Riding Into The Past.
About a month ago, Jodi over at Asia Pages blogged about the “good old days” of Korea and how society has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. Many commentors, myself included, waxed nostalgic about some of the things we missed from the days gone by.
I am a country boy. I grew up in Nibley, a town of around 1,000 people on the outskirts of Logan, Utah. There were probably more cows than people there. I grew up in the heart of the Rockie Mountains. However, I have become somewhat resigned to the fact that I will be living here in Pusan, a city of about 5,000,000 people, for the forseeable future. I spend the vast majority of my time in big cities here in Korea. Seoul, Daegu, and Pusan.
Living and working in the city, taking the express way to other big cities, barreling down the KTX bullet train tracks from city to city, I forget what is outside of the cities. I just assume that it is the same everywhere as it is in the big cities.
This past weekend, I went for a long, relaxing motorcycle ride deep into the Korean countryside. My ride took me up the coast from Pusan, past the nuclear power plant, and west from there into the country.
As the highways gave way to smaller roads, and the smaller roads gave way to country lanes, the stress, smell, highrise canyons, complexity and oppressiveness of the city fell further and further behind. I slipped into the rolling meditation that is unique to motorcyclists slowly winding their way way through country roads.
My soul delighted in the smells of the onion fields and manure, seeing the turquoise and white of the ocean waves crashing against the rocky shore, the sight of farmers working in their fields, and the flocks of birds that scattered as the massive Harley engine cut through the afternoon stillness.
It was somehow reassuring to ride through small village after small village where no buildings are higher than one story and where there is only one short street of necessary businesses…no starbucks, no McDonalds, no department stores, no big grocery stores. It was as if I rode out of the present and 20 or 30 years into the past. Back to the Korea that others and I remember.
I regret that I was not able to take pictures of the sights and scenes. However, I was riding with another biker and could not ask him to stop every few minutes.
Somewhere near the halfway point of my ride, I stopped and took a picture of my new Harley-Davidson 2006 Streetbob. There are a few customizations left to be done. I will take more detailed pictures after the customization is completed in a month or so.
