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
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