#2: [06-Apr-18]

30-Mar-2002 -- This is the first confluence point visit involving an airplane. Not that I used one to land on the point, but rather, the point was located near the metropolitan city (Gwangyeoksi; city (si) with over a million people and the political status of an independent province) of Gwangju and I decided to go the comfortable way. I reserved the earliest flight available, but the fog delayed the flight for two hours and I was able to arrive in Gwangju at about noon.

The actual confluence point is located about 20km south, in the middle of Hwasun-gun. Luckily, the local buses go there at about 5 to 10 minute intervals, saving me lots of money; the fare is only 600 won (about USD 50 cents) but the bus travels more than 20km for about an hour. I got off at the town of Neungju-myeon, where the 35N latitude intersected. The confluence point was about 4km away east, so I thought about an hour's walk should do the job.

Alas, that was a grave miscalculation. The region was full of mid-size mountains (I didn't get this impression looking at the maps), and going 'through' turned out to be very unrealistic, as there were no paths at all. I could manage up to about half a mile without a path (see 37N 129E), but 4km wasn't right. I sat down to revise the plan.

Correcting the coordinates on the maps I brought, it turned out that I could access the point via a northerly path about 3km long from Hancheon-myeon, about 4km ESE of Neungju-myeon. The problem is that I was completely disgusted of walking for more than an hour due to the last trip (see above link) so I searched the town for a transportation.

It turned out that, at the entrance of the town, there was a taxi depot. I went into the office and asked one of the drivers to take me to the confluence point indicated on the map. He agreed, and I was within about 600m to the point in a matter of minutes. After following a small path leading to a private tomb, I was able to get within about a hundred meters from the confluence point. If there wasn't a swamp circling the area, I would've been able to stand on the exact point.