#6: [12-Nov-16]

#5: [11-Dec-11]

#4: [03-Apr-10]

#3: [24-Feb-08]

#2: [29-Oct-06]

#1: [22-Jun-01]

12-Dec-2024 --

I discovered the Degree Confluence Project about 3 months ago. While going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole that included map projections, John Harrison, Null Island, and the 45x90 points, I stumbled upon the page for this project and proceeded to spend the rest of the night reading visit narrative after visit narrative.

With the Korean College Scholastic Ability Test(대학수학능력시험) over and my time in high school coming to an end, I thought, what better way to use this newfound freedom than to visit a confluence point? And so I decided to make the first confluence visit in South Korea in more than 5 years(from what I can tell as of writing this). After looking through some of the previous visits, I decided that 38°N 127°E would be a decent first attempt: it was relatively accessible by public transit, on flat land, and the most visited confluence in the country.

I took an intercity bus (no.8131) from Seoul to Pyeongtaek, then transferred to a bus that took me to about 1.7km north of the confluence point. After walking for about half an hour past a village and several large rice farms (during which I had to take a detour thanks to one particularly aggressive dog that didn’t seem to be leashed), I arrived at the confluence point at 2:50 in the afternoon. As was recorded by numerous previous visits, the point was located in a rice field, about 4 meters away from a paved road. All the crops seemed to have been harvested, leaving the fields mostly dry and barren, though still a bit muddy. I was the only person in the area, and ran into practically no one during the walk to the confluence and back.

Interestingly enough, there was a circular patch of empty land (about half a meter across) on seemingly the exact point of the confluence. This feature had not been identified in any of the previous visits to this point, meaning it was probably a recent addition. Perhaps the landowner was aware of the point’s significance, and maybe even the Degree Confluence Project?

In terms of difficulty, the visit was about as hard as I expected: no real trouble apart from a bit of walking and freezing temperatures. Though I don’t expect the rest of the confluence points to be as easy (most of the country being covered in mountains), it feels rewarding to have made my first confluence visit.