It's been a couple of "busy" and unusual days, since we left Chengdu. It started with our flight to Incheon, which took a whole day. It all went very smoothly however, the trip with our bicycles on a plane was easier than expected. We needed 75kg of luggage however (which was exactly the allowance we had...). Add to that the stuff we took in hand luggage, and it comes down to about 40kg per person. We knew that that was more or less the weight of the loaded bikes, but now we know for sure - a big weight to lug over the mountains... We arrived in Incheon in the evening, everything fine, were even picked up with a small van from the guest house near the airport (Incheon Korea House), and so before 9pm we were in our room. Then the shock of my life: our bicycles had been almost totally disassembled, much more than I expected, it would take hours to put them together again...
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The bicycle as it came out of the box. Shock! (To be sure: parts are together, but not fixed)
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| After a lot of cursing, frustration, blood, sweat and (almost) tears: ready to ride again! |
The guys from Natooke had taken the bicycle apart to fit in the box they used, which is fine of course. Unfortunately there are a lot of screws and bolts, and while these were kept nicely together per bicycle, it was almost impossible to know which screw, spacer and bolt came from where... It was a very frustrating puzzle, and therefore it took me until 1.30am to put everything back together. I still have 2 screws left, no idea where they belong. It was the intention to get the bicycles done in the evening, then leave in the morning to ride to Seoul, and I really wanted to stick to that plan. So we did, only we got up late due to the late night, and there was still some fine tuning to be done (my gears were not shifting properly at all...), so by the time we left it was already noon.
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| First kms on Korean road, still close to the airport |
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| Soon followed by a fantastic bike lane along the shore |
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| And a ferry ride |
It was nice to be able to ride all the way from the airport to Seoul, even though it was not always a pleasant bike ride. The first part, still on the airport island, was definitely nice. From there we took a ferry to Wolmi-do, as there is no way to cycle over the 2 highway bridges that link the island to the mainland. Still nice. The part from Wolmi to the beginning of the ARA trail (20km) was terrible however, difficult to navigate, bad or no bike lanes, slow because of many traffic lights, through towns with traffic - luckily this was a Sunday! The ARA trail is a network of bike lanes along rivers, it has been a huge project some years ago to build these, but an important part of it has also been to have clean rivers again with green parks alongside them. So from Incheon there was a very nice bicycle lane all the way to Seoul, and it actually goes on all the way to Busan in the south of Korea, with some additional such bike routes in different areas; we'll be cycling a lot of the time on these. So, once we were at the beginning of the ARA path it was easy riding, but then we had headwind all the way to Seoul - and it was also very busy as it was Sunday and beautiful spring weather. This "all the way" was much longer than we thought, we cycled 93km while we thought it would be only 60+. So we actually arrived at 20:30 in our guesthouse (after we had found a bridge on which we could cross the Han river on our bikes, that was not obvious...), well in the dark!
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| At the start of the ARA route from Incheon to Busan |
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| Getting closer to Seoul at dusk, riding along the Han river |
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| The bridge we crossed in the evening, not obvious, this photo is taken from the bike lane below (the day after) |
What followed was a very nice guesthouse, Seoul Forest Guesthouse, with a fantastic owner, Richard - friendly, enthusiastic, helpful and good English. And then a great meal near the guesthouse, Korean BBQ of course, with a glass of Sujo!!! Yes, this was clearly it, we were in Korea!!! The day after we took a (very) slow start and in the afternoon cycled to BikeLy, a bicycle shop in Seoul specialised in tour biking, famous among tour bikers 😄. I had been able to get my gears sufficiently back to working condition, but couldn't get them to shift really well, so went to ask for the help of BikeLy. Mr Lee also helped us a lot with information about cycling in Korea. I guess BikeLy and Mr Lee are where we fell in love with Korea. They were so friendly and helpful, went out of their way to help us (he even walked us to a nearby restaurant and helped us order a late lunch), won our heart by giving us a great coffee too, and in the end did not even charge anything for their service!!! I literally had goose bumps when we left because of the fantastic feeling this gave.
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| Cherry blossoms in Seoul Forest; more famous in Japan, but definitely very impressive in Korea too! |
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| More cherry blossoms |
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| Seoul at dusk |
From then we had some good time enjoying Seoul. The weather was just perfect spring weather, cherry blossoms everywhere (really impressive), interesting heritage - we visited a few old palaces and temples (and were able to select the closed ones first), nice parks (yes, with cherry blossoms) and just walked around and enjoyed. I've been to Seoul many times for work, probably more than 20 times, always found it a very big and busy city, and it's a great surprise to understand this nice side of it too. From what we've seen now it's a very liveable city, mostly thanks to all the parks, walking, cycling possibilities, the mountains around, and thanks to the great people, good coffee everywhere, good food (oh my god, the Korean food!!!).
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| Seoul subway |
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| Old meets new in Deoksugung Palace, with Seoul City Hall in the background |
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| Deoksugung Palace |
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| Youth in traditional Korean dress in Deoksugung Palace |
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| Cherry blossoms at Deoksugung Palace |
From Korea we're now on our way to Australia (writing this post on the plane). The check in was an enormous problem due to visa issues, a story that's better to tell over a couple of beers, and only very very very last minute it was "all's well that ends well" - by far the most stress we've had in the past 5 months...
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| At a Buddhist ceremony |
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| A fantastic and impressive project in Seoul some years ago, opened up this river again (it had been covered up for many years), built a park alongside it, cleaned the water; its now a beautiful tranquil haven in central Seoul |
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| Street food at Gwangjang market |
The first impressions of Korea are (again) fantastic, this time that's really mostly because of the people. They have been so warm and friendly, helpful, polite, I would even say "civilised and respectful". We've had many occasions where people just started to talk to us asking if they could help to find the way, or just for a friendly chat, many people do their best to speak some English with us (and many speak much better than expected). Seoul as a city is also far above expectations, we would happily spend some more time there, and that's rare for us in big cities... For sure, the fantastic weather and cherry blossoms help. What is also nice, which I never realised, is that Korean writing actually uses an easy to learn alphabet (which we more or less know already by now), which obviously helps a lot to understand and find your way. And then, for cycling, the extensive bike path network will also be a blessing. First 10 days with our children and our friends in Australia now, and then we're totally ready for Korea!
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| EVERYONE is on their mobile phone in the subway... (with 1 exception) |
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| Rainbow cake, anyone? |