Barefoot Trails at Yang-eunsan, Chodangsan, and Dongmokpo Well-being Park... Praised by Citizens
Challenge to Walk Around Mokpo on Foot... Held Six Times This Year
Mokpo City (Mayor Park Hong-ryul) announced on the 5th that it is taking the lead in improving citizens' health through the creation of a walkable urban environment and walking challenge events.
Recently, it has become easy to encounter citizens aiming to walk 10,000 steps a day while enjoying the warm spring atmosphere.
Walking helps prevent obesity and adult diseases and has significant effects on mental health, such as stress reduction. In particular, walking barefoot is known to be effective in preventing and treating chronic inflammation, preventing obesity, improving constitution, enhancing skin beauty, and treating neuralgia.
First, Mokpo City is focusing on creating an environment conducive to walking barefoot.
So far, the city has created the Yang-eulsan ‘Barefoot Youth Trail’ and Chodangsan ‘Five Senses Satisfaction Barefoot Trail’ in urban forest and park areas for citizens' health promotion, forest experience, and relaxation. These barefoot loess trails attracted many citizens even during last winter.
These barefoot trails are mainly located in the new urban area, causing inconvenience for residents of the old urban area who need to use public transportation or private cars to access them.
Therefore, barefoot loess trails are being created mainly in the old urban area, and auxiliary facilities such as foot washing stations, drinking fountains, shoe storage boxes, and rest benches are being installed to enhance convenience.
In February, a loess barefoot trail was created in the Dongmokpo Well-being Park area. Dongmokpo Well-being Park is a representative park that serves as the lungs of Mokpo City, and the barefoot trail, which is 750 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, has become a space for citizens' health promotion and healing.
This year, the city plans to create loess barefoot trails in various zones such as Yudalsan, Samhakdo, Yang-eulsan forest bath, and Ipamsan. In addition, auxiliary facilities such as foot washing stations, drinking fountains, shoe storage boxes, and rest benches will be installed to improve convenience.
The city will also add barefoot trails to Iro Well-being Park in the future. Following that, to create safe and convenient loess trails at Chodangsan and Okam Waterfront Park, the city plans to continuously expand facilities such as surface management, drainage reinforcement, and security lights for nighttime users.
In particular, seasonal flowering trees such as king cherry trees and camellias, as well as herbaceous plants like Liriope, will be planted around the barefoot trails to create diverse sights. Shade trees, flowering trees, and herbaceous plants will be planted to develop the barefoot trails into premium forests.
Besides the barefoot trails, the city operates the ‘One Round of Mokpo on Foot!’ walking challenge, a citizen health walking project that encourages daily walking using walkable paths.
The health walking challenge runs six times in total from March to October, excluding the summer season, each lasting one month. The April challenge runs until the 30th, and if participants achieve 175,000 steps during the one-month challenge period, 200 people will be selected by lottery to receive mobile gift certificates.
A city official said, “We will strive to create walking environments in daily life and develop barefoot trails in each zone so that citizens can take care of their health.”
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