Crossing A River

I have a few blogs to catch up on here, but these first two are short because there's just not much substance. Don't worry, I'm not cutting them short because I'm pressed for time or anything. :)

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Almost two weekends ago was my very first time in Daejeon. It is a city in which I will be spending a lot of time in the coming months for a very good reason (as I'm sure many of you may know, but I can't post it until it actually happens, so please bear with me) so it is essential that I mention that.

If you remember from the Barefoot Masai Marathon post that I did about a week ago, that day was very, very crazy. First, the bus didn't show up and we had to take a taxi to the marathon. Weird, I know. YOU weren't the ones showing up to a marathon in a taxi.

Then we were dropped off on the wrong side of the mountain and ended up trecking about 3 times as far and up a much steeper incline than the rest of the participants.

And then, when we thought we could go no further, we ran into the mid-way point of the marathon (also known as the 'turn around point' because they literally turned around and headed back in the opposite direction) and had an absolute blast.

And at the end, we were very, very tired.

And then the bus back dropped us off and we could not, for the life of us, hail a taxi cab back to the city.

So instead of getting a taxi at that particular location, we walked up a little ways and then came to a point where we noticed the river between us and the other direction of traffic on the other side. And we decided to cross said river.

So we crossed the road first and walked down the little ramp.

**This is where I must tell you that people cross the rivers all the time in Korea on foot, using these large granite stones strategically placed in the water to form a foot-bridge. And this is nothing to the people of Korea as they do this all the time. And nothing to the foreigners who cross them all the time.

But this was my very first time crossing a river.

Which seemed as though it was raging.

And the wind, though probably blowing at a nice, calm 15mph, seemed to be blowing at about 60mph.

And the river, though probably only about 2' deep or less on one side, was impossible to see through the silt, so it very well could have been about 50' deep.

And on the other side of the foot-bridge/make-shift dam were large rocks in which it was possible to see to the bottom. And the bottom was only about 6" deep. However, all that was going through my head at the time was that if I fell, I would be blown directly into these large stones by the blazing winds and both my legs would incidentally break, causing me much pain and possibly a drowning.

Which is why I was unable to snap any photos as I crossed. All I could do was look down at every single step each foot was making after the other.

And I credit this photo to Amy, who hopped and skipped the entire way across, as though it were nothing at all, on a fine Spring day.

In my defense, I should add that almost every granite stone was very slippery (to me) and had a puddle right in the middle of almost every one. And also that, supposedly, the water of the river was excessively high due to the recent rains.



And that, my dear, dear readers, was the most terrifying part of my day.



I value this last picture because it is the only one I will ever have of it's kind: I shot this photo AFTER I crossed the river and made it safely to the other side. I'm so proud of myself!