When The Adventure Turns Real

Anna 0:01

When you set out to cross a country by bicycle, there comes a moment when the excitement of starting fades and the reality of the journey begins. The novelty wears off, the kilometers start to accumulate, the weather, the terrain, and your own doubts begin to make themselves known. This episode captures that moment. Over the next few days, we'll leave the familiar edges of Seoul behind and follow the rivers deeper into South Korea. There are long stretches of quiet countryside, unexpected encounters with fellow cyclists, moments of frustration, moments of wonder, and the gradual realization that this journey is going to be far more than just a bike ride from one city to another. As always, these recordings were made at the end of each day before sleep while the road was still fresh in our minds. So find a comfortable spot, settle in, and join us as we continue pedaling south.

Day One Starts On No Sleep

SPEAKER_01 1:30

This was our very first day of cycling after a long time. We left this morning from Incheon kinda late because we got zero sleep last night. So this morning we originally planned to have an alarm set for 7.30, and then it didn't go off. I don't know. But still, I remember being awake at 3 getting some stuff done for our flight back home because I just couldn't get asleep, couldn't fall asleep. I read for 45 minutes on my Kindle, hoping to get tired. No, no luck. And we'd got into bed when, like at 11. It was early, yeah. Anyway. We ended up leaving at around 10.15 this morning. We had our usual prison breakfast from our for former hotel. And we hit a convenience store before we left. We went under the arch where the beginning of the path is, and then we just started cycling. And we cycled all day.

Han River Paths And Perfect Facilities

Anna 2:57

Alongside the river, separate from the pedestrian path. And we passed these the what was the park? The Hum the Han River Park. The Han River Park in Seoul, which was beautiful. But even before that park, there's so many of these little parks with benches and the gym equipment. Gym equipment and oh my goodness, the bathrooms that are free. You walk into the bathroom, it's air conditioned, it has toilet paper, it has soap. Amazing. Just the services for cyclists and just for people to participate in recreational outdoor activities was just incredible. It was super interesting seeing the river, seeing the skyscrapers, the tall apartment buildings, and I don't know, other buildings. There were so many cafes, these little 7-Eleven convenience stores that also had lots of fried chicken places. That was the kind of thing to eat today, with again, with bathrooms, tables and chairs to sit down in the shade. And a lot of these places were under the bridges. So there are these big concrete and steel, huge bridges spanning the river, which is quite big, quite wide. And you think of, oh, under a bridge is not usually so nice, but under the bridges, where it's a shaded space, were a lot of these services with benches, a cafe, bathrooms. And the Koreans are super clean, super organized. People of all ages would spread out their tablecloths, their tables, their chairs with their snacks, their drinks, to just enjoy the nice weather, resting after maybe a bike ride. We saw so many cyclists, really fast riders. People seem to be pretty impressed with what we're doing. Um, lots of thumbs up because again, no one really speaks English. It is very difficult to say hello in Korean. We saw like two Westerners all day, but the services are unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

It's no wonder that this is one of the healthiest countries and the fittest countries in the world. We were just discussing this today as we were cycling along. So, first of all, we did the first, I think, of the four rivers. The first one was only 21 kilometers, and it was from Ara, where we were this morning, to the outskirts of Seoul, basically. And then there's another 56 kilometer stretch that just follows the Han River, which is where we were today, and we only have 10 kilometers left of that one, and then we will be heading south. But all throughout both of these paths, especially the one by Seoul and by the city, as Anna said, we saw hundreds of cyclists of all ages on e-bikes or normal bikes. There were plenty of cafes, facilities like water fountains, lots of benches, public bathrooms, and gym equipment everywhere. Not just what you would imagine, like a little rack or a pull-up bar or a basic bench. They had full-on gym equipment with weights. And even those, we must have seen at least ten of those today.

unknown 6:53

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

So many. And then we saw public um pools, water park, not really water parks, but like splash pads and all of these playgrounds and a rolling area where the kids could learn to ride bikes just for kids. So it must be like easy to raise a kid here because there's so many places you can go.

Anna 7:21

And it seems like one of those, if you ever see the designs for a city, like ideal city planning, it seems like one of those like utopian cities.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Granted, we only see a bike path down by the river. So yeah.

Anna 7:36

And looking up at these, even looking up at the apartment buildings, they're high-rise apartment buildings that lots of cities have. We're not really used to seeing them in Rome. But I guess because it's new, it's just really well kept, well taken care of. But there was all of these services. We saw a baseball field, a like basketball courts, short-sided soccer fields, with all of these trees everywhere, and bathrooms and water fountains. So it really looks like one of those ideal cityscapes.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

It looks especially ideal, I think.

City Planning Lessons From The River

SPEAKER_01 8:20

And I'm going to connect to circle back to something that we were discussing yesterday, which means all of these services were planned for the locals. And I've always been a huge advocate of build the infrastructure first and then the people will be using it. One of the problems that we have in Rome, especially now that our current mayor is building more and more bike paths, all of the car-centric people are saying this is a waste of space, it's going to be much worse for traffic. Where am I gonna park my car? So I like the fact that what we've seen so far, we've been here for three days now. Everything seems to be designed for the citizenship here, for the people that live here, and not with tourists in mind, like the center of Rome, as we've said many times before, where all of these black vans that drop off tourists basically just in front of every single monument, and then they're double parked, and everything is so congested. We do not have anything like this in Rome. We do have a long cycle path that's that follows the river, but it looks nothing like what we've seen here. There is especially one section in the northern part of the city, and it's 10 kilometers right by the countryside, and it just goes by these fields, and there is nothing there. It's just 10 kilometers of flat stretch of a flat stretch with nothing, and there could be space there for all of the things that we've seen today, but I don't know, maybe that's not how things are planned where we're from.

Anna 10:01

So that's definitely a difference, and something we had heard that there were a lot of cyclists in South Korea, but we weren't expecting so many, especially like hundreds on a Thursday morning. The city where we're staying tonight, num, I chose because it was pretty close to waypoints and not that far. There's not really uh places to stay along the path because yeah, we're basically cycling through a park. It's we're not close to besides little cafes, we're not really close to anything. So, but this it's very close. It was it was very close, like a kilometer, half a mile off of the path in in this nice little city with high-rise apartment buildings. The hotel, like where we stayed for the past two nights in Incheon or near Incheon, is a really nice hotel for very little money. Really nice and really chill. We left the bikes outside or in the parking garage area. And we had really good Korean barbecue. Yeah, I don't think they ever get tourists here. And he was like, and he showed the little just a few with his fingers. But he was very impressed, and people have been really nice. Thank goodness for Google Translate, Korean barbecue where you cook the meats. There's their they start the charcoals in the middle of the table for you. And I think, yeah, he cooked it for us because yeah, but but it was served with these delicious vegetables, all different types of vegetables, the kimchi, quite spicy, but the spices are delicious. It was really good. And so, yeah, it's been every every moment is an adventure, which I guess that's what Asia is for Westerners. At least, I don't know. I always think of it as being like a different planet, which is just already it makes it really fun and exciting to visit someplace that's so different from where you're from.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

How's your first day of cycling? How are you feeling?

Pacing Stats And Sore Legs

Anna 12:26

Pretty good. Now that we've that we're back in the hotel, we showered, stretched. I felt a little bit tired with my legs because again, I'm just pushing myself a little bit to keep up with Edo because obviously he's stronger than me. And a few, a few little pains, like I always have kind of shoulder, neck pain, the just my butt from I'm not used to riding a bike for many hours, but I'm feeling pretty good. I was a little, I was a little bit scared. I wasn't thinking too much about it just because I we haven't been cycling that much, but but I'm feeling pretty good, and I'm sure tomorrow and the next few days, it's just gonna get easier.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, I agree there. I was a little worried this morning as well, again, because we haven't cycled in so long. The thing is, we need to be more careful with so we were a little careless today, especially because we had studied what the path was going to look like, and we thought, okay, it's all along the soul, so there might be some nice spots where we can stop. We didn't really have a schedule, but this kinda got away from us a little. Obviously, we need to find a balance between enjoying ourselves and getting to certain places on time, because what happened this morning was obviously we couldn't sleep, so we left late. And then we got too comfortable because we got to the halfway point and it was barely one, because we had cycled for two hours or something, and so we thought, ah, we've got plenty of time, it's just a little over two hours left, it's just one. Then I don't remember if it was one or two, but we ended up having a very long break. And then cycling in the morning and cycling in the afternoon are two very different beasts, and you never know what's around the next corner. There was a pretty tough climb today. It must have been less than one kilometer long, but we had to climb over a very tall bridge, so it was very steep. So again, you never know what's gonna happen, and our plan for the following days is to go not really two-thirds of the way before we break for lunch, before we have a longer break, but almost. So at least you have you don't have as long and as far to go. So, some stats for today. We cycled around 75 kilometers in just over a little over four and a half hours for an average of 16 kilometers per hour, which is pretty good because last time we went on a trip, it was closer to 13 back when we did the Danube. So we're pretty excited about about our times today, and tomorrow's going to be a shorter day. Our hotel is going to be right on the path, so that's gonna be interesting. And I think tomorrow we have between 65 or 68 kilometers, I'm not sure. Might be 68, just because we're like a couple kilometers away from the actual path. But yeah, looking forward to tomorrow. I can tell I'm already super tired, super sleepy. So hopefully we'll get some sleep tonight. And uh yeah, this was our first day of cycling. I'm feeling pretty good. I'm tired, but my legs are okay. And also a little side note from what she said, because she said I'm stronger. It's just that I'm bigger and my legs are longer. So one pedal stroke of mine equals three or four of hers. And so today she was feeling were you feeling a little upset by the fact that you were pedaling and I wasn't?

Anna 16:18

It's just hard when I notice that you're not pedaling for a little bit, and I have to constantly pedal.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

This is another thing where you think that pedaling on flat ground is easy, but it really isn't because you have to obviously it's not like climbing, but you have to pedal all the time because after you're done climbing, at least you can stop pedaling while you go downhill. So I would see Anna noticed that she kept pedaling constantly, whereas I would do, I don't know, a couple of a couple of revolutions and then I would just coast. So I don't know, we'll see. I'm sure we'll we'll get better in the next few days. Time to sleep now, hopefully. And we'll talk tomorrow.

Day Two Slump Wind And Doubt

SPEAKER_01 17:19

It is currently uh 9.23 pm. We are in Yoju. Today I'll just start with the uh with the stats for the day. We rode 67 kilometers, which was less than yesterday, but it took us almost the same amount of time. I'm not gonna lie, today was tough mentally. It had it started being tough after the first 20 kilometers or something, and I was wondering, is this the second day slump? I don't know. I was having lots of dark thoughts like, do I want to continue? It's only the second day. In total, I think we rode 160 kilometers out of 600, so we are a little over one-fourth of the way there, and I was looking at the the stats for the next few days and tomorrow and the day after are gonna be tough. However, two things happened that lifted my mood. But first of all, there was a very strong wind today coming from our left, blowing from the east, and that was annoying. Several times I felt like we were pushing and pushing, and we were in the same place, and just mentally I was in a weird place because it felt like we weren't making any progress. So here's a little side note. It's great to have a little cycling computer that shows us where to go. It's not as great to have the data in front of you all the time. What do you think about this? Because you don't have any you you have a little computer that only tells you how fast you're going. I have my computer with all of the waypoints that tell me how far the next waypoint is, and all of the waypoints on our route are the certification centers where we're getting all of our stamps. So I am bombarded with data, average speed, current speed, distance to the next waypoint, distance cycled today, distance cycled since the beginning, and I'm not good with all of this stuff generally. But at the same time, it is really important to have the distance to the next waypoint because we don't want to skip any of these certification centers. And even when I'm working, when I narrate books, in my head I'm always counting like page numbers and percentages and the time it took me to record a certain section, and so I know how long it's gonna take me to finish. That's just the way that I'm wired. So it's on the one hand, it's a good thing to have all of this information, on the other one hand, it could be a little overwhelming. So tell me what you think.

Anna 20:12

Regarding the information, it's for me when so Eda will like update me on the stats. Okay, we've done this number of kilometers, or like, and as we're planning our breaks and things like that. And it depends. Sometimes it's reassuring, depending on what the numbers are and how I'm feeling. So sometimes it's really relieving to know, oh, we only have 12 kilometers to go, and other times it's less reassuring. Yeah, so it really depends on my on where I am during the day and what sounds good. It can be either like reassuring or the opposite. The my little computer, we it's not really, we didn't really set it up. So it just it just shows me how fast I'm going, which is really helpful, I have to say, because sometimes you don't know when you're tired and when you have these external conditions like the wind, sometimes you feel like you're going fast or you're you're going faster than you are because of your how tired you are and other can other conditions. So it's really good to have like an actual benchmark of how fast you're going. But in terms of the stats, I think overall it is important. So thank you, Edo, for keeping the stats. Because I was thinking about that at one point during the ride today, that if you have no idea, you can't really do that because then you would be basing your trip on just how you feel. And sometimes you need to push yourself. I was thinking about this and with walking too, where we are with physical ability and experience. Of walks and bike rides, you do need to know because there's so many like emotions come into play, like laziness, and you need to have a good idea because sometimes you just you need to push yourself.

unknown 22:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

One of the issues that we had today was that first of all, we were spoiled by yesterday's ride. Because yesterday was amazing. Whereas today it wasn't bad, but maybe in the back of our minds, we were expecting something more similar to what we had yesterday. Because yesterday we did the first 20 kilometers along the canal that led to Seoul, and then as we said yesterday, we had a river at the first like the Ara Canal. Yeah. And then we got to the Han River that followed Seoul, and that's where we saw all of these open-air gyms and cafes on cafes and hundreds of people. Whereas today, we're more in the countryside, and it's gonna be the same tomorrow. So we were hoping, okay, we can get to the certification center, there's gonna be something there, but there there wasn't anything most of the time. So you see a cafe, we know this today, and we planned accordingly for tomorrow. There weren't many places to stop. And a couple times it happened that we stopped, and then 200 meters later there was like a bar or a bathroom. And also another thing that happened today was that today was mostly slightly uphill, but even a one or two percent gradient uphill makes you feel like, why do I feel so tired? The road looks flat, but why is it so tiring? We have lots of weight on our bikes. My bike weighs around 11 or 12 kilos, Anna's is probably closer to 16. We have I want to say like around 10 kilos of luggage each. So that's a lot of stuff to lug up a hill. So the two good things that happened today, along with another less than ideal thing, we stopped at a little place, a little gazebo. There's several of those where you can just lie down, and we did. And then this gentleman came, his Christian name was Michael. He told us I'm a Christian, my Christian name is Michael, and again we were communicating only with Google Translate, and he told us he had finished the cross-country tour, and so it was really nice to talk to him to just have some more human contact, and that gave me a little bit of a mood boost, which then vanished because later on we had to do this climb that was very short but extremely steep, and we had to push our bikes. So that was very demanding to do. We saw other cyclists either on like their e-bikes or their normal bikes, but they weren't carrying any weight like we were. They would just pass us and everything. After there's a there's an uphill, so then there's a downhill, but then if the uphill was steep, so is the downhill. And with a loaded bike, you have to be careful, you can't just fly down the other road. And today there were some areas where the path wasn't as well maintained as yesterday, and so especially going downhill, there was maybe sand on the path, and you have to be careful. So mentally it was challenging, especially because if you consider that every single interaction that we have with the people here has to be filtered by Google Translate, so it's not so immediate. So, overall, today I just had this feeling of being slowed down. And again, being spoiled by yesterday, we didn't really plan the day, which, as I mentioned, is something that we're doing tomorrow because tomorrow we're cycling 85 kilometers. We bought a lot of food at the convenience store next door. We're gonna be fully independent tomorrow. We have something like three liters of water each, lots of food. So the plan is to cycle around 25 kilometers, have a break, 22 more or something, have another break, and then I don't know, 20 and 18. So we're staggering it a little, especially because tomorrow at the end of the stage, we're gonna have to. There's a six kilometer gentle climb. We'll see if it's gentle after almost 80 kilometers of riding. And the other nice thing that happened today was we met two people from Italy.

Cyclist Encounters That Reset Morale

SPEAKER_01 26:43

We didn't see a lot of Westerners. We saw a little more today, but there's some in our hotel tonight. So we were going in one direction, these two people were coming, it's a a couple, they were coming from the other way, and so I said ciao, and he said ciao, and I was like, wait a second. And then by the time they went to Anna, they she said ciao again, and we're with the intercoms, so I heard them. I said, Are you Italian? And so we stopped and we had a chat. Why don't you tell them about these two people?

Anna 27:16

So this was it was really exciting. Antonio and Milena, and they they live in Udine in the north, although Antonio was originally from Lecce. And they had started in Seoul, and they made a mistake because they were on the other side of the river, so it was they didn't start at the official start where we started at. And they had gone to Busan, saw Busan, and then they were on their way back, going back, and they were gonna try to do the starting bit again, or try to do the starting bit. And these were okay, it's we we called them mountain people, people from northern Italy who are just so athletic. Milena had done the Camino de Santiago three times, Antonio had done it seven times. They we were like, Oh, yeah, we've done the Danube River too. They did the Danube to Greece. I didn't even know it went to Greece. They did Route 66 in the US by bike. So it was 4,500 kilometers. 4,500 kilometers.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

3,000 miles.

Anna 28:26

Yeah, like crazy. Around 3,000 miles of cycling. So they're just just built differently. I don't know. Maybe the people in Colorado are like that. They're just really athletic, really outdoorsy, so lovely, having just having a blast, and they told us some really like fun things, some really positive experiences that they've had because they've already done the route that we're doing right now. So that was really fun and just reassuring to hear about other people's positive experience. They were very, very fit, going at a faster pace. They had done it in six days. We're doing it in eight average of 100 kilometers per day. But they had pretty, pretty good bikes. It looked like they were carrying maybe a little bit more stuff than we were, but they looked like they were in very good shape, experienced cyclists. But that was really fun and exciting because we haven't really seen any, very few Westerners. We've seen a few people at the Waymarks getting their passports stamped, but they seem to be like very without bags on electric bikes. So I don't know, I don't know how that works, but but that was really exciting today. And it was different, definitely a lot more straight path. So a little bit more boring, way more exposed. So again, with the wind, the tunnels were super interesting. So they are these converted railway tunnels that they have lights inside, they have a really nice pavement, pedestrian sidewalk, like air conditioning inside. I don't know. They said it was climate controlled, but really well kept, as is everything. So even today, again, bathrooms, super clean, well equipped, these little covered seated areas, the outdoor gyms, water fountains. It just what there weren't as many. Yesterday we were mostly in a beautiful city park. So there were, again, a lot more cafes. Today there were less cafes, but really interesting to go through these tunnels to go over the bridges to see the bridges, even though I found that was it's really exhausting just to go up a steep bit and then you go down a steep bit. But for me personally, it wasn't enough of a recovery. It was more exhausting than having, oh, now I'm recovering on this great downhill. I found that it was more exertion and less coasting after the bridge. We it was really interesting. We saw two of the Four Rivers project weirs, which was really interesting. We saw some really impressive feats of roads, bridges built on pilings in the water, like over water. The dams and weirs were really impressive. And everything, for example, the weirs, they're all you can't drive over them, but you can cycle and walk over them. And there are these kind of public spaces where you get this incredible view of the river. There's observation decks. So that's an interesting service.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Yeah, they have these these huge bridges that are only for cyclists and people that walk. It's amazing. We don't have bridges that big for cars, even sometimes. It was more nature and less cultural today. One of the things also that Milen and Antonio told us is that they've seen, did they say around 20 Westerners today?

unknown 32:15

On the path.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

On the path, because they said coming from the other directions, they were gonna obviously meet them coming from two different directions. Because obviously they said a few all leave from the same place, and these aren't really defined stages, so yeah, we happen to have a few other westerners here tonight, but maybe somebody stayed at another hotel like five or ten kilometers either up or down the road. So we now know that there's more people doing this, it's just that it's hard for us to meet them because if we leave at different times, and it's as Antonio said, either you go so much slower that somebody overtakes you, or you go way faster and you overtake them, and then you get to meet them. Otherwise, it's almost like when you're walking, when we were walking, we're like, Oh, there's 10 people here today at this hotel. I wonder if we'll see them on the path. Usually you don't until you get to the end of that day. I'm assuming we might meet more people tomorrow because we're staying at the at a town with hot springs. So I guess that's probably a stop, like a common stop, maybe. But yeah.

Anna 33:26

We just see that group.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Huh?

unknown 33:28

That group.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Oh, yeah, we saw a group of for sure, a couple were Australian, and then I think there was a Canadian lady, at least she had a Canada jersey on, and there must have been like 10 people in that group of different nationalities, and then there was a guy with I think on his jersey it said extraordinary cycling vacations, so he was probably a guide, and they all had either e-bikes or normal bikes with no bags, and they stopped at the certification center to get a stamp, so they're probably doing it with like a guided tour and supported with a van, probably that moves your luggage around. So telling Anna that should we ever do another bike trip, it's gonna be like that, like with e-bikes, and we're getting older. The the Danube was seven years ago. I was like 31, and now I'm like almost 40. One last thing about tomorrow. We've done hard things before. Tomorrow's gonna be hard. It's probably gonna be as hard as the last stage of the Via de Y Day where we walked almost 30 kilometers in a day. I think we're gonna go to bed like in 15 minutes. I think that knowing that tomorrow will be hard will help. We just have to get there. The plan is to wake up at 6 in the morning. As I said before, we bought a lot of food. We're gonna have breakfast here because I just can't have noodles for breakfast anymore. Like I had fish for breakfast this morning. It was fun, but I can't I need a cornetto and like latte machiado for breakfast. We were already like 90% packed, so the plan is to set an alarm for 6 a.m., lights out in 15 minutes, try to get eight hours of sleep, and then leave at around 6.30 or no later than seven, and hopefully be in the next town at around five or six. So yeah. It's probably going to take us, I wanna say like at least it took us four and a half hours to do 67 kilometers today. So I'm gonna say probably six, maybe six hours. Yeah. Cycling time, so including breaks, we're probably gonna be on the road for nine or ten hours. And yeah, if we leave at seven, I'm hoping to be there by 5 p.m. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow we'll be in a different mindset, and it won't be as hard. Maybe the path will be more forgiving and less exposed to the wind and the elements, but at least the weather forecast seems good. Antonio Milena told us that one day it was like pouring and they were on this difficult, like short but difficult climb, and they decided not to stay on the road, and they decided to go on like the pedestrian area with the steps, and they said there were like 4,000 steps up and down and up and down, and they were lugging their bikes. So, yeah. Anything else you want to add? Alright, it's bedtime. I will update you tomorrow. Bye.

Day Three Strategy Surprise Miles And Kindness

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Okay, it's almost midnight, so it's been 24 hours since we last recorded. Maybe 26. So it's the night between September 5th and September 6th. We are currently in Swambo, uh thermal hot springs town of central South Korea. And we had an amazing day today. As you may recall, because you just presumably just listened to the recording we did yesterday. I was in a bit of a mood last night, because yesterday was a hard day mentally, mostly. It was mentally exhausting. So as we mentioned yesterday, we decided to approach today in a different manner. So we planned very well. Our original plan was to cover the distance with three breaks, so in four segments. The first segment was supposed to be twenty-six kilometers, and then uh uh twenty-four for the second segment, and then just do uh I don't know, like twenty-two or twenty-one, because originally we thought that our uh route today would have been uh eighty-four, eighty-five kilometers, but for some reason that we still haven't figured out, it actually turned out to be almost ninety-four, so ten more kilometers. Anyway, we were feeling really well. We left at around 7 30 this morning. We did 34 kilometers before we took a small break, like a 20-minute break at this roadside cafe that was very nice. And then we Anna will be giving you more details and just telling you what the day was like, and then we cycled uh 26 more kilometers, yeah, before we had a break for lunch, so we were 64 kilometers in. No, I think we did 30 more, yeah. So we were 64 kilometers in, and we thought, cool, we only have 20 to go, but then we realized it was actually 29, and that was a little upsetting because uh 10 kilometers is 40, 45 minutes for our average speed, so it was a bit of a an unwelcome surprise. However, since we had done such great time until then, we thought, okay, it's only 2 p.m. We can do 30 more kilometers and still be where we need to be way before five. We ended up spending a bit more time at the place where we stopped for lunch because it was very interesting, and again, Anna can tell you more about it. So we left again at three and we arrived a little after five. Yeah, and we met some interesting people, but here's Anna with more details.

Anna 40:07

The path was definitely a lot going up, a little bit of ups and downs, but there were something like 20 bridge crossings. 20 bridge crossings, so it means you have to go up very steep, and then of course you do go down on the other side. But I found personally that going up such a steep path, it takes a lot out of you. So even though then you get to fly down on the other side, for me, it's not enough of a recovery time. You you make up some speed, but it's not enough of a rest from after the uphill that takes so much out of you. But anyway, we met a really nice local guy on early, pretty fairly early this morning. And people are just really excited, really happy to meet us and hear about where we're going, practice their English. And for us, it's really interesting to hear a little bit more about these. We see so many cyclists, local cyclists. And this particular gentleman was out for his 20-kilometer run. It's just interesting to to meet people.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

We he was very helpful because then we exchanged Instagram and he wrote, uh, oh, if you need anything, let me know.

Anna 41:31

Yeah, yeah. And so people have just been like really kind, and which could come in handy, especially in a place where we don't speak the language, and so it's a lot of relying on the kindness of the people that you meet. So we stopped at a very, very nice cafe for second breakfast, our mid-morning uh stop.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

It's a bit of a it's a bit of a crapshoot with the snacks that you buy.

Anna 42:02

Oh, yeah, the snacks. It's just really it's it's so fun, but you never really know. Is it sweet? Is it salty? Is it what's the texture gonna be like? It's just really different. They don't really they have sweets, but the sweets are different. They have strawberry-flavored Snickers, what even what is that? But it makes it really fun, exciting. That's an adventure, even just buying snacks, because you don't really know what you're gonna get. And you try to translate them and they have these weird, catchy names, but it doesn't really explain to you what it's made out of. And it's just really interesting that they don't have candy bars or pastries the way we have in Europe. But then at lunchtime we stopped. So there are these pagodas, these little eight-sided raised platforms with benches around that are free. They're like the other, the many other different types of covered platforms, covered picnic tables. There's lots of public places where you can sit down and have a picnic, and they usually have some sort of shade covering because also people are obsessed with staying out of the sun. And these are public, so I thought, oh, that would be fun to eat in one. So it was the perfect place to stop for lunch. We had exactly pushed ourselves to 60 kilometers, 64, 64, 65, which it was not pushing so much that we were like hurting. We kept saying, okay, if we're really hurting, if we need to stop, we'll stop. But we felt like today to go as far as we could in the morning when we're more energetic. We started much earlier, so it was cooler, there was less breeze in the morning. So It was a good, it was a good time. We really deserved to stop. So we ate the pagoda lunch that we had bought. So we were prepared with lots of snacks, lunch foods, plenty of water. We had these. I had read about them on things, things to eat on the bike path. And it's like a triangle shape of rice with a filling, some sort of protein filling in the center, wrapped in the algae. Algae. Algae feels looks like paper, like black paper. And but it makes it very easy to eat. It's very portable. And it's actually very similar to the fried rice balls that we eat in Rome, but they're cold. You get them from the fridge. They're fresh, like freshly made, but you get them from the convenience store and they're nice. They heat up to room temperature by the time we eat them at lunch, but they're quite good. And again, the guy running our hotel, so kind, came out to see us off, gave us frozen bottles of water. So we ate in the pagoda. You have to take your shoes off before you go up the two little steps into this raised platform with benches around the side. It was a nice place near the park where there was this kind of loud music playing. And which we discovered afterwards was for it was underneath this giant stage. Like a stage, this sort of permanent tense structure. And it was a bodybuilding competition going on. So they had this catchy music. Hilarious with stands. And we bought little mascots, but we noticed lots of Korean riders having little like little keychains, little stuffed animals, like labo-boo type stuffed, little keychains hanging off of their bike seats. And so we wanted them to. They had these little stands selling hats and these keychains. So that was fun. And and we finally talked to a guy that we had seen at our hotel, blonde, blue eyes, and Catalyn from Romania, who is making some very, very impressive mileage. Seven days. Seven days. Tomorrow he's he was getting up to ride 140 kilometers. But interesting. He rented a bike in Seoul, and then he's continuing on to Japan. But he is collecting all of the stamps, even the ones that you don't actually need to get the cross country certification.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Not really.

Anna 46:56

But he's collecting a bunch of them.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

No, he's collecting the ones for the cross country. It's just that he collected one on this dam. It's the Chunju Dam. Because what happened this morning was we saw him when we left. We left a few minutes before he did. Then he caught up with us. So after he passed us, then we get to this lunch place 65 kilometers in, and we see him come by. And he said, I didn't see you at the Chungju dam, did you not go? And we were like, No. And he said, Why? And I told him, You don't need that stamp for the cross country. And he was like, Ah, I wish I knew that. Because apparently it's a steep climb to go up to the Chunju Dam.

Stamps Detours And Skipping The Climb

SPEAKER_01 47:41

So here's here's the thing: it there's a pretty extensive network of bike paths here, right? And there's the four rivers, the cross country, and the individual rivers. So you can do just the one river and get the one certification. And also then there's the Grand Slam, which is all of them if you collect all of the stams. So let's say we're currently on the Hangang River Path. If we wanted the individual certification for the Hangang River Path, we would have had to go to Chungjungnam, because that is the end one. But it connects to the this one that we're on now, that eventually will lead down to Busan. There's another one there. And so since Chung Jungnam is on a detour, they say if you want to do the four rivers or the individual ones, you have to go get it. If you're doing the cross country, you don't. So we didn't go and he didn't have to go either. And then there's another one that is also at the beginning, like the first day, they said there's another one on the other side of the Han River in Seoul. Either one of these works for the cross country. You don't need both. And tomorrow, I think. Yeah, he's riding 140 kilometers tomorrow to Ang Dong Dam, which again is on another path. It's on a detour. You don't have to go. But he said he wanted to see that. He wanted to see that dam. So that's why he's going. It's not like he's collecting all of them. So it was a little sad because we were hoping to maybe go get a drink with him tonight, but he said he was going to bed at 9. Because he's waking up at 5 to cycle 140 kilometers. He has a very like he says, okay, if I have to if it takes me 14 hours, it takes me 14 hours. So I think that probably tomorrow he's gonna leave at around like 5.30 or 6, and then he's probably gonna try to make it to Ang Nong by dinner time. And then we thought we were gonna catch up with him in Gumi. But since because he's going to Angnong tomorrow and then he's going to Gumi two days from now, the day after tomorrow, we thought we were gonna catch him up, but he's gonna be one day ahead of us. Because we will be in Gumi in three days because we're taking a day off. We're cycling tomorrow, and then we're taking a day off the following day, so we'll be in Gumi the day after that. And yeah, speaking of tomorrow, all of the climbs that we did today led us to think that we do not want to do the big climb tomorrow. So thanks to the hotel manager here, we secured a van that will take us up 10 kilometers up the mountain, so then we can just go downhill and 40 kilometers go to our hotel where we will be staying for two nights, and then we'll just chill there. And then we saw that the following days are going to be a hundred kilometers for one day, which I think we can do because we've done we've done 94 today with all of this climbing, and after tomorrow's mountain, everything's gonna be downhill. We've been constantly climbing, not a lot, but we've been climbing ever since we started. So it's gonna be downhill, and so I think we can do a hundred kilometers pretty easily. And then the following day, because Anna was having some trouble using western sites to find a hotel, technically we were supposed to ride only 46 kilometers, and then 80 the day after that, and then 102 to get to Busan. So we're trying to move some reservations around and maybe do 100 kilometers when we start again, then 70 the day after, and then instead of 80, we're only going to be doing 55, so we can do a half day rest and then uh book it to Busan because we would like to get to Busan before the certification center closes at 5.30. So we can get our diplomas and everything. It's gonna be open the following day as well, so we're thinking that once we finally get there, we might catch a bus to Seoul later on in the day, like maybe at 12. So in case we don't manage to get the certification, we still have plenty of time the following day. So today was so much better than yesterday. I was in a great mood all day because now you can feel like okay, this is the third day, tomorrow's the fourth, it's gonna be a shorter day, and we're literally over the hump of the big mountain. And while we will be cycling a greater distance, because we will be cycling 330 kilometers over the course of four days instead of like what we've done today with these first four days where we've cycled 280 or something. So we're gonna be cycling more, but it's gonna be easier, so the spirits are higher.

Suanbo Hot Springs And Culture Shock

Anna 53:08

And just to just to talk a little bit about the where we're staying at Swambo. So it's this famous hot spring town, but it's definitely more for local, like Korean tourism. So of course we said, oh, that's amazing. Hot springs, it's gonna be so good for the mussels. And so where we're staying, it's more of a like a cyclist hostel. But they advertised when I booked, I saw that they gave you like a discount that you could use for the hot springs underneath the hotel across the street. And so we went over there. First, they said, okay, like women, you have to get off on the second floor, men on the third floor. So, like, I I'm I always mess things up at the hot springs. I never really understand, they're always different. And if you go to hot springs in other countries where, especially if it's not a really touristy place, they're not going to have things written in English. And it's just hard to figure out. So obviously, nothing is written in English, no one speaks English, and so they were hot springs where people would go naked, like men and women were separate. And they did have the the pools with different temperatures. And for our American listeners, if you are from anywhere except for the United States or North America, uh all over the world, like Europe, Asia, all over the world, there are hot springs, and there are these places where you go to sit in the hot waters because it's really good for your skin. And going from a hot water pool to a cold water pool, it's really good for your circulation. And so they have different pools. Imagine like jacuzzi's like different jets. So it's like getting a massage with this water that's also really good for your skin. It makes your skin really soft. And sometimes there's places where you can put like the mud, the hot spring mud on your face or on your body. And it's a thing that Americans don't do. So that's what it's what it is. So they have the they're they look like really big jacuzzies, these different pools where you can sit with different in the different temperatures of water. And they had uh a hot, I don't know what they're called in English, but the hot, dry sauna in the cedar room, and then the humid sauna. I think it's called a Turkish bath.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

Yeah. I mean in in Italian.

Anna 55:52

Okay, the humid one. Maybe it's called Turkish bath. Um and then, and then, but most of the women were sitting at these little mirrors on little stools with a little shower head on a hose, and they were like scrubbing their bodies, very meticulously scrubbing their backs with the loofah.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Dry sauna and wet sauna.

Anna 56:17

Oh, dry sauna, wet sauna. Okay. They were so they were very meticulously scrubbing their skin. There was a woman brushing her teeth for 10 minutes. So this is the first, like I've been to a lot of different hot springs all over the world, all over Europe. And I've never seen, it's not usually someplace where you go to wash, to brush your teeth. And these women have the little shower caddies with their washcloths and their products and their scrubs and their soaps and their toothbrushes, apparently. And so it was a very almost like maybe like a human, but they were really washing themselves, which is usually, I've never been to a hot springs where they actually do that. In the men section, there's a little bit maybe less washing going on.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

There was some washing.

Anna 57:10

Some washing, but it's just interesting because I don't know, I shaved my legs in the bathroom, my bathroom, or the hotel's bathroom. Anyway, but it was really, it was so interesting. And that's I just love going on on a trip like this where you get to experience these really different cultural things, which if you go to Korea and you go to Seoul and you go to the museums and temples, I don't know, you you might not go to the local hot springs where the Korean ladies are washing themselves. And the hot springs were great. My it was amazing for my muscles. I felt so much better after. So it's a perfect thing to do when you're cycling, but it was just a really cultural, really interesting cultural experience. This this town is also known for its hearty mountain food, which you would not tell from the outside, could not tell from the outside of the restaurant. But the food was really good and it's a cute place in a beautiful setting, surrounded by surrounded by mountains.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Yeah, the springs, the thermal springs were definitely an experience even for me. I was I thought it was being stared at a lot. I was the only non-Asian person there, also. But yeah. So we've spoken for quite a while now. So it's almost half past midnight. It's time to go to bed. And yeah, we'll talk tomorrow after the van drives us and drops us off. Good night.

Closing Thoughts And What’s Next

Anna 58:57

And that's where we'll leave things for now. By this point, we were roughly a third of the way across South Korea. We'd found our rhythm, learned a few lessons about pacing ourselves, and starting to feel less like visitors and more like travelers moving through the country under our own power. But the hardest climbing was still ahead, along with mountain roads, longer days in the saddle, and some of the most memorable moments of the entire crossing. In the next two parts of this series, we'll continue the journey all the way to Busan through the nightly recordings we made along the way. Thanks for joining us on the ride, and we'll see you in the next episode of Go Far.