My million metre month...or 1,111 km of riding in October :)

If you've been reading the blog, then you know that the last two months I've really gotten back into bike riding and I'm absolutely loving it. I got off to a good start in October, covering almost 400 km in the first week, so I says to myself I says "Hey...why not try for an even thousand this month?". I tried to keep it pretty quiet (in case I failed), but for most of the month, I had that magic 1,000 number in front of me and kept riding...well, on Oct. 31 at midnight, I had covered exactly 1,111 km since Oct. 1. I had 22 riding days in the month, averaging 50.5 km per day, which I'm pretty happy with. A few months ago I started keeping track of my exercise, checking off the days I ride or do weights (or go for a run in the past) and putting a big fat X on my lazy days...here's how the page for last month looks:

The crazy thing is that it didn't feel like a lot of work. I rode most weekend days (usually something out of town with Rachael and sometimes Raines) and almost every weekday. A lot of the times we slap our bikes on intercity buses, go to a new place, ride around all day, then bus back...an amazing way to stay in shape and explore this country!

I'm really pleased with my bike, in the roughly 1,300 km I've put on it since I bought it in late September, I've had to spend a grand total of $5 on it (to replace an inner tube punctured by a fishhook). Owning this bike has been remarkably stress-free. On my old roadbike I was afraid of getting flats every time I left the house (rightfully so: I was flatting about once every other ride)...with this bike, though, I get on, ride, have fun, and go home. Sure it weighs 30lbs+, but a little extra heft is a small price to pay for peace of mind. (Plus, it's nice being able to hop on/off/over curbs, sidewalks, stairs, random junk on the road, etc).

The two Giants...Rachael's OCR road bike and my Iguana Disc mountain bike...at a little middle-of-nowhere bus terminal:

In the course of this month, I met Rachael and Raines through cycling, and we've had a ton of fun kilometres together (even if they have yet to see the light and buy bikes with fatter tires ;)). Riding with friends is soooo much better than riding alone, and I have to thank them (especially Rachael) for making riding as much fun as it was ...and for getting my lazy ass out of the house once or twice. Also, thanks to riding I've discovered a ton of places I've never been to before or didn't know how to get to both around Changwon/Masan and in other parts of Korea.

Random...the bike at the base of the big Dream Bay bridge (connects Masan and Jinhae)...sorry about the horrible pics, until I get a Canon S100, my main camera for rides continues to be my ancient Samsung flip phone.

I've also burned, according to healthstatus.com, around 40,000 calories (that's roughly equivalent to 50 bags of chips or 70 Big Macs) through riding in October. In the course of the month I've noticed I have more energy and hills (of which there is an endless amount in Korea) seem smaller and less challenging. Better yet, I've actually started challenging myself by sprinting up hills for the fun of it, something I've never done before.

This hill was particularly fun...Amnin Hill in Changwon, which, I believe, is the highest point in the Changwon area you can get to by paved road. It was roughly 5 km of straight uphill...the view is usually amazing (you can see Jinhae, Masan, Changwon, the sea, etc)...but, as my luck would have it, it was a foggy/overcast day the day I decided to challenge the hill:

As for traffic...in the country it's usually very nice, people are much more patient and calm than in the city and we have had few issues. In the city, on the other hand, it's a different story. You definitely have to be on your toes and have quick reactions. In general, though, I don't think it's much more dangerous to ride here than it was back in Canada (though Koreans generally don't shoulder check, which is incredibly scary if you're a rider), but riding here is definitely not for those with faint hearts or slow reactions.

One more picture and I'm done...perhaps the only picture that ties me, the bike and something uniquely Korean together...in Uiryeong on an 87 km ride :)

Well, that's it for me...right now it's 16 degrees out with sunshine and blue skies...guess what I'll be doing after school today? :)

T

More fireworks and riding! Life is good :) ...if you ignore the gigantic bugs

Okay...so I ended up not going to Japan for a few reasons...the weather sucked on and off this weekend in this whole region, it would have cost way too much for less than 48 hours in Japan, and it would have been a lot of travelling and not enough chilling out and exploring...so, on Friday (my school's birthday) I did NOTHING. Well, that's not entirely true. I ate junk food and watched Corner Gas (for those of you not in Canada: it's an awesomely Canadian show about a gas station in the middle of Saskatcheway: the flat province). It's good Canadian humour.

On Saturday, Rachael and I headed to Busan for the final (and biggest) performance of the international fireworks festival. Before hitting up Gwangalli Beach, we bummed around Nampo-dong, the shopping district in Busan. We found a couple of really cool camera shops, one of which had a Leica DSLR on hand. For you photo geeks: it has a medium format sensor. What that means is the sensor has roughly ONE HUNDRED times the surface area of your average point and shoot. It's crazy. It also costs about $35,000. Here it is next to my camera (as silly as it sounds, if I wasn't allowed to sell and had to choose between the two, I'd choose mine).

Near the beach, the crowds were huge despite the weather (pouring rain), but thanks to Rachael and her friends, we managed to snag a spot inside a foreigner bar (massive open windows)...I'm not usually one for hanging around expat watering holes, but I gotta admit, Saturday night was wicked...the view wasn't too shabby either:

The fireworks were about 50 minutes long and they were much different than the competition the week before. Quite honestly, I think I liked the first weekend's show better. This weekend was amazing, the sky was almost constantly filled with fireworks, but there seemed to be much less organization and grace to it than last year. If last week was Pachebel's Canon in D, this weekend was Led Zeppelin cranked to 11. Both great, but definitely different styles.

Yay for colour:

My fave pic from the night:

On the way home, the subways were ridiculously crowded...we were all getting pressed into each other as army guys shoved more and more commuters onto the trains. This guy looked less than pleased:

On Sunday, Rachael ruined my plans to do nothing by tempting me with a ride into the country...reluctantly, I agreed. So, out into the country we went in gorgeous spring weather and started exploring...saw a lot of cool things:

Buddhist temple with a gigantic Buddha statue on the roof:

Cool marsh-type plants in the sun:

Sadly, Rachael's bike got a flat about 25km out and yesterday happened to be pretty much the only day when she didn't bring her patch kit...so we went for a nice long walk to the nearest little village where she caught a bus back home). But we saw a cool little river on the way:

...and the nastiest centipede I've EVER laid eyes on. Not only is this thing about 5" (12cm) long (the phone was 4"/10cm), it also had what appeared to be armour on it, and, according to Rachael who was bitten by one in Hawaii, the pain when they bite is comparable to "being stabbed with a hot needle". Fun stuff. Definitely going to make sure the bug screen on my windows are always in perfect shape haha

Oh yeah...also, I love my job...this week, a third of my classes are cancelled due to the Grade 9s writing exams, last week we only had to work for 4 days and the next two weeks I only have to work 4 days...yay. My school and I also started talking about signing on for another year, so I have to do an open class to a bunch of bigwigs next week. The hardest part: trying to pretend like my Korean "co-teachers" actually do anything. During the open class, we have to show them how we run a class. Since the Korean "co-teachers" are legally obligated to teach the class and I'm only supposed to be here to help with very specific things (speaking/pronunciation, etc) it should be interesting...In the 8 months I've been here, I've run every single class by myself, done all the planning, etc. Most of my "co-teachers" don't even show up to class, and those who do simply read in the back or sleep. The most active of my 7 "co-teachers" translates one or two sentences a class. So....pretending like we actually work together will be fun :)

Okay...that's it from me...hope you've all had a great weekend, talk to you soon!
T

Saddle up and smell the sea...plus some amazing fireworks!

Greetings, faithful followers!!

Let me start today's musings with something that has me at a loss. I have met people in Korea who have been bored. Ummm....HOW? I'm serious. I don't get it. My biggest problem is trying to choose which awesome event or trip to attend or go on. I've lived in some awesome places in my life (and some not so great ones), but I don't think I've ever lived anywhere where there was this much going on. Within an hour or two of my home base, on any given weekend I can find a handful of cool things to do and they're all either cheap or free. I have a feeling that if you're a teacher in Korea and you're bored you'd be bored anywhere in the world.

For example, last weekend, Dawni, Lina, Johnny and I boarded a bus and headed to Busan for the famous Busan International Fireworks Festival. The Festival is a nine-day event that features two huge competitions (on Saturdays) and minor fireworks displays on the rest of the days. The best place to watch them from is Gwangali Beach, an awesome little piece of waterfront with beautiful sand, cute little cafes and restaurants and, the cherry on top, a picturesque bridge in the background. It's hard not to love Busan's waterfront. They really got things right there.

The crowds were crazy on Saturday, despite the weather (raining all day)...wide rivers of people kept pouring toward Gwangali and Haeundae beaches for hours. Thankfully, the weather gods were on our side and just before the fireworks started the rain stopped and the sky began to clear.

And then the fireworks started...first the USA, then Japan, Poland and China. All were excellent, but Poland's display was mindblowing (and the winner of that night's competition). If you have never seen an hour-long (15 minutes per nation) fireworks display, you really have to. It's surreal. Especially because not only was it long, it was jam-packed with visual candy...they never just took it easy. They really went all-out trying to one-up the others. When the smoke settled (literally), Korea decided to add their 20 won's worth as well and provided the official "finale" for the event. The Koreans basically covered the sky with fireworks for about 3 minutes solid. I've never seen anything like it, I swear Korea popped off as many fireworks in a few minutes as Vancouver does in 20 years' worth of Canada Days.

Due to the crowds and the weather, I didn't take the big camera, and the pics out of the G9 aren't the greatest, but here are a few (plus a couple of videos). I apologize, the camera missed focus on the second video and I didn't notice it, so it's slightly blurry, but still well worth watching...it'll give you a great idea of how spectacular these fireworks were.

These were pretty cool too...the top one reminded me of the planet Saturn:

And now for the videos...please take a few mins to watch them, I promise you'll love them :) The first one is more "beautiful" whereas the second one is just jam-packed with explosions, especially the last 40 seconds or so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r_HEqQjxu4

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac_vv_94sIo

Getting out of Busan was surprisingly easy (despite the literally millions of people - they're expecting 3 million for next weekend's final competition - thanks to the awesome, and of course cheap, subway system). After we got home, it was time for a short sleep and a Sunday morning ride to the bus terminal where Rachael, Raines and I loaded a bus full of our bikes.

And so we headed for Namhae, a little island off the south coast of Korea. It's a sparsely-populated place (by Korean standards) that's home to endless miles of wicked coastline and, as we found out, tons of friendly people. We were waving at and saying hi to anyone and everyone and they waved back, and more than a few times kids and adults alike would smile, wave and say hi to us even before we had a chance to do so. Having adults smile and say hi to you out of nowhere is incredibly rare in Korea, so it was a bit of a treat for three happy-go-lucky people like us.

Speaking of luck...Raines's ran out a few km into the ride when a shard of glass decided to duel with (and win against) his rear tire.

A quick patch later we were on our way to such amazing delights as...a gigantic garlic statue (just down the road from the Garlic Research Institute and Garlic Land) of which I crowned myself king:

We bumped into a roughly 16 km-long designated bike path (one of the extremely few in Korea) that took us along a beautiful coastal road with almost zero traffic. It was amazing to wind our way through little fishing villages, pass mini islands and watch the ajummas (old ladies) at work picking the beach clean of whatever they could find (we were guessing mussels).

This was kinda trippy and cool...they had paved roads on the sea floor. The crazy thing is that they're only accessible during low tide...I've never seen anything like it:

Some of the scenery on our ride:

Cool mini island we found...I swear the bridge they built to it is bigger (square footage-wise) than the island:

To be honest, though, not everything was great on the little island. Our buzz was a little harshed by The Man when we discovered that horn playing was strictly forbidden in Namhae. Wind instrument players beware: your kind ain't welcome in those there parts.

And that's my weekend...this coming weekend, yet again, I could have my pick of the finale for the fireworks festival (tempting) or the Masan Chrysanthemum Festival (they have chrysanthemums out in pots all over the city to promote the event, and no one steals them), but I'm pretty set on the whole Japan trip! The won is strong, the weather is warm and the weekend is long...why not? :)

Sayonara!
T

Saddle up and smell the tea...riding around Hadong

I apologize for this post coming so late, Mondays and Tuesdays are busy days for me and yesterday I had the added excitement of having to deal with some foolish gym teacher messing with the electronics in my classroom, rendering them useless. I'm pretty used to this, but this time they messed it up so badly I can't figure out what they did and correct it...so, while I usually play my students CDs of conversations (it gives them a break from having to listen to me all day and gets them to have an "ear" for different voices), I have to do those conversations...by myself...from memory. Awesome.

Anyhoodles...on Saturday I did something I haven't done in a while: nothing. That's right. I bought chips and other assorted junk food and planted myself in front of my screen to watch some awesomely stupid stuff. Like Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. And Mallrats. Good times.

On Sunday Rachael and I took a bus to Jinju (caught it with seconds to spare) then transferred to Hadong (again, with seconds to spare, it was awesome!) with our bikes with high hopes of riding around the famous mountain range of Jirisan. The Hadong area is famous for its tea fields, something I've only seen in pictures, but never in person. To make things better, it's also rice harvest season, the fields taking on a new hue of yellow-ish colour and people are out in the fields reaping the fruits (grains?) of their work.

So...not far from Hadong we were greeted with this...absolutely amazing...rice fields in the foreground with the Jirisan range in the background:

We kept following a meandering river through little villages and farms and it was absolutely perfect.

Me and my trusty steed in front of some awesome natural beauty:

Just outside one village they had a cool little setup of what looked like a Korean dance festival or something...made of life-sized dolls clothed in traditional threads...pretty cool

Then, not far from there, I smelled something awesome. Tea. I'm not even a tea drinker, but wow...it was such a sublime smell! And, of course, the fields themselves are rather picturesque as well:

Way cool. Overall, the ride was peaceful and beautiful, with most cars being pretty respectful of us and suppressing the urge to run us over. There was one little mishap, however...a nice bump in the road gave Rachael a pinchflat, giving her the unique opportunity of learning how to change her first tire on the side of the road.

We've been riding a lot lately, I ride every night and Rachael joins about 60% of the time...I've been really proud of my bike being flat-free since I've had it, but that all ended yesterday. On a beautiful sea-side ride I heard the unmistakable sound of something being stuck in my tire, hitting the ground with each revolution. I checked and sure enough...rusty fishhook embedded deep in my tire. Thankfully, this being a mountain bike, the thick tube and tire were enough that the actual puncture was so small that I made the 30km ride home with a quick fill-up from a gas station. Gotta love a bike that won't leave you stranded! But...my flat-free streak was broken after about 800 km of ownership of this bike. Still...much better than the roadie, which was flatting on every other ride. By the way, this month I'm up to 695 km so far...if the weather holds, I'm hoping to get as close to 1,000 km in October as possible.

In other news...I just got off the phone with two ferry companies and reserved my tickets to go to JAPAN!!! I've wanted to go to Japan since pretty much the day after landing in Korea (well, in all fairness I almost moved to Japan before choosing Korea)...so I'm stoked to finally make it over, thanks to a long weekend due to my school's birthday. That's right...we get the school's birthday off as a paid holiday. BAM!

Okay...where was I? Right...unlike most people who fly or take the fast (3 hours) ferry over to Japan, I'll be taking a slow overnight ferry on the 27th to Fukuoka, where I'm planning on spending the 28/29th. On the evening of the 29th I'm going to get a train to Shimonoseki, where I'll board another boat at 8 a.m. on the 30th bound for Korea. I can't tell you how excited I am about these two 8-hour long ferry rides. I've never been on a boat that long and watching the sky from the middle of the ocean, seeing The Land of the Rising Sun come up on the horizon as the sun rises or Korea start to come out of the mist on the way back should be amazing!!! Plus, I'm hoping that being in Japan will be pretty sweet too!!! I'm sooooo excited. Fun fact: Just because the Koreans tell you they have an "English speaking service" for reserving ferry tickets, don't think you're going to have an easy time. Especially if your name contains the letter "V" (no V in Korean...they didn't get it...). Telling them that "it's the letter before W" prompted them to ask where W was in my name. When I told them "no, no no...it's V as in T-U-V..." Okay...so your name is spelled T-A-M-A-S    T-U-V....". It's maddening. But...I have my reservations and I'll be packing my bags soon...I can't wait. Life is good.

I'll be back again in a few days, hoping to post just a bunch of pictures that I haven't gotten around to so far...cheerio!

T

I finally got to Pohang!! And I'm riding the heck out of my bike...yay

Monday, Monday...means another weekend behind me and, as I'm sure you've come to expect, another round of adventures and new places checked off the map.

On Saturday I was up early and so was the Sun, swimming in a beautiful, flawless blue sky...so I packed my backpack, grabbed the bike and headed to Masan to take a bus to Tongyeong, where I was hoping to hop on a ferry to some random island. Well, Masan (which has a population of maybe 300,000) has THREE intercity bus terminals, and the Tongyeong buses leave from the one across town from where I was...so I took a quick gander at the board and realized that a bus to Pohang was leaving in 7 minutes. I had never been to Pohang, so I got a ticket from the barely-alive ticket teller (customer service in most places rivals Alberta here...most times they treat you as if it's a huge inconvenience for them to be taking precious time away from texting to help you with whatever insane request you have, like buying tickets at the bus terminal).

The bus took just under 3 hours to get there and it went through the beautiful ancient capital of Gyeongju (where Mark and I went in June). Then it stopped in Pohang and I started riding around...the first thing that hit me was the amazing sea breeze. The air always smells different in coastal towns and, having grown up on an island in Canada, that breeze will always smell like "home".

One of the many cool things about Pohang was that it had some decidedly European-influenced architecture...a welcome rarity in these here parts:

Also...check out the colour of that sky!!! Yeah, betcha you won't see that too often in Seoul or Changwon!!

After riding around the docks and the industrial area, I found the beaches and wow (oh yeah, I saw two tourism offices...neither of which were open...on a Saturday in October, quite possibly one of the most popular months to travel in Korea...go figure)...anyhoo...the beaches were amazing. Long stretches of sandy heaven. One reminded me a little of Haeundae in Busan...check it...panoramic goodness...

Interestingly, across the way from this awesome beach was...what looked like a bombed out and abandoned row of buildings...makes no sense at all:

On the way to the beach, I also found a random Korean battle ship. It's all restored and open to the public free of charge. Kind of eerie walking around on it...it's credited with sinking a North Korean war ship back in the 1980s.

The small guns...

That's all about Pohang, except I couldn't find the famous Pohang hand in the water (do a Google Image search for "Pohang hand" and you'll see!). Oh well...a good reason to come back. I found some wicked waterfront motels with incredible views for about $60 CDN, so I'm hoping to gather some friends in the near future and head back there for an entire weekend!

On Sunday, I took it easy...just rode into downtown Changwon and hung out with Dawni...we went to the markets where we hung out until we had enough of the raw fish smell haha...oooh and had delicious smoothies...I think I'm going to buy a blender and start making my own...thanks for getting me hooked, Dawni. Also, on Friday I met Rachael, another bike enthusiast...really stoked about having her around, now I don't have to be constantly lonely on my two-wheeled explorations!

Speaking of which...I racked up 386 km on my bike last week...booyah!!! I really need to take a day off, but the weather is absolutely perfect right now, I just can't stay at home.

Hope you all had a great weekend (and I hope my Canadian homiez are having an awesome Thanksgiving!)...talk to you soon!

T

Train to Jinju Lantern Festival, bus to Suncheon, bike to Uiryeong...another good long weekend

Another long weekend behind me and another set of awesome adventures. This long weekend was for the foundation of Korea (according to a friend of mine, there is some story about a tiger and a bear battling it out in a cave for supremacy which, somehow, led to the creation of Korea), and it was yet again bathed in perfect weather: 20-23 degree days with nothing but sun and happiness. Yay.

So, on Saturday morning Dawni, I, Johnny and Lina boarded the train bound for Jinju and set off to see the famous Jinju Lantern Festival. For some reason, I thought it would be pumpkin-sized lanterns floating down the river...I was horribly mistaken. When they do a lantern festival here, they go all out! Unfortunately, I wasn't too happy with most of my pics, so you'll have to be happy with the few I uploaded...The trip, however, gave me a chance to try out my Tamron 70-300 VC USD lens and I must say I'm very happy with it. I took a chance selling a much more expensive Canon L telephoto lens to free up some cash and bought this lens and I really don't miss the Canon much.

Anyhoo...the lanterns were less lit up pumpkins and more floating statues...they were amazing...there were probably close to 100 of them, maybe more...they even had them up at the fortress. What was really cool about this festival was that it presented two different, but equally interesting sights at night and during the day. Oh, also, the whole thing started with what was probably the most amazing fireworks display I have ever seen...

Some of the sights...this is a very famous pagoda-type thing that Mark and I saw in real life in Gyeongju...

During the day:

And at night:

Lantern tunnel during the day:

And at night:

A bunch of cities had their mascots on display:

There was a fire-breathing peacock...because they're cool like that:

Some more displays:

Last one:

All in all, an awesome day...and it was just the beginning of the weekend!

On Sunday, Dawni, my Specialized and I boarded a bus (once it actually felt like showing up) to Suncheon to sell the bike. The sale went smoothly, so Dawni and I decided to walk around Suncheon since we were already there. Interestingly, the people were much more friendly towards us than they tend to be in our home city. Sadly, I'm beginning to notice that the people who warned me that racism/conservatism are much more pronounced in my area than elsewhere in the country were right. We wandered the sleepy streets of Suncheon on a Sunday (w00t, alliteration!) and found out that it's a much more boring (though still nice) city on a weekend than Masan or Changwon. Also, it's not a very photogenic city...so no pics for you!

On Monday...well, on Monday after sitting by idly while my landlady and a rude plumber (would it kill these people to say "hi" when they come into MY apartment?) ripped my place apart in Episode 94 of: Koreans looking for a water leak. Of course, the best time to do this is at 9 a.m. on a holiday Monday. Thank you for that.

Once they were gone, I hopped on my bike and headed for Ipgok County Park, about 9 km from my place. I have been meaning to go there for months, but never got around to it...to my surprise, it had a beautiful lake and a wicked waterfall.

Then I got kind of carried away. What was supposed to be a leisurely Sunday ride, turned out to be an 87 km trek. At first, I found a road at the back of the park, so naturally I had to see where it goes. Turned out, it goes to Haman. From there on, I was wondering how far Uiryeong would be...so I started riding. It was the perfect ride...found this:

And then got to Uiryeong a cool little town in the middle of farmland. It had a wicked gate at the entrance to the town:

At the top of the gate:

And the view from the top of the gate...the fine gentleman in the red coat on top of his white steed is General Kwan, credited with commanding the first wave of volunteer soldiers to fight the Japanese invaders in the 1590s. He's a big deal around Uiryeong...

More Uiryeong sights...

Some sort of neato statue:

They also have a shrine to General Kwan, one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Korea. It's a walled-in compound with a little pond, tons of beautiful lawns, 300 year old trees, etc...and, of course, some cool buildings:

All I have to say is Uiryeong is a big surprise in a small package. It's a little town seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but it's one that's obviously proud of its culture and heritage and has plenty of sights to see. Along the riverfront they have a big walkway, they're building a new sports complex (I think)...they have things going on, I'll be back!

Oh, and technically not part of the weekend, but while I'm here I might as well throw these in...on Tuesday I went for another ride...out into the country and found some beautiful places (forgive the quality of the shots...using my ancient 1.3 MP Samsung cellphone). Sunset from the dam of an irrigation lake...overlooking tiered rice paddies nestled in a valley...yeah, it's nice:

The irrigation lake:

Okay...that's it...in the last 3 days I've put 180 km on my bike, by the way! So stoked...I'm loving the freedom, the exercise and the exploring...

Have a great day, everyone!

T