Ruminations in Korea

Summer riding in Korea can be quite tricky. There are several factors that can potentially complicate any planned ride. The main ever-present variables are potential rainstorms that can develop within the space of a few hours, typhoons, and the intense heat combined with humidity.

This particular ride was delayed for two weeks due to torrential rain on the originally scheduled day. Even hours before this ride, I wasn’t sure whether or not the rain falling across the country would stop or at least have enough breaks that it wouldn’t be constantly raining all weekend long.

Mercifully, the rain stopped early Saturday morning, but the skies remained dark, heavy, and overcast.

When planning each long distance ride, I try to take as many new roads as possible. As Pusan is located in the very Southeast corner of Korea and surrounded by ocean on two sides and a wide river one side, there are only a few roads that you can take to get out of town. However, once you get out into the countryside, a vast spidery network of roads opens up.

As I was on no particular schedule and no particular deadline, I decided to begin my trip by taking the scenic route out of Pusan.

At 2:00 pm, I rode north out of Pusan on highway 35 following the course of subway line 2. The last stop on subway line 2 is Hopo Station. Directly across the street from Hopo Station is a small road that turns Northwest into the countryside. Highway 35 is the dividing line between Pusan and the rest of Korea.

Just before I got to Hopo Station, some guy that was in the left turn lane suddenly darted back into traffic right in front of me. He did not signal or offer any other indication that he was going to jump on the accelerator and leap into my lane. I laid on the horn and heaved my bike into the next lane, thereby avoiding an accident.

As I pulled up along side of the car, I saw that the guy was talking on his mobile phone. At the next street light, I pulled up to his car again and told him to hang up his phone and pay attention to what he was doing. He then did something that I absolutely hate with a passion. He held up his hand and nodded at me.

This gesture angers me more than any other Korean driver behavior. The gesture means “i’m sorry for being an idiot and almost killing you.” This little hand flash and nod, sometimes accompanied by a tight, forced smile is supposed to make everything better, and the receiver of the sign is supposed to give their unconditional forgiveness to the jerk. I cannot play that game. That gesture just infuriates me. If it was an accident or something like that, then it’s ok. However, when the action that precipitated the need for the gesture is a deliberate act by someone who doesn’t think they need to pay attention to anyone else on the road, then it sets me off.

I loudly asked him if that little hand gesture was supposed to make everything ok. I asked whether that little hand gesture would bring me back to life if I had ended up slamming into the side of his car and dying. I yelled at him for cutting in front of me and talking on his phone while driving. I yelled at him for nearly causing an accident and told him to hang up his phone and watch what he was doing so that he didn’t kill somebody. Rather than saying he was sorry, he actually started yelling at me about being an ignorant foreigner. I laughed. The light turned green and I continued on my way.

As I arrived at Hopo Station and was waiting in the left turn lane, the guy pulled up along side of me and started screaming at me about how he didn’t try to hit me and how I had no right to yell at him. After every sentence, I would say “why are you yelling at me? Did I do something wrong? It’s your fault.”

After about 15 seconds of this, he challenged me to a fight. He demanded that I pull over so he could fight me. I laughed loudly and said, “Look. I didn’t do anything wrong. You did. I should be forcing you off the road and beating you up. Why do you think I should waste my time pulling over for something you did?” Then, he started cursing and turning purple.

I turned left onto the small road across from Hopo Station, but the guy didn’t follow, so I continued on my way. Within two minutes, I was riding parallel to the railroad tracks through farming country toward the very small village of Mulgeum.

Navigating through the Mulgeum stretch of road can be quite confusing for the first-time visitor. To get into Mulgeum, you must follow the road down a very steep dip in the road with a couple of speed bumps at the bottom and up the other side of the dip. Then you ride a few minutes more before coming to a second dip in the road. However, at the bottom of this second dip, you turn right and pass under the train tracks and up into Mulgeum.

When I say that Mulgeum is a small village, I mean that it is very small. Riding at slow speed, you can pass through the entire village in about thirty seconds. Once you pass through the intersection in Mulgeum (Yes. THE intersection. There is only one main intersection in town), the road gets a bit confusing at the signs are not that clear.

After passing through the intersection and riding to the northern edge of the village, the main road continues on out of town toward Yangsan. However, there is a smaller road that sort of branches off to the left. Take the smaller road to the left and once you are on that road, you want to take the first left and follow the road up a very steep hill and turn left at the top of the hill onto local road 1022. If you are on a scooter, small bike, or are not an expert at clutching and throttling on steep inclines, you should continue along the smaller road for a few more seconds until you can take a hairpin turn to the left onto a road that heads up the mountain. This puts you on local road 1022.

On this ride, I followed 1022 up over the mountain and down the other side and through the village of Wondong.

The road continues toward Samnangjin village and passes over another mountain.

Coming down out off the mountain, I always enjoy the view of Samnangjin Dam off in the distance.

I stayed on 1022 straight into downtown Samnangjin.

Near the main intersection of the village, there is an elementary school with a fairly large grocery store across the street. I often stop there to stretch my legs, have a bottle of water, and take a bathroom break. However, on this day, I decided to continue on through Samnangjin without stopping.

Highway 1022 came to an end in Samnangjin and turned on to highway 58 and rode under the train tracks on my way toward Miryang. Highway 58 quickly climb up into the mountains and the ride down affords a beautiful view of the Nakdong River valley.

I rode into Miryang and stopped for a short rest at the convenience store next to the train station as I always do. While stopped, a few stray raindrops fell on my tank.

After re-hydrating myself, I took off through Miryang and eventually came to the sign pointing me left onto highway 24. Highway 24 continues on level ground for quite a while before climbing a relatively big mountain by way of a very fun series of twisties.

This road up Cheonwangsan mountain is very popular with sportbike riders because of the twists and turns. On any weekend with good weather, you can find dozens to hundreds of sportbikers racing up and down this road. The road bears the marks of numerous motorcycle accidents as peoples’ bikes have lost their grips on the road going around the corners.

At the top of the mountain on the left-hand side of the road is a little restaurant that serves excellent noodles and Korean onion and seafood pancakes (Haemul Pajeon…or if you don’t speak Korean, just say “Korean Pizza” and the ladies will understand.). This restaurant is a MUST stop location. The food is excellet, the outdoor seating is right on the edge of a cliff that lets you enjoy the spectacular scenery of the valley and the winding road below.

By the time I finished what was to be my dinner, it was 5:00 pm, and the clouds were darkening around me. It was time to get moving.

I rode down the mountain and through the town of Changnyeong. Staying on 24, I followed the road along a river and through some cool wetlands. Eventually, the road crossed the river and ran along the other bank of the river into the town of Hapcheon.

At Hapchoen, highway 24 makes a quick turn northward toward the town of Goryeong and toward Haeinsa Temple. However, after a few minutes on highway 24, I turned westward and headed toward the city of Geochang. It was starting to get dark.

In my opinion the 20 or 25 minute ride between Hapcheon and Geochang is among the most beautiful stretches of road I have seen. It starts at Hapchoen lake.

The road runs for several miles along the top of a river valley.

It is a very captivating ride.

It is a very raw, primitive stretch of road with rough, tree-covered mountains rolling off into the distance, and lush greenery lining the meandering river.

Eventually, the valley ends and highway 24 runs back into the mountains.

It began to rain before I reached and passed through Geochang.

A short distance later, highway 24 reached the small village of Anui. By this time, it was dark. At Anui, I turned onto highway 26.

Traveling West on highway 26 the road runs down out of the mountains in a series of tight switchbacks that must be taken slowly in order to avoid mishap. The rain had stopped, but the roads were wet and slippery.

Highway 26 reached the town of Janggye and I peel off northward onto highway 19 toward Muju and eventually to the town of Youngdong.

The ride up highway 19 is an easy and relaxing ride through moutains and famland in the daytime.

However, at night, and expecially on a dark, rainy, cloud-covered night it is black.

There are no light source from anywhere except other cars, but they are very far and few between. Thus, in the blackness of highway 19, the only world that exists is the world moving through the cast of the bike’s headlight. Extreme caution should be used on this road at night. This is particularly true around Muju because there are speed bumps place inexplicably at seemingly random spots in the road.

In the daylight hours, highway 19 between Janggye and Youngdong offers a beautiful ride through mountains, rolling hills, small village.

In summer, during and after the rainy season, the vivid and vibrant greens of the trees, grasses, and rice fields, can be almost overwhelming at times.

As this road is not heavily travelled in the Summer, it can be quite nice and calming to stop for a rest and just absorb the quietude of nature.

In this busy country, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find places where the only sounds are insects, frogs, and wind through the trees.

It rained for about an hour as I worked my way toward Youngdong. I had to make two stops to clean the bugs off of my visor and lights. Wet and cold, I eventually reached Youngdong. My joints were stiff from cold and the intense concentration of riding at night, in the rain, on unfamiliar road.

Youngdong marks the return to civilization. Although it is a relatively small town, it is a nice place to stop for a bite to eat and to rest.

From there highway 4 takes you into the city of Daejeon. Daejon offers some good restaurants, movie theaters, nightlife and the other amenities of big cities. You can find these things and inexpensive motels in the area around Daejeon train station.

The ride from Pusan to Daejeon along the above course took approximately 9 1/2 hours. I was wondering how much of that time was attributable to darkness and rain. I also wanted to take some pictures that I couldn’t take because of the rain and to see what i had missed in the darkness. So, the next morning I took off back along the same route I took from Pusan. All told, including rest and meal breaks, the return time would have been about the same.

However, as I was eager to get back home and rest up for the coming work week, I turned South on highway 5 when I reached Changnyeong. I raced to highway 5 to Masan and then took highway 2 back in to Pusan.

If you are trying to get from Pusan to Daejeon quickly, this is not the route to take. The fastest way I have found takes approximately 5 hours. This is an amazing ride if you are looking for a leisurely ride through beautiful mountains, small villages, and farm land.

View More photos of the trip by clicking on the picture.

Click on the map for a more detailed view of the route.

I have no motivation for blogging about Korea any more.  After 20 years of experience with Korea, I have seen the birth of a democracy and the development of a vibrant economy.

However, as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Everyday, it is the same media propaganda, the same political scandals, the same social problems, the same xenophobia, the same nationalistic garbage, the same excuses, the same corporate scandals, the same mass hysteria, the same good things, the same bad things, just a different day and different people.

I barely read the Korean newspapers any more.  I hardly ever watch Korean news.  I make it a point never to discuss politics with anyone anymore, especially if it involves the US.  In a nutshell, I’m weary.  I’m even wearier of blogging about any of it.   Very rarely do I see anything new or original in Korean society to write or comment about.

I’m two weeks away from my first vacation in three years.  It is much needed.  My life batteries were completely depleted a very long time ago.  It’s time to recharge.

Because of my lack of interest in blogging about Korea, I haven’t post very much at all in the past year or so.  Paradoxically, now that I have decided not to blog about “Korea,” i expect that I will be posting more frequently in the future.  However, I expect that my blogs will be more about me and what I’m doing here in Korea.

We’ll see.

From an awesome headline: “South Korean internet geeks trigger panic over US ‘tainted beef’ imports”

To a great opening paragraph:

Tens of thousands of young internet-obsessed South Koreans, whipped into a frenzy by alarmist television programmes, a complex scientific paper on genetics and a hyperactive online rumour-mill, have held candlelit vigils protesting against imports of American beef.

To one of the best news quotes I have ever read:

. “I just want to live and fulfill my career dreams, not die mad like an American cow,”

The following article from the Times Online is a great summation of all of the idiocy surrounding the korean anti-US beef imort firestorm”.

Tens of thousands of young internet-obsessed South Koreans, whipped into a frenzy by alarmist television programmes, a complex scientific paper on genetics and a hyperactive online rumour-mill, have held candlelit vigils protesting against imports of American beef.

Believing that the meat carries a high risk of BSE and that Koreans are genetically predisposed to contracting the linked Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the online masses have taken to the streets, cursing America and demanding that their Government should act to avert catastrophe.

Two features of the protests have caught the authorities, the Government and teachers offguard.

The first is that, unlike the mobs that have contributed to South Korea’s long history of street rallies, more than half of the demonstrators are below university age.
Related Links

Some teachers approve of the rallies, others condemn them, but all agree that their students are spending too much time in cyberspace.

The second is the virulence of the xenophobia on and offline: despite sweeping to power on a more foreigner-friendly ticket, Lee Myung Bak, South Korea’s new President, leads a country with substantial anti-American feeling.

Behind the fury and panic is the decision made last month by Mr Lee to allow US-produced beef back into the country after a five-year hiatus.

South Korea, with other Asian nations, suspended imports in 2003 after cattle in the US were found to have BSE: the protesters are convinced that the ban has been lifted too soon and with too many concessions to Washington.

On the many new BSE-related websites that have sprung-up in the last week, the language is little short of hysterical. Pseudo-science, anti-Americanism and teenage angst have produced a staggering volume of web traffic.

“Are we fated to die so young?” wailed a typical post. “I just want to live and fulfill my career dreams, not die mad like an American cow,” wrote another.

Over the past couple of days, virtually every teenager in Seoul has received the same text message on mobile phones, “Schools closed next Thursday”.

The information is bogus, but authorities are steeling themselves for street demonstrations on the grandest scale. By the weekend the protesters’ numbers are expected to rise tenfold.

The BSE scare has already made its practical effects felt. After a two month honeymoon period in power, Mr Lee has approval ratings below 30 per cent.

The name Gary Gygax means nothing to you unless you are a true, old school, uber dork like me.

Gary Gygax is dead at age 69. Who is this man?

MILWAUKEE - Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

With all of his hit points gone, Gygax the Great dies, his spirit doomed to roam the dungeons of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin forever as a Level 99 Specter.

My fascination with and love for motorcycles began when I was twelve or thirteen years old. No. That’s not entirely accurate. Although I had never actually been near a motorcycle, let alone sat on one or ridden on one, my fascination with bikes began much earlier than that.

I was a child of the 1970s. For a child in my neighborhood, the 1970s meant spending a lot of time riding bicycles, and it meant Evel Knievel. Watching Evel jump cars, buses, and other things was a family event. My older brother, my father, I, and sometimes my mother, would sit in front of the television and watch his jumps when they were broadcast on programs such as ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

The next day, my friends and I would get together and talk about how cool the jump was. Evel was a god. We were only six years old, but we knew that we wanted to be Evel Knievel.

Evel and his marketing people were nothing short of geniuses. He was one of the main forces behind the revitalization of the stagnant 1970s toy industry. Every male child of every age had at least one product with Evel Knievel’s image on it. My brother had an Evel Knievel lunch box. I had an action figure. We both had one of the coolest toys ever made, the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle.

The Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle is a toy that benefited from the days before product liability lawsuits and toy recalls took a lot of the fun out of being a kid. I seriously doubt that the Stunt Cycle could exist today in its original form. It was a plastic motorcycle that carried an Evel Knievel action figure. The bike mounted onto a geared platform with a large crank on the side. To make the bike work, you would turn the crank as quickly as possible to wind the bike up. The motorcycle would emit this high-pitched whine that would increase in pitch and volume as the crank was turned faster and faster. Once you got the crank to maximum speed and volume, you hit the release button and the bike would scream away across the kitchen floor, driveway, or other hard surface. At least that is what was supposed to happen.

The commercials showed the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle racing away, popping wheelies, jumping over other toys, and similar exciting possibilities. However, the reality was that the bike would travel about two feet before making a hard right turn and crashing to the floor. If you are lucky, you could have the pleasure of watching it spin in tight circles on its side as the wound up gears in the rear tire mechanism wound down to a halt.

Another thing that the commercials didn’t show was the blood and chunks of skin that millions of children left across the driveways of America. The crank
on the Stunt Cycle platform was about one inch above the ground at its lowest point. That mean that as you cranked away as fast as your little hand would go, if you didn’t pay close attention, your knuckles would hit the ground and scrape along the pavement leaving bits and pieces of your knuckles behind. A few bloody knuckles were never enough to make you put the toy away. However, I am convinced that the makers of that fine toy were in cahoots with the bandage industry.

My first bike accident, of which I have absolutely no memory, was me riding my tricycle off of the front porch at three or four year of age apparently in an attempt to jump some rose bushes. That accident was the source of a small, still-visible scar below my bottom lip.

From three wheels, I eventually graduated to my first two-wheeler. The first day I rode solo on my brother’s bike without dad holding on to the back was also the day I got my first black eye. I rode out of our driveway and part way down the block before turning around and in a moment of “Gee, look! I’m riding by myself” inattention, I was looking at my parents rather than the road in front of me. I rode straight into the back of our big, pink Pontiac car.

Once I got the hang of riding a bicycle, the first modification I made to the bike was to attach a clothes pin to the bike frame and insert a baseball card into the clothes pin and between the spokes of the bike. Then, whenever I rode my bike, the spokes would make a flap, flap, flap noise against the baseball card, which made it sound like a motorcycle. Just like the one Evel Knievel had.

Over the next couple of years, I watched my brother and his friends make ramps out of wood so that he had his buddies could jump over things…just like Evel Knievel. Well, monkey see, monkey do. Soon my friends and I were jumping over piles of dirt, bricks, cinderblocks, and occasionally someone who was stupid enough to lay on the ground between the take off and landing ramps, when we had landing ramps.

Helmets, pads, and jackets were unheard of when I was growing up. How I and my friends survived our childhood is a mystery to me.

Then came the fateful day when I was twelve or thirteen years old. Out of nowhere, and without warning whatsoever, my quite conservative and straight-laced father rolled up the driveway on a cherry red motorcycle. The bike was a beautiful 1975 Honda CB400. The in-line exhaust pipes and the chrome front fender looked awesome. This was a real motorcycle. There were no baseball cards in the spokes of this baby. To my eyes, it was 400ccs of pure Evel Knievel.

I didn’t even know my dad could ride a motorcycle. The question on the lips of most members of the family was “why did you buy it.” My question was, “when will you take me for a ride.”

Evel Knievel…Coolest Guy Ever!

On the train down from Seoul yesterday:

Conversation 1

“You are in my seat.”

“This is my assigned seat.”

“No. I have a ticket. This is my seat.”

“I have a ticket for this seat. Here. Car 16 seat 15C. See?”

“Oh? [raising voice and drawing attention from other passengers] I don’t know where you got yours, but I just got mine from the ticket window.”

“I reserved mine a long time ago.”

“Well, you will have to move because this is my seat.”

“I’m not going anywhere because I am in the right seat.”

“Well.. what are you going to do?”

“Let me see your ticket.” [inspeting ticket] “You are on the wrong train.

“No I’m not.”

Yes you are. Look. Your ticket says 3:30. This is the 3:00 train.”

[becoming visibly angry] “No. I bought a ticket for the 3:00 train.”

“It doesn’t matter what you thought you did. You have a ticket for the 3:30 train. Look. Right there. See? It says 3:30pm. See the tv monitor? That says this is the 3:00 train to Pusan. You are on the wrong train. The train is leaving in about 2 minutes, so you should get off now before it’s too late.”

“Oh. I’m so angry.” [Stomps off of train]

Conversation 2

[Young military guy in uniform approaches and says, in English] “Excuse me, sir. May I get through.”

“Sure” [stand up so he can get to the inside seat]

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

15 minutes later

“Excuse me, sir.”

“Yes?”

[points apologetically at his Burger King bag] “Do you mind if I eat my lunch?”

“No. Not at all. Please do!”

“I have two hamburgers, sir. Do you want one?”

[Rather surprised and flattered] “Oh. No thank you. I just ate while waiting for the train. But thank you very much.”

“Are you sure? You may have one.”

“No No… Thank you very much. But I couldn’t. Please. You eat them.”

Korea confirmed Today (July 31) a second Korean hostage has been killed in Afghanistan, denouncing Taliban militants for committing the “barbarity.”

“One of our citizens kidnapped in Afghanistan, Shim Sung-min, was confirmed on July 31 to have been killed,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong said in a press briefing.

The official confirmation came over 12 hours after a Taliban spokesman said the militants had shot and killed a male hostage because the Afghan government failed to trade the hostages for Taliban prisoners.

“The government cannot hide its anger and strongly denounces the Taliban militants for brutally murdering (Shim) while our government was doing its best and working closely with the Afghan government to win the safe release of our citizens,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The bullet-riddled body of Shim was found on a road near the city of Ghazni, where 23 Korean aid workers were kidnapped on July 19, according to reports.

The 42-year-old leader of the group, Presbyterian pastor Bae Hyung-kyu, was shot dead last Wednesday after Kabul refused to release jailed Taliban fighters.

Shim, a native of Goseong in South Gyeongsang Province, had worked at an IT company in Seoul but recently moved to Seongnam, just south of the capital, where he said he wanted to do volunteer work while attending graduate school.

The 30-year-old was remembered by his family as a very dutiful son, while his friends said Shim was always the first in line to offer help to anyone less fortunate, especially the disabled.

Earlier today, Kevin over at Big Hominid stated:

I don’t understand how Lindsay Lohan’s recent arrest … is more newsworthy than the terrifying drama unfolding in Central Asia. What exactly am I missing? A cynic might say this is a reality check for Koreans…

I think it is more of a reality check for the Koreans to look at themselves and whether the hostage situation is more important that a semi-final game of the Asian Cup football/soccer tournament.

During the game, it was announced that 8 of the Korean hostages in Afganistan had been released. Shortly thereafter Al Jazeera reported that one of the Korean hostages had been killed by the Taliban. I noticed the story during a quick check of the news during a lull in the soccer match. The story was then picked up by Reuters.

Did KBS2 break into the soccer match to announce that 8 hostages had been released or that one hostage has been reported killed? No.

Did KBS2’s soccer announcers mention the news? No.

Did KBS2 run a crawler across the bottom of the screen to announce the breaking news? No, but they did run a crawler apologizing for preempting a comedy program because the soccer match went into overtime, and they sent another crawler across the screen assuring viewers that some drama would be shown immediately after the game and gave a brief synopsis of the upcoming episode.

It seems that KBS2 thinks the outcome of a sporting event is more important that the outcome of a hostage crisis and reports of their countrymen being murdered.

Update:

Al Jazeera is now confirming that one Korean has been killed:

The Taliban has killed one of 23 South Korean hostages after negotiations for their release broke down, according to a Taliban spokesman.

James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Afghanistan, said that he was told by the spokesman that “a male hostage had been killed and his body was left next to the main Kabul-Kandahar highway.”

The Afghan government confirmed the Taliban had killed one of the captives on Wednesday.

“I can confirm that one of the hostages has been killed by the Taliban,” Waheedullah Mujadadi, the head of the Afghan delegation negotiating for the release of the South Koreans, told the AFP news agency.

Taliban set a “final deadline” of 20:30 GMT on Wednesday for their demands for a prisoner swap to be met.

In the biker world, it is common and often expected for male bkers to give other male bikers hugs. Here is a good instructional video on how to give non-threatening, man-to-man hugs that will adequately display camaraderie while simultaneously avoiding a beatdown.

Are Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank Chief, and this Gringotts Bank Chief from Harry Potter twins?

I am amused.

Let the Korean Netizen war machine roll into action.

(Thanks to Marmot)

In order to give the long-haul bike riding season an appropriate kick off, a group of 13 riders on 10 bikes took to the road for a two-day ride to the islands of Namhae last week. It’s not a long ride. It can be done in about three hours if you ride straight through at a good speed. However, that was not the purpose of the ride.

The night before the ride, I did something that I haven’t done in about 8 months. I washed my bike. It looks kind of pretty when it’s all nice and shiny.

The group came together at around 9:00 am on Saturday morning. We met at the McDonalds in Kimhae where the service has a reputation for being less than satisfactory. The group went in for breakfast. I was quite pleased that they managed to get the order right, but I wasn’t too happy that it took almost 30 minutes to get my fast-food order of a sausage egg McMuffin.

After everyone had eaten, maps to the location were distributed and we were off.

This group ride was unlike any other group ride I had ever been on. I am used to organized group rides where there is a pre-ride meeting where we discuss the details of the route to where we are going, ride rules, safety, etc. before mounting up and leaving as a group. This ride had more of a disorganized road race feel to it. The maps were handed out without much discussion, some people immediately jumped on their bikes and fired up their engines while others were still packing. I was still standing next to my bike with my helmet and gloves in my hand when the first riders took off. The other riders scrambled to take off. Eventually, I and another rider were the only two left where there once had been nine bikes. I grumbled something about how that was some pretty sloppy group riding. Luckily, the other rider, Iceman, and I have the largest bikes by far and caught up to the other riders easily.

It soon became clear that my original feelings were correct. This wasn’t really a group ride. It was more of a bunch of individuals heading in the same direction toward the same destination. Riders were passing each other. Riders were riding all over the road. Riders were running read lights. Riders were barely sliding between cars. Riders were not communicating with each other. Basically, it was a recipe for disaster. Not wanting to be part of any such foolishness, Iceman and I hung back quite a distance from the riders in front. There were a few riders in the “group” several kilometers behind us.

Despite several close calls, the group make the 30 minute ride from Kimhae to Changwon to meet up with the final rider.

We then went on another free-for-all ride through downtown Masan and up into the mountains toward our first gas stop. While the smaller bikes and those with bad gas mileage fueled up, the rest of us stood around and got stared at by the local for twenty minutes or so.

Then we were off on the main leg of the trip to Namhae. The road from Masan to Goseong was quite crowded with weekend traffic. However, once we arrived at Goseong and turned off the main road and headed toward the coast, traffic thinned out and the scenery was gorgeous. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of pictures from this trip. When I am riding alone, I will stop about every 5 minutes to take pictures of looking around, but when riding as a group, I don’t do that. The purpose of a group ride is to ride, not stop and take pictures. However, I did take some video of the ride.

The arrival at Namhae is always enjoyable as the road winds over a serious of bridges to the main island. The view was exceptionally spectacular this time as the fields of bright yellow spring flowers contrasted with the bright orange bridges.

After crossing over the bridges, we rode to a rest stop for a pre-lunch snack and a leg stretch.

The nice thing about this particular rest stop is the spectacular view of the ocean across the street (click the picture for a larger view).

We hit the road again for the 30 minute ride to the place where we were supposed to have lunch. On the way to the restaurant, we passed the tulip festival, the garlic festival, and some sort of fish festival.

Once we arrived at the designated lunch location, we parked our bikes on the street and looked for the parking attendant to give us our parking slips.
The parking attendant was standing across the street just looking at us. We stood on our side of the street looking expectantly at him. He appeared genuinely frightened to talk to the 13 mostly foreign bikers. There were a few Koreans in the group, so he shouldn’t have had any worries. A group of us stood around waiting for him to come over to us while the others marched off toward the restaurant. After waiting for another minute or so, we figured that if he didn’t want to talk to us, then we didn’t want to talk to him either. So we marched off to join the others.

It turned out that the restaurant was full, so we went to a Korean restaurant that serves up short-order items like noodles, soups, and sushi rolls. We took the restaurant by surprise. We invaded right at lunch time when the restaurant was handling a lot of delivery orders. It took about 45 minutes to get everyone served.

About halfway through the wait, the parking attendant guy had screwed up enough courage to approach us about the parking. A 10 minute conversation ensued wherein it was determined that we would have to pay 2,000 won ( about US$ 1.80) to park there.

After lunch we ran into another major organizational disaster. Again, some people seemed to be in too much of a hurry to wait for others. They had their bikes started and they took off before others were even close to being ready.

The end result was that the people in the “group” were scattered for 10 to 15 kilometers. The people in front were angry at those in the back for not stopping the group from leaving… The people in back were angry because the other people left without waiting. Iceman and I were just about ready to head back to look for the last part of the group, when we were told by others in the group that they had spoken with the people in back by cell phone. If people in the same group are scattered so far apart that you have to communicate by cell phone, then there are problems.

We waited a total of about 20 minutes for everyone to finally get together to begin the final leg of the ride around Namhae to the motel where we would be staying. While waiting, I snapped this picture of some farmland being prepared for Spring planting.

We wound our way around the island through tiny villages and along sheer cliffs to our destination at Songjeong Beach in Namhae. The motel was quite nice and right on the beach.Before dinner, I went to the beach to take some pictures and stretch out my legs.

(Click for larger picture)

After a short rest, we had dinner then went back to the beach to have a meeting and discuss the ride. I expressed my opinion about the poor organization and unsafe riding practices of the group. I hope it did some good. None of the riders in that group were bad riders. They just sucked as a group.

The last thing that was said by the group leader before everyone went to there separate rooms was “no calls before 9:00 am, and we will try to leave around 10:00 am.”

I watched a bit of television before going to sleep. I turned my phone off to get a good night sleep. When I awoke at 8:45 am I saw that the group leader had tried to call me twice. I called him and asked what was going on. He said that he was hungry and wanted to leave early. I asked when he planned on leaving. “In five minutes” was his reply. So much for no calls before 9:00 am…

That was impossible for me. So I told them to go on ahead and I would catch up, if I could. I packed my things and hit the road at around 10:00 am. They had only ridden about 4 kilometers up to road and were eating breakfast. There was one couple that was slower getting out than me. They were going to eat breakfast at a different restaurant and we would meet up with them somewhere up the road.

I took off and joined the others for breakfast. It turned out that some of the riders had left very early in the morning. So, after we met up with the other couple, there were a total of seven bikes heading back together. We rode back across the bridge and back up the road to Pusan. (This video includes the last part of the ride to the hotel as well as the ride off of the island in the morning.)

After about an hour of riding together, most of the people in the group decided that they were busy and needed to get back home as quickly as possible. Iceman and I had nothing to do, so we let the rest of the group take the faster way home. We went our separate way and rode along the coastline up to Gojae Island, around the island for a while before head to Masan, then Chinhae, then back to Pusan.

Although somewhat disorganized and poorly executed at times, it was generally a great bunch of people and a spectacular ride through beautiful country.

The entire world knows by now that the Virginia Tech shooter was Korean. I have purposely avoided any comment about this incident, the largest mass murder on a US school campus in history.

While the nationality of the murder may be relevant to some, it is irrelevant to the tragedy itself. This mass murder was the work of a single, isolated, clearly mentally ill person. His race and nationality are unimportant.

What was in the mind of Cho Seung-Hui? The killer speaks:

Laying in bed and sitting around the house all weekend due to an extremely nasty cold that has given me a fever, head ache, chills, sore throat, dizziness, stiff joints, and other nasty things has afforded me the chance to reflect on a few things.

One thing I thought about as I lay incapacitated on my bed and looking out the window is how beautiful Korea can be. It’s not very big. The mountains are not very high. There is not a lot of wildlife. However, the Korean countryside is some of the most beautiful land that I have ever seen.

Although today would have been an absolutely perfect day for a motorcycle ride around the Pusan area, I was forced to stay home. However, my illness did give me time to revisit a ride I took a couple of weeks ago with some new friends from Pusan and near Kimhae.

I have long marveled that I have so much trouble waking up at 8:00am on a weekday to drag my butt to work, but I have no problem springing out of bed at 5:30am on a weekend to go for a ride on my bike. That is what I did two weekends ago.

I jumped out of bed at 5:30am and hit the road at 6:00am for the one-hour ride to Kimhae where I had arranged to meet my friends and their wives.

As I rolled down the road near my house, I caught sight of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the pre-dawn light across the harbor.

I made good time through the relatively quiet streets of Pusan and Kimhae. I arrived at the Kimhae Homeplus shopping center a few minutes after the designated meeting time of 7:00am and about 20 seconds ahead of one friend who had ridden from Haeundae in Pusan. A few minutes later we were joined by the other couple.

We decided to grab a quick breakfast at McDonalds before beginning our ride. The five of us went inside. We were the only ones in the restaurant at that time. Me and one of the couples ordered exactly the same thing, sausage and egg McMuffin with hot chocolate. The little girl behind the counter advised us that, for some mysterious reason, there was no hot chocolate available. So, we switched our drink order to orange juice.

After waiting for nearly 10 minutes for our order, the girl brought out our breakfast. The couple opened their McMuffins and were surprised to see that there was no egg inside their sausage egg McMuffin. I laughed as they debated whether to just eat it or to send it back for the correct order. They sent the food back and insisted on one with egg. My laughter stopped when I opened mine and found that mine was also missing the egg.

I stood up, walked back to the counter and told the cashier girl that my order was also wrong in that it was also lacking an egg. She was very embarrased at that point and said that she could have the cook guy make a new sausage egg McMuffin or I could have the bacon and egg McMuffin that had been sitting on the warmer since before we came into the store. I elected for a new sausage egg McMuffin.

The other two got their correct orders and just as they were finishing their breakfasts, I finally got mine. I opened the wrapper and was absolutely stunned. I had just been handed a piping hot sausage McMuffin again without the egg. Four of the five of us thought that was amusing.

I went back to the counter and explained that I had just been given exactly the same thing that I had sent back. I asked how hard it could possibly be for one cook handling one order in a totally empty restaurant to NOT give me exactly the same thing I had just sent back. The poor little cashier girl was deeply embarassed. I made it clear that it was not her fault and I was not angry at her, but I was upset with the lone cook who was not hiding behind the grill. Upon arriving at my seat, I was reminded by one of the party that McDonalds does not employ rocket scientists to run the grills and handle breakfast orders.

The third time was the charm. I got my sausage and egg McMuffin. After consuming my long overdue breakfast, we went out to or bikes to discuss where we were going to go. Usually, that is something you do long before you show up for the ride, but this was a totally impromptu ride and none of us had any distinct destination in mind. Eventually we decided to head north to Miryang Dam and then ride out west near the little town of Changnyeong.

We mounted up and rode north out of Kimhae and over my favorite bridge in Korea into the little village of Samnangjin.

After a short bank run and bathroom break, we left Samnangjin behind and wound our way up the mountains and headed toward the even smaller village of Jinyang. The switchbacks at the top of the mountain open up to a breathtaking view of the Nakdong River flood basin and farm country.

After coming down out of the mountains and riding through Jinyang without stopping, we turned our bikes toward another set of mountains and Miryang Dam.

We took a brief rest for a drink and a leg stretch, then made the final ascent to Miryang Dam.

Once at the dam, we stood and admired the view for about half an hour.

Across the street from the entrance to the dam was a sign that puzzled us all. None of us had ever seen a sign like it before and none of had any idea what it meant. No burning cars? Cars will be burnt? Don’t drive through fires? I have asked several people since seeing this sign and none of them have a clue as to its meaning.

We hit the road after a quick group photo.

From Miryang Dam, we headed down out of the mountains, and west through the town of Miryang toward Changnyeong. During the approximately one-hour drive from Miryang, we passed maybe five cars the entire trip. However, there were motorcyclists everywhere. The road up the mountains toward the Changnyeong valley is an exquisitely beautiful motorcycle road full of twists and turns as it snakes it way up the mountain side.

At the top of the mountain, we reached the turn-around point of our trip. At the top of the pass, we pulled over at a small shack that served as a restaurant. The smell of cooking seafood pajeon (sort of a seafood and vegetable pancake) was too much to resist. We sat at an outside table on the edge of a huge dropoff overlooking the valley and the road we had just come up. It was the most scenic lunch I have ever had in my life. This picture was taken while sitting in my chair at our table. The mountains rolling off into the distance and the road we had just travelled winding away to the left.

After our lunch and a break, we road back down the mountain, fueled up and headed back toward Kimhae where we separated and went our separate ways.

It was a beautiful ride on a gorgeous day. It was also my first major ride since my accident. It was good to finally eat up some road.