Leg 39: Solbaram Bridge to Sacheonjin-ri Beach Park

The day had become quite brilliantly nice, with a warm sun and clear skies.  I crossed the bridge and headed on up the trail.

The first part of the 39^th leg ran along the beach.  Another town loomed in the distance.

But the bigger city of Gangneung was now behind me and only smaller towns and cities lay ahead.  The trail left the beach and headed through another pine forest for a ways.

Another big bridge led over a fair-sized river and into a provincial park around a lake where migrating birds are known to stop.

There were few birds about, but there was a lot of lotus plants that had shed their flowers, leaving husks bobbing in the winds.  They were really quite attractive.

 

The path led around the lake.

Around the other side of the lake there were a series of monuments.  There was one monument for the March First uprising during the Japanese colonial time.  This uprising was one of the first major pushes back against the Japanese colonial rule.  It was ultimately unsuccessful and led to the rounding up of leaders of the resistance who were taken to Seoul, tortured and many killed.  There are monuments throughout the country memorializing those who organized the uprising and those who died as a result.

Another monument at that spot was raised to the “comfort women.”  During Japanese colonial rule, and especially during the Second World War, many thousands of young Korean women were forced into sexual slavery to satisfy the Japanese soldiers.  There are monuments to those women in many places around the world, many in various places in Korea.  They all feature two chairs.  One is taken by a symbolic woman, a comfort woman.  The other chair is empty.  I presume that chair is for someone to take and sit in solidarity with the victims of that period of sexual slavery.

A short distance away, atop a nearby hill, is a third monument.  This one memorializes the soldiers who fought in war, I think the Korean war, but I am not entirely sure.

Near the war memorial is an old wooden structure called Gyeongpodae.  It was built at some other spot and moved here some years ago, allowing a nice lookout over the lake and the sea beyond.

The trail led back down the hill and along a path through more pine forest to the end point at a beach park.  But just before reaching the park, the trail passed over yet another bridge.

The sun was setting and the light over the river caught a heron of some sort, leg up and resting on a sand bar in the river.  It was a nice way to end the day.