Ruminations in Korea

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.