{"id":159,"date":"2013-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yule-tide.generalsemiotics.net\/index.php\/2013\/10\/01\/post-152-a-bus-ride-across-hamyang-county\/"},"modified":"2013-10-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T00:00:00","slug":"post-152-a-bus-ride-across-hamyang-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/01\/post-152-a-bus-ride-across-hamyang-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-152: A Bus Ride Across Hamyang County"},"content":{"rendered":"
Here is a picture I took Saturday,\u00a0Hamyang County [\ud568\uc591\uad70], Baekjeon District [\ubc31\uc804\uba74],\u00a0Unsan Village [\uc6b4\uc0b0\ub9ac].\n<\/div>\n
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\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
A house in Unsan Village<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I caught the bus from near this spot in Unsan-ri to Hamyang Bus Terminal at about 7:10 AM. There were no marked bus stops anywhere in Unsan Village, causing me confusion. A Korean man, in his 50s or 60s, with an old-style hat was out for a walk that morning. I tried to ask where the bus stop was. He answered with the Korean version of\u00a0“Huh?”<\/em>\u00a0, so I repeated slowly.\u00a0“Buh-seuh”.\u00a0<\/em>He got it that time. The man seemed to say that the bus would be coming around such and such a place in a few minutes and turning, and so I should just wait in the intersection and wave it down, not that I understand most of his words, but I think that was about it. I thanked him and he walked away, and the bus was already visible in the distance, winding its way towards us. The man’s suggested\u00a0method\u00a0is\u00a0exactly the one I used to get on the bus, and so began my ride away from Unsan Village.\n<\/div>\n
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\"Unsan-ri\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
The core of Unsan Village (of Hamyang County, Gyeonsang Province, South Korea) \/ September 2013
[\uc6b4\uc0b0\ub9ac, \ubc31\uc804\uba74, \ud568\uc591\uad70, \uacbd\uc0c1\ub3c4]<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nNote the church on the left. I once had the idea that Christianity was mostly urban\/urbane in South Korea, with rural people being more Buddhist or something, but small towns and villages also have their own churches. In the small city of Hamyang, I later saw several churches, and one woman even handed me a church leaflet and small free gift (a very typical thing to happen in the Seoul area). I didn’t see a comparable Buddhist icon in the village.<\/span>

Speaking of Buddhists, the bus driver was a bit fat, quite bald, and had a round Buddha-like head. His voice surprised me; it was a baritone radio-announcer voice. This baritone Buddha bus-driver was involved in a conversation at length, for most of the forty minutes from when I got on to when she got off near Hamyang City, with a woman passenger who sat in the front seat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was surprised to see that the bus already had about six passengers when I got on, because I knew from my trail guidebook that there was only one stop before mine, at Junggi Hamlet [\uc911\uae30\ub9c8\uc744] to the west of Unsan and at the very end of the county road. Mountains were all around it. That hamlet is near Jung-jae Pass [\uc911\uc7ac or \uc911\uce58], the place I had emerged from the mountains the day before.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bus ride cost 2,000 Won ($1,85). Only cash was accepted. There seemed to be a machine for reading electronic cards, but nobody<\/em>, of the two dozen or more who got on and off, used it. It must have been just for show!<\/p>\n

Of the other passengers, all but two were elderly or nearly so. Many seemed to know each other, of course. I think the bus passed through the districts of Baekjeon and Byeonggok (\ubc31\uc804\uba74, \ubcd1\uace1\uba74), the total population of both being 3,000 according to Korean Wikipedia. I presume many or most of these riders have been living there since birth.<\/p>\n

People got off almost wherever they wanted; they’d just ask the driver and he’d stop.\u00a0Most were “going to town” to take care of some business or other, and got off in the city.\u00a0<\/span>I got out at the County Bus Terminal (\uc2dc\ub0b4\ud130\ubbf8\ub110), close to the Intercity Bus Terminal (\uc2dc\uc678\ud130\ubbf8\ub110). Here is the Intercity Bus Terminal, looking very North Korean:<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
Hamyang Intercity Bus Terminal<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Here is a shot of the inside of the Intercity Bus Station, with characteristically-elderly people loitering. I think the man standing was some kind of station manager.\n<\/div>\n
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\"Inside<\/a> <\/p>\n
The Inside of Hamyang Intercity Bus Terminal<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I was in Hamyang.<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a picture I took Saturday,\u00a0Hamyang County [\ud568\uc591\uad70], Baekjeon District [\ubc31\uc804\uba74],\u00a0Unsan Village [\uc6b4\uc0b0\ub9ac]. A house in Unsan Village I caught the bus from near this spot in Unsan-ri to Hamyang Bus Terminal at about 7:10 AM. There were no marked bus stops anywhere in Unsan Village, causing me confusion. A Korean man, in his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}