cycling across Korea day 6: Gumi to Daegu

Gumi is part of the industrial heartland of Korea. Riding into town yesterday and riding out of town today I passed a ton of factories where things like LCD panels and car batteries are manufactured. The skies here are kind of gray, and I’m not sure if it’s cloudy or smoggy. In any case I was happy to be riding out of Gumi towards the coast.

Because there’s a lot of car manufacturing out here I saw some cool things. I stopped at this test track and watched some cars being tested.

The skies were noticeably clearer as I moved away from Gumi, though it could just have been the weather clearing up. I passed a nice glamping RV spot. I’m glad things like camping, hiking, biking and RV-ing are becoming more popular in Korea. I think it would be nice to rent an RV and explore rural Korea someday.

I’m starting to feel like I’m back in civilization again — I think Daegu is either the 3rd or 4th largest city in Korea. I could see huge apartment buildings again even though I just skimmed the western edge of town. Skies are kinda gray here again – so I guess it was smog and not clouds.

I’m spending the night at the southern edge of Daegu. I have a cousin that lives in Daegu so I tried contacting her, but the timing didn’t work out so I ended up just rolling past Daegu. It probably would’ve been hard to navigate city streets on my bike anyways. So I’m spending the night on the southern edge of Daegu. I only rode a bit over 50 miles today, and I felt like I could’ve ridden farther, but the next set of motels near the bike path were at least another dozen miles away.