93 Posts - Cycling Bits - South Korea - Cycling, Friends, Family

Started off with a ride into Ansan to see a doctor, then sushi rolls (California) for lunch, and we set off on a rather unexpected, fun cycle across southern fringes of Seoul, South Korea. The plan was to ride as far as Seongnam City (from Southwest to Southeast Seoul) via Suwon, Yongin, Suji, Bundang, and into Yatap-dong. We managed just that in about 4-5 hours and arrived 5 minutes before the Express Bus was leaving for Shiheung City. Unfortunately, the name Shiheung is ubiquitous with surrounding areas known as Shiwa or Gongdan (factory zones) and there are other places that stretch many Kilometers going by this name. Street names (Gil in Korean) are meaningless in Korea, everything is organized into zones or villages with a general area marked as a "Dong" or "Gu" or "Si" which translates into village area, greater village and city. It's difficult at first to navigate this way, but highways intersect these places and roads go everywhere like a web (a grid in the West), so GPS navigation is popular in 99% of the cars on the road in South Korea. I prefer the mental map maker which isn't always so reliable, but generally, I can still get around on foot, cycles or the smog-machine, a Kia Sephia. We went cycling about on this Monday Mission but I was turned back with the giant cruiser bike, it didn't come close to fitting under the older Express Bus. The driver was grouchy and looked on with disapproval as I pondered and tried to shove the heap into the tiny porthole beneath the carriage. No way possible! ^^. Time to huff it back to Shiheung City. I urged Brian my good friend to take his ticket and we loaded his tour bike easily with the front wheel removed. My mother of a bike had steel lugs and I wasn't carrying the proper tools to dismantle it...with no time to spare, back to the subway station for a short ride south to Jukjeon Station. And off into the night I went with two 5Watt lights flashing bright, and the Catseye tail light doing a great job keeping me lit up, I took off down the cross-town traffic route with a facemask to blog some of the grit and diesel carbon that likes to lodge in my head. ^^. Cycled for about 40Kms and switched back to subway and rode the last leg back into Jeongwang Station. Covering 100Km for the day (+- a few), was happy to be back home around 10pm. Then the search for Brian began, since he took the Express Bus should have been back home by about 9pm. He turned up finally, calling me about 12:30am while I continued my search after interviewing many Koreans at Emart and finally going into the police station, my phone rang, it was Brian!!! ^^OMG, what a day!!!