This is Song Young-Sik.

As I walked along the Cheonggyecheon stream on my first day trip to Seoul, a man of my height dressed in a pocketed vest, long socks and tennis shoes shuffled up beside me and asked me something in Korean. Naturally, I shrugged in response, prompting him to ask in English where I had come from. Upon finding that I was American, he smiled, said, "You are wer-come," and shuffled along.

"Thank you," I said, and stopped to admire the stream. Minutes later he found me catching up to him, matched my pace and asked how many countries I have seen. I settled on 10 (though it could be 11 or 12), to which he replied, "Me, too," and began listing them off.

Once he realized I would listen, he talked more freely of his stay in Africa, stint in India and visits to Europe. Korea's Jeju Island is better than Hawaii, he said, but Kenya is paradise.

Several yards down the stream, he finally said, "I am Mr. Song." I taught him my name and he thanked me for letting him walk with me. Some days the walk is good--he's a regular who lives nearby--and some days, not so good, he said. I had nothing to say and we continued on.

We strolled mostly in silence, interjected by his tidbits of proverbial thoughts, as if he'd been stewing over them for days, weeks, longer. The poor man is happier than the rich man, who is blinded by money. People worry about small things that cause them unnecessary stress (perhaps I looked distracted) and worry about their appearance, often not realizing their "true" beauty (again, I had no response but to keep walking).

It was Friday, a day before Chuseok, the national holiday of thanksgiving. Mr. Song, 57 (in Korean years; 55 in American years and 233 in dog years), asked of my plans, and having arrived just three days earlier, I said I had none. He asked if I would walk the stream with him again the next day, because with no family or friends, it was a difficult day. "Sure," I responded nonchalantly.

The westward sun was turning the color of ale, and I craved rest and reflection in the form of beer. After leading me to the subway and finding directions for me to Itaewon, Mr. Song said he was "thank you God" that he'd run into me. I left him to walk upstream into the sunset alone, and I headed to a bar.

Truth be told, I wondered if I should see Mr. Song again. I'd already crossed hundreds of paths on my various globe-roaming stints in just a few years, knowing there would be hundreds of faces to come that I'd see once and never again. I could have stepped past his; I could have kept walking, but somewhere along the way I'd forgotten where I was going. My continental leaps had left me wandering and searching for signs, so I thought it best to walk, at least for a moment, with someone who knew the road. I didn't let him stand there waiting.

Mr. Song carried a knapsack this time. His load was heavier than the day before, but he stood taller and walked with a spring in his step. I frequently struggled to keep up, my lethargic California pace slowing me further on the sidewalks crowded shoulder to shoulder.

Instead of retracing the paths along Cheonggyecheon that day, Mr. Song brought me elsewhere. On that afternoon, the day of Chuseok, families flocked to their birthplaces and other sites significant to their ancestry, their traditions. The people of Seoul packed the streets and Mr. Song and I sought refuge in the massive Gyeongbokgung Palace, one of the many traditional royal estates embedded in the city's otherwise urban landscape.

Along the walk, he began to peel away years of layers, speaking freely to an audience he finally had, if only me. The descendant of a king of the Chungcheong province, Mr. Song had lost his wealth along with his father--a former education commissioner and chamber of commerce head, he said--in the early '90s, a tragedy that left him in search of questions and a purpose. While making ends meet as a gas station attendant, he engrossed himself in the Bible and read it twice through.

It took a world of misfortune to cave in on him before he was willing to walk with God, he said, and his newfound spirituality carried him across the earth to Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia, where he worked as a medic and missionary for three years. Later he studied at the University of the Nations disciple training program in Hawaii to do two months of outreach in India before returning indefinitely to Korea.

"Now my life is turning," Mr. Song said. He wants to go back to each of those places that he said inspired him so deeply and show more people "how to walk."

We sat on the palace lawn on a silver tarp he'd brought, and he shared cookies, an apple and soda for our thanksgiving picnic. I ate quietly, observing the hundreds of other visitors who sauntered, played and laid in the grass between me and the palace's tranquil pool.

After an hour Mr. Song walked with me to the Gwanghwamun subway station, telling me that he's seen two angels in his life, both while overseas. In Ethiopia, a small girl came up to him while he was on his motorcycle. When she touched his hand, he said, the sky opened for him (literally or figuratively, I didn't ask) and he heard heaven calling to him. He then said he wondered, since we'd encountered each other on a holiday so difficult for him, if I, too, was an angel.

I sighed and couldn't help feeling a pang of guilt that I may have misled this man. "No, definitely not," I said. "We're just people. I'm only human."