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.

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.
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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.

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.

(CNN) — Two masked and machete-wielding men who barged into a club in Sydney, Australia, couldn’t have picked a worse night for their robbery — a monthly meeting of bikers.

The robbers chose the wrong night to burst into the club where the Southern Cross Cruiser Club have their monthly meeting.

About 50 burly bikers fought back with tables and chairs — pretty much anything that wasn’t bolted down. One would-be robber was tied up; the other in the hospital.

Police arrested both.

“These guys were absolutely dumb as bricks,” Jerry Vancornewal, leader of the bikers, told CNN Thursday. “I can’t believe they saw all the bikes parked up front and they were so stupid that they walked past in.”

Vancornewal and his buddies were at the Regents Park Sporting and Community Club in Sydney when the two men wearing ski masks stormed in Wednesday night. They yelled at patrons to drop to the floor as they emptied cash registers at the bar.

Hearing the commotion from an adjacent room, Vancornewal and his pals with the Southern Cross Cruiser motorcycle club stomped through to the bar area to intervene.

“They (the robbers) thought they had the upper advantage with their knives and their machetes,” Jim Webb, night supervisor of the club, told CNN. “They didn’t expect to run into a bunch of guys carrying chairs and tables.”

One of the would-be robbers crashed through a plate-glass door and jumped off a balcony.

“All he had to do was push the button and it automatically opened,” Webb quipped.

… A third person, who was waiting in a getaway car, took off when the bikers threw pieces of furniture at him, Webb said. Police have not located him.

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!

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.”

“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.

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.