MUST WATCH! This Is The BEST Way To Travel Korea! (Bike Touring Korea Ep.#5)
loaded up and ready to go! alright, Daegu, It's been fun. I really enjoyed this city. Thank you Mr. Min for hosting me and showing me a wonderful time. We had some amazing Korean barbecue.
We had that market food tour yesterday was amazing. Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much Min I hope I can see you somewhere else in the world on a bike someday.
That'd be pretty cool but Daegu, you've been fun. I've enjoyed it. For now though, today we are getting on the road and we are heading to Gumi. Well that's the first major city I want to hit. It's like 65k away. First order of business though is getting out of Daegu which is going to take a while to get to the bike course.
Let's get out of the city. I'm sure I'll stop somewhere and get some food but enough talking. Let's get going.
That's pretty cool. Up there you can see kind of how they build those huge apartment complexes. They have that huge scaffolding structure on the top of them up there and it looks like they build them up all at the same time right? They're all the same level. That one's going to be a Hill State, but it looks like I found the little furniture district. Come get your home appliances, your sinks, your end tables and dressers.
Good morning. A lot of people just look at me with these strange looks Like, What the hell is that guy doing here? Wow, here we have Daegu Station. It's pretty damn big. Huge mall on top of it. Lotte Department Stores.
Nice manicured landscaping out here. You've done well, Daegu, you've done well. Pretty little city. Some nice art installations over here. Some sort of monument over there.
What is that? Good morning. Kimbap? Kimbap. Kimbap. Kimbap.
Kimbap. Kimbap. How much? three okay. looks like a nice little breakfast okay I'll go inside that's a good idea a lot of a lot of fiery red soupy stuff in Korea how about one egg? don't mind if I do thank you nice simple simple breakfast and those look pretty thank you so much hey there you go maybe some some pickles carrots egg from what I understand the difference between these and like what you find maybe in Japan is that there's no raw fish in these so it's just like vegetables and egg and maybe some meat thank you all right and they gave me a flag. I'm good to go let's do it actually I want to go walk over there and see that I'll be right back let me go see what this old brick structure is over here some sort of old historical relic okay this is the Daegu ??? ruins, or part of it maybe or a replica maybe but I just did the translation and it has to be some sort of mistake it says Japanese merchants who were demanding, it says Japanese merchants who demanded the removal of the penis I kid you not that's what it says I read the Japanese did a lot of messed up things here in Korea, but I don't think they were demanding the merchants to remove their penises Topoki friend this place is called Topoki friend, And they gave me a nice flag. I am good to go.
this is interesting this must be the shoes street. There was that huge red heel sculpture back there and then every single shop is a shoe store. Interesting Come get your shoes literally every single shop is a shoe store Very quiet through the neighborhoods of Daegu, especially on a Monday morning at 10:20 Hello! You know, looks like I'm going through the scooter and mechanics row right here. So we've gone through the furniture area, the shoe district, now we're in the scooter and mechanics part of town, but it's nice, it hasn't been too much traffic, but it's nice just to get a feel for the local rural areas, or the local inner city, not rural, damn! Now we are in the sewing and maybe textile and fabric district, which I don't see any textiles, I just see a lot of sewing machines, which yesterday at the the market, I didn't film it, but I got my my hat touched up on because the strap in the front right here was starting to come loose, and so we asked this lady if she could do it because we found some lady that had a sewing machine, and she she sewed it in probably less than five seconds. It was done.
She uh she saved my hat though at the end of the day. Uh -oh, we got a hill. Look at this one, had to stop and get a closer look at this. Reminds me of those like really tiny apartments you see in Tokyo where they make the most of like the littlest piece of land that they have.
That's exactly what they've done here. They've gone right out to the corner and built up. These hills in the city are kicking my ass right now. It is straight up up and down up and down up and down.
Man. More tall buildings. The Queens Road. What is the Queens Road? Let's check it out. Okay, this is Queens Road.
Just looks like an outdoor mall. An outlet mall. Puma. Let's see what else we got over here.
hmm a lot of brands i'm not familiar with and i don't want to butcher the names all right maybe my first actual Korean bakery the last one was a Krygistan or Kazakhstan bakery not exactly korean but this one looks pretty korean to me let's let's check it out all right this is we're not being able to read korean it's kind of a problem let's see, what is inside this? inside this red bean uh -huh oh okay red bean jam and cream okay it's kind of heavy two thousand. okay. uh i'll do one okay do i need a tray okay okay a korean traditional pancake name okay cool i'll try it thank you so 25? oh 1000 okay 3000 right next door there's a beautiful little ceramic store very very beautiful very pretty uh -huh handmade all handmade? the teacher signed on ok, so that's his mark? is that gold? gold flakes? wow, nice store Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you Found a little market area kind of on the edge down here. It's taking forever to get out of the city Taking a long time Oh Thank you for the watermelon So good very sweet yeah so the ceramics store owner, I was outside, you know putting the bread away, and she was like oh come inside come inside, you want some coffee then the bakery store owner came over, they're obviously friends I guess, and then she brought over some watermelon so awesome not gonna complain about that oh it's beautiful yeah one? okay let's see oh I like this one no it's okay one one one one and what about okay all right that one beautiful okay he's your teacher thank you thank you so much you're so kind thank you thank you so much thank you see you bye bye wow what a nice lady She called me in there to have some coffee and the lady in the store brought some watermelons and then I was like, oh, I'm cycling from Tokyo to Shimonoseki, Busan, Seoul and I told her I cycled around Taiwan and Indonesia, Malaysia and she was like, oh, well, alright. And she gets on her phone and she starts playing a bunch of videos of her like playing the drums and stuff. And so she played like three videos and eventually I was like, alright, that's really nice. I got a lot of kilometers to go today, I need to get back on the bike, but very sweet lady and she gave me some really cool handkerchiefs like those are really nice, I might have to hold on to those and maybe give them to my mama or something, but time to, hello, time to get back on the road. Still in Daegu.
Before I forget, one thing that shopkeeper mentioned was that there's a lot of foreigners in this area and I was like, oh, you know, from where? She was like all over from Indonesia, from Sri Lanka, from Vietnam, from, what else you say? Like she started just rattling off a bunch of countries and she didn't mention the US, but she did say there were tons of foreigners in that area for whatever reason though, so thought that was pretty interesting. Huge intersection, big one, I think I'm finally getting out of Daegu, I hope. It's a pretty nice entrance to the university, I'd say, the K... University,
I know I butchered that, but nice area. I think it's safe to say we are finally outside of Daegu outside of the big city it only took like three hours to get out of the city from Min's House Wow a lot of hills you know you had to cut through neighborhoods and stop signs and traffic lights and whatnot but it took a while and an unexpected like a 30 -40 minute stop at that sweet lady's shop the ceramic shop oh come on now so the route is telling me to go this way but it looks like it closed off i don't know what this is but it's telling me to go this way maybe not maybe I just miss my turn let's go back and let's go back and look all right so I think I found the bike course finally and uh look at that that's pretty funky looking I looked it up online this is called the Ark it's a cultural museum and today is Monday and on Mondays they're closed so I can't go inside and check it out kind of unfortunate but at the same time kind of want to get on my way start making up some ground it's pretty cool looking though interesting architecture for sure opens up over here to the big river and hey another dam all right looks like I'm gonna be on the river for a while off in the distance over there you have some more huge apartment buildings another small city another lady running they did this in Japan too you can't uh walk your dogs without a leash and so what people do is they just run really fast with their dogs on a leash okay wow over there off in the distance too just massive massive apartment complexes shooting out from the foot of that mountain over there over here over here over there off in the distance over there crazy that's pretty cool so they built that little stretch of bike course road strictly for cyclist that's pretty cool, stretched all along the mountain right there way to go Korea, another win for you. that's one huge rock face right there that's pretty cool oh cycling course is going. i like it it's kind of opened up a little bit you can see the river i like it i like it you know i don't know if you guys have caught on yet but you do the cycling course long enough and i'm like all right i'm ready for a little bit of city i'm in the city i'm like all right the city is a little bit too much i'm gonna get out of it it's kind of back and forth back and forth but so far this stretch has been really nice it's just when you're kind of stuck in between bushes like this and there's nothing to see for a really long time that gets kind of boring you know but when you're right next to the river like this it's pretty nice i just wish i just wish there was a way to get down there and swim you know like you're you're riding along the river the whole way and there's no There's no way to get down there and cool off and take a dip.
That'd be nice These stretches are pretty cool. I like them. I like what they've done here That's a first so this is the Korean pancake thingy that that lady was talking about and It's basically just bread but on the inside there's the the mochi the sticky rice and the red bean paste so Never had a mixture of all three like the bread and the rice and the red bean paste that's different It's not amazing, but it's okay Let's see what Mr. James Elliott did to deserve this nice monument right in the middle of this little park right here they have these little statues on the outside First lieutenant James Homer Elliott of the US Army having left his beloved family Participated in the Korean War to defend freedom and peace in Korea in August 1950 He volunteered for a night patrol along the Nakdong River, Korea And never returned after he his disappearance around the bridge of patriotism in 2015 His children placed their mother's ashes in the river current around the bridge where their father was missing according to her last wishes while earnestly wishing their reunion after death So it looks like this guy was put on patrol here at the river and never returned His kids came back in 2015 and placed their mother's ashes in the river here I'm guessing this is what this symbolizes, like mother's hand, his hand, so close, but you know, just right there, wonder what happened to him, kidnapped, killed, I don't know.
James Elliott fighting for freedom and peace in Korea, it says. Fighting for capitalism and fighting against communism is what you were fighting for. Another big, beautiful park right here next to the river, and that huge building up there with the flag flying over it is a Korean War, World War II Museum. Pretty sweet, right? But it's closed on Mondays. Dammit. That sucks.
That sucks. And up there at the very top. There's a hiking trail, and there's a World War Two monument at the top of the mountain right there But I was reading online, It takes like an hour, hour and a half to climb up it And I don't want to do that, but even though I'm sure it's a beautiful monument and a nice view I Want to stay on the bike and keep going I'm sure there's gonna be other World War Two memorial-type stuff along the way that we can check out. I hope
What are these ladies doing? Hello, Playing music? oh nice. Oh, there's a doggy Oh some melon? Hello can I see? Out here playing the saxophone and they got the speaker out here, too Hey you're a cute little poodle, huh? Hey Okay, that's how you cut the melon. I did it wrong last time nice picture! Beautiful picture. I'm sorry. Sorry.
I'm sorry. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you. See you. Wow, sweet, kind, older ladies seem to be the theme of today, huh? They were so nice. They gave me, I just rolled up and she started peeling the melon right away.
It's a good thing too, she taught me how to do it. You don't do it the way I did the last time. You eat all the guts, you eat all the seeds and everything in the inside, I guess, because that's kind of where all the flavor is. And I asked her how long she'd been playing the saxophone and she said only a year. Wow, pretty damn impressive and honestly very motivating because she said she was 72 years old and you can do that in a year, like there's no reason why I can't learn how to play a musical instrument at my age, you know, I always say like, ah, I'm too old for that, I'm too old for this, she's just a reminder that no, you're never too old to learn something new and learn a new skill. Wow, what a beautiful person.
Alright, it's starting to rain a little bit. Doesn't look like it's too cloudy though. Hopefully it's just going to blow over but those are some dark clouds, it's starting to sprinkle on me which is going to kind of feel good. Hopefully it just kind of blows over though. No swimming, no water skiing, no water sports, no fun. Now those are some beautiful baseball fields I'd have to say, those are nice.
All this over here what I'm looking at ain't so much but over here looking good, looking good. So I have pretty much made it to the goal that I set for today but feeling good, I'm going to keep going. So I put the goal to here, it was like 65 kilometers away because I don't know, I just didn't think I'd go that far today. When I got on the road from Busan to Daegu it just didn't feel like I was making much ground. and it was taking a lot longer than I thought but I don't know I think maybe I rested up pretty good the last three days and also it's just been good weather There was no headwind like the first couple of days here in Korea and sure Daegu was pretty hilly and took a while to get out of there but once I got going feeling good feeling good so I'm just gonna keep going it's only 3:52 right now and I think along the river all the way sure there's nothing on the course but I have to do is exit every once in a while get off and like cut into the city and then you'll find some convenience stores and things like that so shouldn't be too far away from civilization the whole time so just gonna keep on going feeling good Maybe I spoke too soon The wind has picked up and is blowing straight in my face.
I've slowed down quite a bit But still feeling good. I've gone 73.6 K Still got plenty of daylight. Just gonna keep going keep going The wind sucks the wind sucks What a crazy-looking structure right? Looks like something out of like a Halo video game or something okay I think it's a turtle you can kind of see the leg sticking out the head poking out from the front Pretty sure it's supposed to be a turtle At the top of a big turtle shell What do you think? Oh man, I thought this was something you'd be able to uh go inside of Can you It is a sweet Wow Another huge Open room or some tables, probably some information about the dam over there.
I just want to come see the view i bet it does look pretty sweet at night I thought maybe you'd be able to see all the way up. It kind of sucks that they've enclosed it pretty low, you know, like from the outside it looks just like a huge glass open room, right, but still pretty cool I guess. I've got pictures of the outside, I've got pictures of the bike path and everything. I've been cycling for a while now, I think I'm finally like really in the middle of Korea right now because I haven't seen any tall, like those tall apartment buildings in a long time. There's not much going on out here, a few homes here and there, but even a lot of the rest areas that you see, the benches and the workout equipment, they're just kind of grown over by the bushes and whatnot and so a little more sparse out here for sure, which hopefully isn't a problem trying to find some dinner tonight because I don't have any food. Surely there's a city coming up, but like I said I don't see any tall apartment buildings and that's an indicator of a city I think, but surely there are some small mom-and-pop shops around here somewhere hopefully, but this is what I'm looking at right here.
for a long time all righty this this might be my chance to take a dip I see some Sea-Doos, I see a boat down there a water ski boat and surely they have to dock in and out of here so might be a good chance to get in the water I'm not gonna take the bike down this ramp because it's too damn steep and I don't push it back up so I'm just gonna walk down here and maybe take a dip one thing I've noticed too is that my legs are so freakin dirty not like sweat dirty but like like dust and like dirt and I think it's cuz the yellow dust that they say blows in from China the yellow dust would blow in in Japan but I'm sure it's a lot worse here and you see almost every single cyclist that I pass is covering their face they have like a not a mask but one of those neck wraps that covers their nose and mouth and I'm sure that's what it's for all right this might be my best option tonight to get kind of clean get all this dust off me so I'm gonna do it I'm gonna jump in feels pretty good! shower, done. I bet whoever owns these has a pretty good time down here that looks like fun it looks like I found myself a nice small little town on the map shows there's quite a few restaurants so let's go see what they got what's up doggy? friendly little guys kind of an interesting place now this is the "inaka" (countryside) Korea right here this is the countryside man look at this place now that is some junk so Also, I am completely out of water, and there's a police station right there. Let's go see if you can refill water at police stations in Korea, because you can do that in Taiwan. I didn't really test that out in Japan, but let's see what happens when I roll up in this police station and ask for water well, they do have a water cooler right there on the other side of the door, but nobody's here, even though there's cars right here, and the door is locked. There's a water cooler right there.
I'm sure they'd just be like, yeah, sure, help yourself, but missed opportunity. All right, so the really tasty smelling fried chicken place, I guess, only sells fried chicken. I was like, no sides, no rice, no delicious, no, only fried chicken, so that's not really what I want.
Fried chicken sounds good, but I want some rice or some veggies or something with it. So, on to the next one. What else should I try around here? So, this is the place I landed on.
I ordered some fried rice, because that's the only thing I could really get across with a guy. I was asking for some rice set with beef or chicken, and he was like, no, that looks pretty good, but I think it's like 15 or 25 ,000 won, a little too much, I think, for me. Wow, wow, wow, okay. A lot more than I expected, to be honest.
I ordered fried rice. I thought that was just going to be fried rice, but then a lot more came out. Not sure what that is, but I'll give it a try. What is that? There's something in it.
I can't quite tell. Almost like a vegetable. Kind of stringy. Kind of crunchy.
Kind of salty. I don't know. Do I like that? It doesn't look very pleasing, but it's okay. That hits the spot.
And this is only 7 ,000. That's why I got it. All right, so she told me this is called jajang which says it's a Korean -Chinese noodle dish topped with a thick sauce made of ...? diced pork and vegetables.
Okay, it's pretty good. It's not bad. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to eat this with.
I just tried it. It's like a thick thick, salty, soy sauce paste. That's how I can describe it. I don't know. I'm not sure. This is like the egg drops.
And this is, I think, just some egg drop soup. It's not bad. You get some some pickles, onions, and some kimchi. Oh, and some cabbage with some ketchup on it.
Kind of interesting, but overall, pretty good. And I just confirmed, and maybe it was obvious, I don't know, but you're supposed to dip the pickles and onions in this black pasty soy sauce sauce. A little different. I think I'm surprising the guy. Maybe he thinks it's just like, it's supposed to be super spicy or something.
He's like, what are you doing? Kimchi in Korea is so tasty. It's good. Spicy.
Good soup. Nice and light. Got some crispy green onions in there , some egg, mmm, that's good, I'm done, mmm, thank you, now I'm full, it's time to call it a night find somewhere to camp and go to bed, done a good 100 kilos today, this is it, I found my spot, got a bathroom right there, big empty soccer field that's nice, this thing is wrapped up, unfortunately you can't use it, but Nice patch of grass right here that I can lay the tent down on. I am home for the night.
Beautiful, man.
2024-07-16 20:56
