Dinner with fellow travelers. So many little plates. (Banchan) Three of us chose octopus, and one had beef.
We are not foodies. We don’t seek out the ‘of the moment’ restaurants or cooking trends. But we do love to eat, and to find small mom and pop places to spend our money. When we’re in travel mode, or bicycle touring, we eat out just about every night. And afternoon. Mornings too, if the hotel doesn’t have breakfast available. So that’s a lot of searching for and sitting down to meals.
Our very first lunch in Korea. A dumpling place in the Insadong neighborhood of Seoul. Rich had eaten here on a business trip layover exactly ten years before.Cheryl very happy to be enjoying her first glass of white wine in the Ikseon-dong neighborhood of Seoul. Rich enjoying a craft beer and a skillet of Oven Cheese Tteokbokki (오븐치즈떡볶이).
Tteokbokki is chewy rice cakes cooked in a red, spicy broth. This version at a place called Hang Out in the charming Ikeseon-dong area, a maze of little streets with so many different shops and restaurants, was more of a beer snack meal than the smaller street vendor versions we saw later on. This version had Sundae sausage and cheese as well as the rice cakes.
A stroll through the Gwangjang market to try Mung Bean Bindaetteok (녹두빈대떡).This snack turned out to be a big serving. The small dish is pickled celery, we think. And kimchi came out after Rich, a kimchi fan, asked for it.
After a visit to Dongdaemun Design Plaza, the amazing museum complex designed by architect Zaha Hadid, which is well worth a visit, we went over to the Gwangjang Market to walk around and ogle the food on offer.
Had we not been full of mung bean pancakes I would have loved to try this pumpkin soup.We quickly got a bit overwhelmed in the market.Fish cakes, Korean glass noodles – Japchae is the dish of stir fried noodles – Tteokbokki, the spicy rice cakes, and the long sausages are Sundae: made with pork intestines stuffed with glass noodles, coagulated pig blood and vegetables, all steamed together.
You know how people like to talk about getting out of your comfort zone? Food is a fast and easy way to do that. I don’t consider myself an adventurous eater, Rich is willing to try anything but I’m a lot more picky, or cautious. And, I don’t like seafood all that much. I’ll happily have sushi or sashimi, but most cooked seafood gets a pass when I’m choosing my meal. However, once we got bicycling on our trip from Seoul to Busan, I really did have to eat what we could get. Whether it be from the ubiquitous convenience stores, or at a restaurant.
Bibimbap, or mixed rice dish. Sometimes in a hot stone bowl (dolsot), or mine in a tin bowl, vegetables and an egg. We quickly learned that not everyone finishes the little dishes of pickled vegetables and fish.This little street is known as a Pocha, short for Pojang-macha, a restaurant or street that serves Korean comfort food. It’s where we had the bibimbap in the previous photo.Our first night on our bike tour we had sushi and noodles. And yes, that stain on my placemat is the splash from when I dropped a piece of sushi in the soy sauce. Chocolate milk. A great energy drink while cycling.My favorite bike touring lunch, a picnic. This was taken right before we realized we were sharing our bench with spiders. This is not a typical dinner scene on our bike ride, Rich got the beef bulgogi set meal, I got pasta carbonara. Our hotel offered Korean and Western food. Usually it’s all Korean food.
Bike touring lets us see a country in detail, and forces us to figure out how to feed ourselves. Korean convenience stores are easy to find, and although I prefer Japanese convenience stores, we did well finding things that appealed to us.
A well placed picnic gazebo for elevenses. Packaged pastries and drinks from a convenience store.Caffeine choices. Dumpling lunch. A happy stop. Kimchi, spicy bbq, and meat dumplings. For the record the spicy bbq and kimchi were great, meat ones were a bit boring and bland.
So, how about when the food finding is not so easy. Or not so successful? Or you get to town kind of late and not much is open? Then it’s chicken and beer places. We had to resort to chicken and beer places twice, on long days. They are known as Chimaek. From chikin ‘fried chicken’, and maekju ‘beer’.
This was actually quite good after a day cycling. Chicken nuggets, noodles, rice cakes, a spicy sweet sauce, and leeks on top. The dish to the right was pickled jicama, we think. Or maybe radishes. It’s a good day when you discover that this energy bar from 7-11 is really tasty. And they had a buy 2 get 3 special. The clerks in the 7-11s were very good at making sure you didn’t miss a special offer.At our second Chimaek restaurant, we failed to snap a picture of the Cheeto orange chicken, but this salad with ice cream on top was not as bad as you would think. Yes, that’s corn and tomatoes, iceberg lettuce and red onions. Under the ice cream.
There was an evening when we pulled into town on our bikes, in Gumi, and planned on eating at the food court of a large grocery store chain, E-Mart. Food courts in Korea are good. We were looking forward to it. We checked in to our nice hotel, unpacked, showered, and strolled over with plenty of time for dinner. It was closed. There was a mysterious local holiday that no one but the management of the E-Mart seemed to know about, or care about. So, grumbling and hangry, we headed back to our hotel, and then spotted the sports team from the hotel lobby at a small place down the block and went in.
A small restaurant run by one lady, who does one thing. We ordered the one thing for two. Out came the small dishes of pickled things. Out came a burner. And out came the bubbling Sundae Jungol hot pot. Remember, Sundae are the sausages, the hot pot also has pork intestines and vegetables in a spicy broth. It was quite good.
Once we reached Busan and were off the bikes and in a city it was easier to search out restaurants and plan ahead. While cycle touring you are often at the mercy of how far you were able to ride, and what time you get to town, and how much energy you have to find and walk to a restaurant. But with a few days to explore you can find what you actually want. Rich was happy to find that Korea has had a renaissance of craft beer brewing in the past decade or so.
Wildcat Brewing in Busan.Galmegi Brewing in Busan.Amazing Brewing Company in Seoul. Don’t let the same shirt fool you into thinking this was one night, it was three different nights with a limited wardrobe.That face says “It’s not wine”. But it was good.
Korean food is quite varied. Most people know Korean BBQ and bibimbap, but there is a lot more to discover.
A Mexican restaurant in Busan. Grilled shrimp tacos. Not bad. A bit too sweet, but a nice diversion. I like a lunch that comes with scissors to cut your noodles. I did this all wrong. One of the little bottles was something for declumping the glass noodles. Oh well, press on. At the Busan train station.Seomyeon Market food street, Busan. Tempura.And right across the street, dumplings.Beef bulgogi dolsot bibimbap. Quick, break that egg yolk, but don’t disturb the rice while it crackles against the hot stone pot and gets crispy and brown.
We took the train from Busan to Seoul and stayed for a week in an apartment which meant we could cook our own meals. As much as we enjoy eating new foods, it gets stressful and tiring to find restaurants, translate menus, and constantly try to figure out what goes with what – does this go in here or do you dump this into there? Our first lunch in our apartment after a visit to the big E-Mart grocery store was grilled cheese sandwiches.
Last dinner in Busan. Rice and pork soup. Made in huge vats, long boiled in the little street in front of the restaurant. The little bowl of pink is tiny salted shrimp, which you add to the soup, along with garlic chives and minced sauce.
Our apartment in Seoul for our last week in Korea was out in a neighborhood. While at first glance during the walk from the Jungnang metro station it appeared to be a lot of tire shops, new apartment buildings, and little clothing stores, the small back streets proved to be full of restaurants and places to buy groceries. It was easy to wander around and pick a place a for dinner.
We translated the sign to read Ssambap, This means things, rice, meat, vegetables, and sauce wrapped in a variety of leaves.The plate of leaves at the left include lettuce, Korean perilla leaves, squash, bok choy, Napa cabbage, and cabbage leaves. The small round black dish is a freshwater snail and soybean paste stew.My attempt at ssambap. That’s bulgogi beef on top, from the second round black dish in the table. Nice and spicy. I think a local would have a neater and tighter wrap. Think Korean burrito.
Seoul was fantastic for hiking, as we covered in the previous post, and it was also fantastic for simply walking into a restaurant and getting a delicious meal with very low stress or awkwardness. The owners were always nice and welcoming. They would help us out when we were obviously confused about how to proceed with our meal, and payment was always easy – just get up and walk to the cash register and tap your credit card. No tipping, and taxes already included. Another nice thing about walking up to pay is that you don’t feel guilty having left some of the little plates of pickled things. Our clean your plate mentality is hard to break.
Hiked off a mountain and into a tofu restaurant. The table of gentlemen behind Rich were having fun and that enticed us in. Who’s excited by her tofu bibimbap with an egg on top?The meal sets are another fun easy way to order. I got beef bulgogi (again), and Rich had ginger chicken soup.The soup arrived bubbling away in its dolsot.
Korea is famous for its barbecue. That’s the one thing most travelers might know about Korean food – barbecue. And the many barbecue restaurants are super popular with locals. It’s a fun thing to do with a group of family or friends. The ubiquitous restaurants are easy to spot with the ventilation hoods over the table grill. We decided on our last night eating out in Seoul to finally try a barbecue place. We’re not really big meat eaters, but thankfully as with any meal in Korea there’s no worry about getting plenty of veggies.
Was it the cute pig on the sign that drew us in?It was the perfect mix of some tables full, but not too crowded. That way we can watch how other diners proceed but not feel too overwhelmed. That’s a little dish of garlic in oil on our charcoal grill.I was doing my best to be grill master of the meat we got. (We’re still not sure what it was, our translation app was a bit vague on this one.) The other dishes contain an egg soufflé/omelet, pickled daikon, Kimchi, leaves to wrap your bbq in, and loads of other veggies and seaweed. The friendly waitress came over to give me a hand. I was being too careful, she dove in and tossed that meat around!Belly full, happy to have a 15 minute walk to the subway station through little back streets. We did willfully break some food norms. Koreans don’t walk and eat like we Americans do. Everyone else who got ice cream sat at the shop and ate it. We strolled.One final river path walk in the morning before heading by train to the airport.
We had a great time in Korea. The people, the food, the biking, all of it exceeded our expectations. We are in San Francisco now, after a lovely family visit in Colorado, and we head back to France soon to pick up new touring bikes in Germany and then out for cycle touring!
We knew that Koreans love to hike. Even if we hadn’t known that before coming to Seoul the sheer quantity of hikers using the metro would have tipped us off. Boots, backpacks, hiking poles, sun hats, we felt right at home with these transit enabled hikers. We hadn’t planned on turning our time in Seoul into a multi day hiking expedition, but that’s the joy of travel. Sometimes you just never know what’s going to happen and what you’ll find in a new place.
A view from our second or third mountain hike. A view from the Seoul Trail.
You may be realizing that what these views have in common is that we are looking down at the city. Down as in ‘we climbed a lot of darn steps to get up here’.
Looking at one mountain park we climbed, the little one to the right, while climbing another mountain park. Playing the game called find our high rise. The air was quite clear on our first hiking day. Rain was coming in a few days so we hiked three days in a row.
Rich found the first hike for us by seeing the mountain park from our 12th floor window and navigating us there hoping there would be a trail. There was. And there was an amazing accessible boardwalk style trail all the way up to a temple and a cafe. Maps.me was helpful, showing some trails, and Alltrails had some as well, but lacking a great mapping site we relied on Rich’s wonderful navigation skills.
Once we were on the trails the signage was quite good.Very comprehensive signage on the Seoul trail.
Since hikers are getting to and from their hikes on the metro, there are also signs to get you to the trails from the neighborhoods.
Turn here to get to the Seoul trail.A comprehensive hiker sign. I like they have a backpack and a pole. And a big version in case you fail to see the smaller sign. Seoul wraps around and up to some impressive mountains, when you get off the metro you see this. Head that way.
The signage and maps varied in detail, and confusingly played fast and loose with having north be at the top, but on the whole you were well taken care of, signage wise.
A big view of mountains and the trail networks. Including metro stations. A map showing the 156 kilometers of the Seoul trail.
Not only was the number of trail opportunities great, the amenities along the trails, and the construction of the trails were impressive. Very nicely maintained steps, benches and picnic spots, restrooms, and my new favorite thing – carpeted trails. It looks like jute, or coir, and for stretches that are steep up or down, or could get quite muddy, it’s super helpful. It also stops the usual trail ruts from forming, or the footsteps turning into hardened mud. And dang, carpeted trails – what’s not to love about that?
This one was new. You can appreciate the weave. A more worn in stretch of trail carpet. And our much worn Ecco sandals. Restrooms, clean and with potable water unless otherwise noted.A pine grove with plenty of picnic benches. Seating and shade. An accessible trail gently climbs towards the view spot.Where there were stairs they were also well built and maintained. And usually wide enough to handle the crowds of enthusiastic hikers. This was a weekday so there was not as many people as we imagine show up on weekends.Rich heading up.And up. And then down. This hike day, a section of the Seoul Trail, had about 2,000 steps.
It’s not unusual for us to come to a city and skip the A list sights. Doing things we love to do, like hiking or biking, or even just walking city streets, gives us more insight into what life is really like in a place like Seoul. Seeing the neighborhoods far from the tourist friendly zones. Going into restaurants with basically zero idea what kind of food they serve. And hiking trails like these, full of locals. I tell Rich he’s never happier then when there are zero other western tourists. I developed a rating scale for him of tourist bombs – a high of five is a lot of tourists and not going to result in a happy Rich, and a low of one is good, but zero is better. After the tourist bomb rating is the wide eyed locals rating – which shows how surprised the locals seem to be to spot two big foreigners on their trail or in their small neighborhood restaurant. Our best hike was zero tourist bombs, and five wide eyed locals, the highest rating possible in my new rating scale.
A friendly fellow hiker. Even with few common words he and Rich got along over pointing out buildings. This is a typical hiking outfit for the locals. Rich’s is not! Our sandals were definitely unusual.
In addition to good trail signs, there are informational signs about archaeological sites, and signs asking folks to please not collect acorns and chestnuts as the wildlife depend on them.
Good informational signs with english translation.This cute squirrel would like you to leave their food alone.Another reminder to leave nuts on the ground for forage.
You might be thinking, ok, so that’s all impressive and interesting, but lots of places have trails, and signs, and views. Well hold on to your sun hats, there’s more.
Stamps! Like the stamps we didn’t collect along the Seoul to Busan bike route, and in Japanese train stations, there are also stamps we didn’t collect along the Seoul Trail. So cute. Each station has a unique stamp.These. What are they, you ask?Compressed air blowers. To remove the dust from your shoes and trousers before you head back into civilization. The sight of these meant you were nearing the end of your hike. Or a connection out to a neighborhood or metro station.Felt nice to dust off our sandals and legs.Rock stacking. In California this is discouraged behavior, but here it has Buddhist origins, although some folks apparently just like the challenge, adding a rock as they walk by.Ribbon blaze markings, so you can keep to the Seoul Trail at crossroads. A group of adorable young hikers, an entire class went by us, greeting us in Korean. We were charmed.
The unexpected pleasure of hiking in Seoul was highlighted by all the amazing views. As you climbed up, wrapped around, or climbed down a mountain park, you got new views of a different part of this mega city.
A view across graves to a cityscape and another mountain.This high stretch reminded us of Desolation Wilderness near Lake Tahoe.But we never had views like this in Desolation.Scrambling down towards the city and a metro station.Getting closer to civilization and lunch, passing by a community garden site.The reward? Tofu Bibimbap. It was delicious and I let it sizzle in its dolsot (Korean stone bowl) so the rice got nicely crisped on the bottom.
I want to include some tips for hiking in Seoul: Keep your metro card charged up, all the hikes we did are transit friendly. Bring snacks or lunch, the smaller neighborhood parks might have a cafe, but the longer trails that we hiked didn’t. Bring water, we were able to refill on all of our hikes eventually, but bring enough water to last for most of your hike just in case. Now, how to find hikes. You can assume that every mountain you see has trails, but finding a trailhead might be a little tricky. Rich used a combination of google maps, maps.me and All Trails. You can find information about the Seoul Trail at English.Seoul.go.kr and on our links page. If you find yourself confused, ask a local or follow someone in hiking gear.
The happy hikers on one of our Seoul hikes.
We’re at Incheon Airport now, slightly dreading the 12 hour fight to the US. I will definitely do a post about the food we ate while in Korea. The good, the not my favorite, and the mysterious that Google translate failed to help us understand. See you soon San Francisco.
The infrastructure on the 600+ km Cross Country Trail is frequently jaw dropping
South Korea’s rapid industrialization in the past 40 years has been astounding. It’s an economic success story and now the 15th largest economy in the World. In addition to technology and manufactured goods, it now exports its pop culture, with K-pop and K-culture huge global influencers, especially in other Asian countries. Taiwan was visibly crazy for all things Korean when we visited in January.
Getting ready to tour at the Sunbee Hotel in Insadong, SeoulReady to go. We picked up rental panniers the day prior so we could pre pack and then drop our excess baggage at the shop to be forwarded to Busan. Very convenient. A quiet Saturday morning subway ride to the bike shop
We are really enjoying Korea, but for different reasons than Japan. There is an somewhat frenetic energy here combined with a refreshing lassiez faire attitude towards many aspects of life. And again I’ve been awestruck by the differences in cultures just a few hundred miles across the Sea of Japan. Completely distinct cultures. Queues and formalities matter a bit less. And we’ve enjoyed exploring a vast array of Korean foods that we’ve never encountered in our limited Korean food dining in the U.S. There is so much more than Bibimbap and BBQ.
Rental bikes ready outside BikeNara. Now how do we get to the river?On the North Side of the Han River Path. Now this is nice!
We haven’t found as much of the coziness and singular intensity of Japan here yet. It’s certainly here, but not as prevalent. And the young folks seem to have a very different outlook than their parents, and they are visibly two worlds away from the Korea their grandparents grew up in.
We’re bike touring again, yea!The amazing infrastructure begins as we cross to the path on the South Side of the Han. Complete bike and ped paths run on both sides of the river through Seoul for over 20 miles!
They’ve also built some amazing infrastructure, including a massive national flood control program to tame the four largest rivers and make life in their paths more predictable. Part of this dam and flood control program included building long distance bike routes. The complete Cross Country Route is the most famous and runs about 650km from Incheon to Busan. We’ve wanted to check it out for a long time and luckily, there is a bike shop in Seoul that rents touring bikes and panniers, which was perfect as our beloved touring bicycles are half a world away now in France.
Pop up convenience stores and cafes along the busy stretches of the paths in Seoul. Very cool.And benches to take a break to watch the kitted out roadies of Seoul on a SaturdayConvenience store Kimchi Gimbap rolls (pork or tofu) became a staple for me along the route…a little less for Cheryl.But add a crunchy Bugle-like corn snack to the top of the Gimbap and you’ve got a winner.
The challenge for us was the fact that, short of about four days on bike shares in Japan and one speed clunker rentals in Sri Lanka, we’ve been off the bikes for 4 months, and 7 months since last touring! So, after a few days exploring a bit of Seoul, we set out by subway to the bike shop, and traded one consolidated piece of luggage for bikes and panniers. We had the bikes for 8 days, but well over 600km to cycle. Yikes.
Still smiling despite a pretty fierce headwind on Day 1.A big Sushi dinner after a shortish first day due to wind, a stop at Decathlon, and lack of identifiable lodging for another 50km.Ready to start Day 2 after our first night in a love hotel in Hanam City, still in the massive Seoul metro area.Sneaking out the discreet parking access of another love motel.
We had both brought along one pair of good fitting Lycra bike shorts from SF, as well as a long sleeved Jersey that served Cheryl hiking, and outer shorts that have served me for workouts and hiking in our travels. But that’s it for touring gear, as we didn’t want to lug a bunch off extra items for 4 months, just for a week of touring. So we bought gloves (can always use another pair) a few water bottles, and I picked up a new touring jersey with back pockets (a ‘must’ for touring IMO).
A bit of construction along the way, but always accommodated. Although this was worrying.But Day 2 amazed us through the most spectacular infrastructure stages of the route.
So fitness was one challenge, lack of kit another, and third, and most importantly, the fit of the bikes. My Giant aluminum bike fit me ok as the XL frame generally worked for reach and height, but Cheryl’s bike had too long a reach and low handlebars. Of course, both bike seats were new to our rear ends, which can always have unpredictable results…
Covered cabanas with river views.So many bike bridges.And 10 tunnels restored from the old rail line.With artful lighting inside.
But the bikes were otherwise decent, with good disc breaks, tires, a decent gear range, and a rear rack. We missed our Ortlieb front handle bar bag and fenders, but bought a some cheap top bar bags at a Decathlon.
Multi-modal corridors along a lot of the River basins The official signs helped navigate the Four Rivers Path (aka Cross Country Trail).
The cycling was about 75% on separated pathway and the route was beautiful and varied. Bridges, tunnels, dams, viaducts, and boardwalks were everywhere, making the route really fun to ride. It’s an impressive network and we felt like we saw so much of the untouristed interior that most people miss, especially once beyond massive Seoul.
Just when I need a sign.Convenience Stores are everywhere in Korea.The spring beauty continues along the Namhangang River. The flowers are lovely too.Lunch stop…yup, Gimbap again!
It was mostly pleasant, but a few stretches were very industrial, including many of the larger cities with lodging along the way. You really get a taste for the vast mountains of Korea, and the vast industrialization that has powered their unprecedented rise to the first world.
Airplane or flood control…the taming of the four rivers takes a lot.This engineer is impressed.
There were also some surprising challenges with finding lodging, as we were booking on the fly to allow for weather and other variations on daily mileage in an unknown world. But without a Korean Credit Card, only Agoda worked for booking. Other sites exist but have few listings. And we could do a whole post on Korean Love Motels (often called Hotels) but let’s just say they are a staple of lodging outside the biggest cities and vary from unsurprisingly cheesy to a more streamlined business feel. If you cycle tour, you will likely stay at one (or three as we did). They are generally clean and safe, and many rooms resemble super hi-tech man caves more than a honeymoon suite in the Poconos. One of our rooms was pretty nice, including amazing 65” UHD smart TV!
And the day ends with a rewarding dinner in the SunValley Hotel in Yeoju, not a Love Hotel and bike friendly!Day 3 right onto the path outside the hotel
But we soon got into the groove and really enjoyed 5 days of challenging riding. On Day 6 though, we decided to look at bus options to get us closer to Busan as we were both a bit tired and didn’t want to risk longer long term effects of tendinitis in my knees or Cheryl’s wrist (our weak points). We had figured out that we wouldn’t make it comfortably to Busan in time to return our bikes, and wanted to avoid the last day of heavy rain predicted. So we rode to the main bus depot in Gumi and caught a bus to the outskirts of Busan, saving us 150-200km of the trail.
Wow, more flood control awesomeness The trail profile is deceiving as many places have small ups and downs that add up, a few stretches that require dismounting.Slight Detour to our favorite convenience store chain in a farm town.
A great thing about cycling in Korea is that almost all long distance buses take bikes without charge or hassle. You just throw your bikes in the luggage compartments underneath. You’re usually no more than 20 or 30k from a bus depot, although they can be off the trail a few km or 30 depending on the segment. There is lots of info online about buses and routes, and I found KoreabyBike.com useful for an overview and general info related to the long distance trails.
Signage was sometimes tricky.We ride on, a little flatter but still some headwind…but we could use a boost…Like a surprise dumpling cafe on the trail!And then met some friendly Australians (living in New Zealand) to chat away the clicks!Kate and Pete were great fun and energetic, and had a friendly Korean film crew following them for days in a tourism plug. We’ll see if we made the cut and hope to meet them again.
Another great thing is that water, bathrooms, and convenience stores are frequent. The surfaces are generally smooth and road grit and glass was not a big issue (No flats or mechanicals for us -:). This all makes it less stressful, and makes up for the challenges of language barriers, quirky lodging, and unfamiliar food in small cities and towns.
Awesome bathrooms Korea.The glamorous start of Day 4 from another love hotel parking lot in Chungju.Day 4 brought rain, cold, and two mountain passes…plastic bag travel hack being installed in a great bus shelter (with sliding doors!).Up the big climb of Ihwa Mountain pass in a welcome lull of the rain. There was so little weekday traffic that we could easily ride in the smooth road instead of the patched bike lane.And up.Plastic bag booties on our feet and under our bike shorts helped a bit on the 43/6c decent in the rain…but it was cold.The days profile…Ihwa mountain pass is sort of the N-S continental divide of South Korea; separating the Han and Nakdong drainages.A chance to warm up climbing to one of the many cultural points of interest along the way, such as these ancient Buddha cave carvings.
But we are so glad we did the ride and are happy that we were able to get back a bit into our favorite touring groove. Nothing beats rolling down a winding path through unfamiliar terrain, never knowing who or what is around the bend.
A surprise public hot spring foot bath saves us for the home stretch of Day 4. We took about 20 minutes to thaw our feet and hands.More rain but always surprises to keep you going.And some pork and tripe stew to warm us back up that night.
By the way, navigating in Korea is not always easy as Google Maps does not really work due to strict server data hosting laws. Google maps won’t give you cycling or walking navigation. And the two most popular Korean Apps, Naver and Kakao, only take a bit of English, so you need to try to constantly cross reference names and Hangul script. Or, pick something near where you want to go on the Korean apps that is identifiable. And note we found the cycling routes suggested by Komoot in the cities to be better than Kakao, as Kakao often routes bikes on arterial sidewalks.
Day 5 into Gumi includes a kilometer of river viaduct and finally a strong tail wind!
To be honest, at first brush, Korea felt a little harsh to us after Japan and Sri Lanka. We also have been disappointed to see Korea’s embrace of long distance paths, but not urban and everyday cycling as a culture or significant solution to transport in cities, even small ones.
Bus tickets to Busan And no zombies on the bus.
It was often a bit hairy off the paths, especially in Busan, as there is very little accommodation for cyclists in most places. And consequently very few urban or suburban cyclists riding for transport. This a huge difference from Japan, where cycling in small cities was a staple, albeit on somewhat substandard shared sidewalk paths. They have some shared sidewalk paths in Korea, but most are too narrow and too pedestrianized to be practical.
The paths and countryside are so nice, but haven’t extended to city infrastructure The main bus station was 18km north of our hotel in Busan, so we were glad to be able to ride some of the Oncheoncheon corridor It reminded us of the amazing Cheonggyecheon in Seoul, but you can cycle the Oncheon. Both were restored in the 2000sOff the trails, there was little space for bikesDay 7 smiles as we rode another 18km to the bike shop…Busan is huge.Backstreets are your best bet in BusanEasy return at the partner bike shop.Bikes and panniers gone, now back to the subway.
But the country and its people have really grown on us. Cheryl will share more about our other experiences, including our 10 days in Seoul, a city that has way more to offer than it first presents. We are also pleased to see that President Yoon and his wife visited the Bidens recently in Washington DC and that the two countries have strengthened a strategic partnership and resolve to protect democracy.
The Busan Chicken was everywhere, plugging for Busan’s bid for the 2030 World ExpoEnjoying the buzzy Busan nightlife in Seomyeon.
South Korea is a great friend to keep close, and not just because they are so much fun to hang out with.
Less Car, More Life 