{"id":168,"date":"2013-10-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yule-tide.generalsemiotics.net\/index.php\/2013\/10\/25\/post-161-at-yukship-pass\/"},"modified":"2013-10-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T00:00:00","slug":"post-161-at-yukship-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/25\/post-161-at-yukship-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-161: At Yukship Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"
I reached Yukship Pass [\uc721\uc2ed\ub839] on the afternoon of October 4th, following my detour to Nongae Shrine<\/a> (post-160).<\/p>\n

These passes are often tunneled to preserve the integrity of the ridge-trail above:\n<\/div>\n

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\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
Yukship Pass, Jeolla side<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Like most of the southern half of the trail, Yukship Pass sits on a political boundary, dividing Gyeonsang Province from Jeolla Province. The two southern Korean regions have different accents and are in fact different in a lot <\/em>of ways. It seems they’ve disliked each other for longer than Europeans have been Christian. (They had competing, rival states for a long time, until one of them was finally stamped out of existence by the other over a thousand years ago.)<\/p>\n

<\/span>I saw that there was a village on the Gyeongsang side of the pass, only a few hundred yards away from the border itself. Here’s what I want to know: Do the residents have “Gyeongsang accents”? Do they dislike Jeolla? I don’t know, but one indication of how strong the rivalry between Jeolla and Gyeongsang is (maybe), even at the border is this:\n<\/div>\n

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About 200 meters short of Yukship-ryeong, the trail forks, with both branches ultimately heading to the pass. The left trail, heading northwest, emerges on the Jeollabuk-do side of the pass, while the right trail heads northeast, leading to the Gyeongsangnam-do side of the pass. Both are on NH26 and are separated by about 100 meters of road.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 [From the Trail Guidebook]\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Neither side wanted the trail to only go through the other’s territory so they both carved out separate trail forks.\n<\/div>\n
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\nAlong my hiking trip, I’ve always looked forward to reaching one of these semi-populated “passes”. It’s always good news when one is coming up. They have good facilities, food for sale, water. The guidebook promises the following:<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

On the western side [of Yukship Pass] is the large “Yukship-ryeong Hyugeso”, which has minbak rooms [simple rooms to sleep in], toilets, a good restaurant and a well stocked supermarket. Also in front of the hyugeso is a large two-story concrete jeongja [pavilion], which is suitable for sleeping in after sightseers have left. On the eastern side of the pass are a small supermarket and restaurant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The writers went on their trip in September to November 2007, six years ago now. When I passed by in October 2013, the big place they talked-up so much, on the western (Jeolla Province) side was closed completely. It was a big let-down for someone as hungry as I was at the time. The building seemed abandoned and was boarded up:\n<\/div>\n
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\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
The closed store and restaurant on the Jeolla side of Yukship Pass<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I loitered for a while around the jeongja <\/em>(a large, shaded pavilion raised off the ground, which Koreans seem to use for many purposes including overnight camping — I’ve seen Koreans doing it several times and now done it myself once). The jeongja <\/em>is to the right of the building above, overlooking the valley in Jangsu County. It was empty.<\/p>\n

I was waiting for something to happen. The store I’d anticipated buying thousands-of-calories-worth of food from was dead and showed no signs of coming to life. Maybe I expected the lights to spontaneously come on. It was not to be. The only thing happening in the large, nearly-empty parking lot was that a middle-aged man was watching a dog running around. I got the idea that the man was “looking after” the closed store\/restaurant. I think he was actually “just a guy”, though, using the place as a big dog park. I asked him if camping was allowed around there. He replied that it wasn’t. <\/span>No store. No restaurant. No camping. No water. A big disappointment. <\/p>\n

<\/span>I made by way off to the eastern (Gyeongsang) side of the pass, where there was said to be another “huygeso” or rest-area (store, restaurant, and more). On my way to the tunnel and the other side stood a memorial. It was to the South Korean soldiers killed in the anti-communist-guerrilla campaign fought in this area during the Korean War:\n<\/div>\n

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\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
A memorial at Yukship Pass to South Korean soldiers who died fighting pro-communist guerrillas<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
(The government chose the Jeolla side for this memorial commemorating [in effect] the large-scale killings of pro-communist civilians, when those communist-sympathizers disproportionately came <\/em>from Jeolla [as I understand it] — I’d speculate that this choice of location may be the handiwork of the Gyeongsang circle that ruled South Korea for thirty years beginning with General Park Chung-Hee in ’61 (whose daughter is now president).<\/p>\n

These are thoughts that occur to me long after the fact.<\/span> At the time I snapped the above picture, I was really hungry and out of food (except peanut butter and some “gorp”). I staggered on to the Gyeongsang side of the pass. On the Gyeongsang side, a smaller and decrepit-looking store\/restaurant was (at least nominally) open for business:<\/div>\n

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\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
Small store and restaurant at Yukship Pass, Gyeongsang side<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I was so hungry.<\/p>\n

I walked in, said hello, and clumsily asked “Is this a restaurant?”<\/em> in my poor Korean. I really wasn’t sure whether it was a restaurant. I couldn’t see a menu anywhere. Maybe you just “had to know” what was on the menu. <\/p>\n

<\/span>Two middle-aged women, one very old woman, one middle-aged man, and one young man were inside. I soon got the feeling that all were related. Before long, this materialized on the table in front of me:<\/div>\n

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\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
My meal at Yukship Pass — Beef(?) soup, rice, and vegetable side dishes with water<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I’ve rarely had a meal with so many “side dishes” (banchan<\/em>, \ubc18\ucc2c) before. This one had six. At first, I thought the meal was entirely side dishes. Only about halfway through did I realize that the soup was the main dish. It had beef in it, I think.\u00a0I ate it eagerly, having eaten little that day. After finishing\u00a0 the food far too quickly, I stayed at the table and leafed through the guidebook a little, to know what was on the horizon next. It was about 4:00 PM, so two hours of good daylight left.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I paid 6,000 Won ($5.50) for this meal. In the front, they have a small “store” area with snack foods, chips, cookies, lots of types of ramen, and other things like tuna cans. I bought pound-cake bread and crackers, total 4,000 Won. Off I went again into the forest:<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
The trail, north of Yukship Pass<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I decided to make camp as soon as I found a good place. I found one and, still hungry, I had a second dinner of peanut butter slathered on my crackers and pound cake:\n<\/div>\n
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\"Picture\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
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It hadn’t been windy at all that day. After night fell, though, the wind suddenly picked up. I was glad I was safe in my tent and not outside. The next day, the wind would still be there as I made my toward Halmi Peak (see post-155<\/a>)….<\/p>\n

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[This was mostly written in a motel at Chupung Pass on October 16th and finished on October 25th in Jeomchon]<\/em>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I reached Yukship Pass [\uc721\uc2ed\ub839] on the afternoon of October 4th, following my detour to Nongae Shrine (post-160). These passes are often tunneled to preserve the integrity of the ridge-trail above: Yukship Pass, Jeolla side Like most of the southern half of the trail, Yukship Pass sits on a political boundary, dividing Gyeonsang Province from […]<\/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-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","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=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}