cycling across Korea day 2: Seoul to Yeoju

I started the day super excited because I’d be leaving Seoul and venturing into more rural areas of Korea that I’ve never seen before. At the same time that brought some apprehension because I thought the cycling infrastructure would get worse as I left the urban areas. But I was pleasantly surprised by how good the riding was.

The first city I rolled through after leaving Seoul was Hanam City.

There’s still quite a lot of riders out here. I guess these are people who live in Seoul but are venturing out of the city for longer rides.

There’s bicycle shops right along the bike path. Bicycling seems to be pretty popular in Korea. This part of the ride actually reminds me of riding the American river parkway back home in Sacramento. There’s nice pavement along a river with lots of old (and seriously fast) retired dudes in super teched out bikes.

The pavement continues to be incredibly smooth and the scenery is absolutely beautiful, though I’d imagine it would be even better in the spring.

I continue to be amazed by the bicycle infrastructure here. This tunnel appears to be made just for bicycles and pedestrians.

I passed through a campground and was amazed to find people camping despite the freezing cold nighttime temperatures. Though I suppose grilled pork belly and soju helps keep you warm…

So after yesterday’s disastrous hotel booking I decided to be a bit more careful and look for hotels with an early afternoon check in time. Still ended up in a love hotel though since there was a box of condoms on the dresser. I’m beginning to think all hotels in Korea that aren’t major chain hotels are basically love hotels.

Riding along the water all day made me crave fish. I found a hwae (Korean sashimi) place near my hotel that had hwae-dub-bap which is basically like a Korean chiarishi. I’m not sure if this is the best idea because diarrhea would be disastrous and while the cycling infrastructure has been amazing I hadn’t seen a lot of bathrooms. But it’s what I was craving at the time.

I knocked out a little over 50 miles today. There was actually a lot of elevation gain even with the tunnels sparing me from a lot of climbing. I’m actually making a lot slower progress than I thought I would, at this rate It will take me more than a week to get to Busan.