The drive south out of Seoul runs through a man-made muddle I call a "nonplace," a fractured landscape that is neither town, nor village, nor countryside. High-rise apartments are surrounded by rice paddies that are next to small factories next to rows of greenhouses next to furniture outlets and gas stations. The unzoned exurban dissonance goes on like this kilometer after kilometer on west coast expressway 15, making me press on the accelerator and watch out for police speed cameras.

But in less than an hour, I've crossed the bridge over Asan Bay and arrived someplace: the Taean Peninsula, a jagged nub jutting into the Yellow Sea that is a mix of farm country, craggy mountains and sandy beaches. The migrating Baikal teal winter in the Seosan wetlands here. Each day the ducks rise by the thousands at sunset, putting on a spectacular sky dance. I leave the expressway at the Seosan interchange, in the center of the peninsula, and take Highway 32 west, the main road leading to the peninsula's beaches.

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Copyright © James Card.