14-Jul-2001 -- This is one of the confluence points that was visited with the help of my dad. It was during the holidays, and he decided to drive me to the confluence points with his car. Indeed, the places I wanted to visit turned out to be far out from any means of public transportation.

First, we rode through Gyeongbu Expressway, the first and still the biggest highway in South Korea. At Gimcheon, Gyeongsangbuk-do, we exited to local road #3 down the south, which seemed to lead quite close to the point. Then we realized that the major road just beat around the bush, so to speak, as it circled around the point from about a kilometer away.

We needed to get closer than this, so we tried to look for a small road that might be able to lead us in. Then we discovered a very narrow, snaky, half-paved road that apparently goes into the forest. The entrance of the road had a stone that said, 'Impyeong-ri', the name of the village. The road was barely enough for my dad's car to drive in, so we drove in as much as possible.

At about mid-way, though, it started raining and the road was getting very muddy. The car faced the danger of getting its tires stuck in the mud, so we had to park the car on a firm ground and walk the rest of the way. After walking about ten minutes, we confronted a cluster of houses - the village of Impyeong-ri.

Sadly, at least half of the houses were empty. The village had pretty much been abandoned. We did find a house where an old farmer and his wife still lived and settled down for a break. They were very kind to us, as they hardly had any visitors. I waited for the rain to calm down, then left the house on my own to find the confluence point; it was only about 300 meters away.

The rain did make the trip hard, though. The point was apparently somewhere within the dense forest surrounding the village, and the ground was very slippery. I even encountered a couple of streams that were wedged in crevices just wide enough to make a jump dangerous. Still, I managed to overcome the natural barriers and approached within 70 meters after about half an hour of struggling. I felt very good.