the Korea ultimate frisbee league season, and that teams from cities all around the country competed in different locations each weekend. The man and woman I was talking to were expatriates living in Daejeon and Busan.

I started off running along the in-line skating pathway, since it seemed like the best option. The other paths were reserved for bicycles and, judging from the icon, strolling families. But after a while I reached some signs that definitively indicated I should be jogging on the path for walkers.

The green sign says "jogging and strolling path"; the blue sign says "in-line skating path".

It's astonishing how few people were out. Can you imagine Green Lake in Seattle being this empty on a spring Sunday morning at 11:30 am?

In total I saw two other joggers; a few power walkers (see above image); a handful of folks out walking their dogs; a fair number of cyclists, and one motorbike. (Technically motorbikes aren't allowed, but that doesn't seem to stop anybody.) There were stretches when nobody was in sight.

You shouldn't get the impression that Korean aren't into outdoor exercise. They are mad for mountain climbing. I'm sure all the locals trails in the surrounding hills were thick with hikers. (But that's a subject for another blog entry.)

This whole riverside pathway is only about 7 years old. It's a lovely city resource, if underused.

This map shows the area where fishing is forbidden. That also doesn't seem to stop anybody. In fact, the guys on the motorbike stopped to do some fishing.

At several locations along the trail are some very nice sets of exercise equipment.

Can you believe how empty this place is?

If you click through to the larger version of the photo above and squint, you can probably see the giant swastika on the building in the background. But I'll save you the trouble.

Bulguksa Munhwa Hoegwan 불국사문화회관

It's a Buddhist cultural center.

There was a poster along the side of the path for a rock climbing center. "Have you tried the Gyeongju 'Rock Climbing Center'??" it reads. It is of linguistic interest (to me).

The English word 'rock' is written . The English word 'climbing' is written keullaiming <클라이밍>. The English word 'center' is written senteo <센터>. I honestly have no idea if 'rock climbing' should be considered a Korean word or not.

These little-kid queens and kings are symbols of Gyeongju. They clearly belong to the category of excessively cute Olympic-type mascots. Perhaps they were created for some sort of international sports competition held here once.