Bus to Mok-dong, trains to Gongdeok and Ichon, walk to Han River then via Hangang Bridge to Nodeulseom (island) walk then lunch. Bus to Seoul Station, walk along Seoullo (former elevated road redeveloped into linear park) and Docking Seoul. 2 trains and bus.
Hazy for most of the day, clearing mid-afternoon, -10 to 3. Steps 21350 (approx 14.9 km). Food: kimbap for lunch, fried rice for dinner. Bus, 2 trains, walk, bus, walk, 2 trains, bus.
Today was slightly frustrating. I wanted to go to Seoullo and Nodeulseom, probably in that order. Seoullo starts near Seoul Station, but our line doesn’t go directly there. Fine, I’ll change at Gongdeok. Except Gongdeok Station is *huge* (it is one of three(?) stations with four intersecting lines) and it doesn’t help that two of those lines are colour-coded in some shade of green, and I ended up on the wrong one. But that one went to Ichon, which is reasonably close to the second place I wanted to go (a more direct way of getting there is by bus from Seoul Station, but that requires getting to Seoul Station in the first place). The second frustration was the weather, which was fully but lightly cloudy for most of the day, then cleared while I was on my way home. At least the bus between Nodeulseom and Seoul Station was unproblematic. On the way home, I decided to go three stations in the other direction to change once at a station I have been to before, rather than change trains twice (including at Gongdeok again) (but at least I would have found out where the platform I’d been meant to be on the first time, was).
(Transfer stations like Gongdeok are basically two, three or four separate stations joined by tunnels, rather than being integrated in any way. Sometimes they are more logical (like Dongdaemun Plaza Station, which is three in a long row; others cross at right angles), but Gongdeok was impossible.)
The third frustration was the safety barriers at Seoullo. Just occasionally they had spaces in the glass panels which were big enough to take photos through but small and high enough not to easily drop anything through (including oneself). Otherwise, it is necessary to take photos through the glass. Generally, I didn’t.
(Google continues to be imaginative. In the second picture, the track should be along the north bank to the bridge, the south to the island, then around the island, then north along the road. I didn’t set foot on the south bank and I didn’t walk across the river even once.)
Never Pure and Rarely Simple 