This Surprised Me About Korea's History (Bike Touring Korea #36)
not a bad ride right here that's what I'm talking about beautiful day today absolutely gorgeous I see a war memorial let's go check it out and that's actually where I slept uh last night or two nights ago before I climb Seoraksan all right so here we have a Korean War Memorial surprise surprise this one over here has 6.25 the day the Korean War started and North Korea invaded and uh went across the 38th parallel and on the left side over here is a memorial and a monument dedicated to the South Korean soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War so kind of a combined Memorial here we got one right over here that I haven't checked out yet and there's another one right over there let's see here let's see what this one's for all right so this is a new one I haven't seen one dedicating and commemorating uh this specific event and so this was What's called the Saemaul Movement and so this took place in the 1970s and it was enacted by the president at the time in an effort to modernize and uh I don't know develop South Korea and so that's one thing that was really surprising to me when I'm studying about South Korea and North Korea and the war and and the trajectory that South Korea went on after the war and North Korea and all that right and you learn that North Korea actually was able to industrialize and mobilize and uh I guess build its economy up a lot quicker than the South a lot of that because of the aid from the Soviet Union and China but you know you look at South Korea today and it's easy to see that you want to be here and that South Korea is obvious okay my camera just shut off for some reason uh I don't know when it did I think it's easy to see that it's easy to see that the south is obviously doing much better than the North right now and so oh man did I get that on camera okay cool I did get it uh it's the thing about GoPros they're super buggy and this one has been treating me really it's been treating me really good the past couple years but you never know the GoPros anyways um like I was saying it's easy to look at the countries now and it's clearly obvious that the south is in a way better position in so many ways compared to the North but at the beginning yeah Kim Il Sung was able to mobilize his people was able to build its industry up build its economy and it was kind of looking like they were going to be more prosperous at the very very beginning but uh as North Korea continued to isolate themselves and cut themselves off from the rest of the world more and more people started to separate themselves from them and eventually South Korea which I didn't I didn't realize this that they actually had a pretty uh like autocratic and dictatorship-like government at the beginning too and so now obviously the south is doing way better just look around could you imagine this being North Korea right now it would be unrecognizable mountains on one side the beautiful beach on the other incredible but uh let's get some lunch let's get a bite to eat all right so still at the same beach I arrived at yesterday as you can see the weather has changed quite a bit um let me clean that screen off for you yeah so yesterday I rolled into this little uh beach town and I saw a hamburger shop and I stopped and ate and then ended up meeting some people and then next thing you know I'm here all night and so that's what happened and uh woke up packed up the tent and getting on my way so it's going to take forever I think to get down the coast cuz I keep meeting people and I keep just staying and but that's cool I have all the time in the world I got nowhere to be all right on the road again just can't wait to get on the road coming down on me pretty good now but it feels good feels real good haven't haven't rode in the rain for a long time like this luckily it's not too cold either but I do want to find a cafe or a pub and uh do some work and get out of the rain I ain't never seen a fish like that looks like a freaking alien but this is where I stopped yesterday once again I didn't make it that far uh it was pouring rain on me and then I went to this Surf Shop to uh see a friend that I met a few days earlier and then ended up staying there all day and then right in front of the surf shop they do this the fish auction every day is what I've been told those are some funky fish today we have a beautiful day I should be able to get some good riding in um yeah the lighthouse Lighthouse so I got stuck in another small town again for 24 hours nothing wrong with that though this is a small little Beach town I like what they've done here they've uh painted a lot of the walls here in this small little town now here you have a a painting depicting what war was like doesn't look too old either looks pretty fresh 38th parallel right here this morning I got out and uh my new friend and I we went and had some really delicious breakfast we had one of those uh Seafood bibimbas so just a bunch of mixed fish raw fish with uh all different kind of stuff mixed with rice it's really good but as we're walking down uh you just see a lot of these painted murals a lot of the old houses and there's one up here that I wanted to show you guys that I found pretty interesting cycling as far as I have now in Korea you see a lot of you see a lot of monuments you see a lot of statues and things but you don't see a lot of murals like this necessarily depicting what that time period looked like and so this one was pretty unique in my opinion it's unfortunate the cars are blocking it but uh you can see the flags waving you can see the uh the South Korean side I mean this guy's beating a drum it almost reminds me of uh the Revolutionary War in America you know it almost looks like you know a patriot I mean they are patriots just here but you know what I mean uh when you read about the Korean War and when it broke out one thing that kind of stuck out to me was the response and the reaction that the South Koreans the ordinary people had to the North invading them and so the goal for the North and Kim Il Sung when he invaded was to win over the South obviously he wanted to show them that he was the legitimate leader of the Korean Peninsula and he was hoping that people would flock to him and you know and welcome him uh with open arms and so that's not exactly how it went though a lot of the South uh the people here were just disgusted and they couldn't believe that other Korean people were attacking them you know like why are Koreans attacking other Koreans that's not that's not what you're supposed to do man and so uh they were just uh if anything it just added more resentment to the North and and uh made them not want to join the North even more and the South actually had similar problems when they were able to uh capture a lot of the Northern Territory as well that was also kind of surprising to me uh when you look at the map and the how the the territories changed throughout those three years The South was able to I mean they uh they almost captured the entire North and so the same kind of reaction up uh in the North though is like why are you know South Koreans attacking us and not only that uh the South made it really hard for the North(ordinary people) to be welcomed in a lot of ways because what they started doing they were so anti-communist that they would they would arrest and uh lock up anyone that was associated with communism or anyone that assisted uh the regime and anyone that was a part of the Japanese Occupation and so uh anyone that collaborated with the Japanese back then and so it was uh it was tough for the north even and there was it was so hard for both sides to get people to join them even in the north as hard as it is to believe and so uh just found that really fascinating and oh speaking of the military and so yeah um another thing that's really crazy walk down here a little bit there's some more pleasant things to look at like this lady uh this little girl holding some flowers uh another thing that was uh it's really kind of crazy I don't know if a lot of people know this or not but America dropped more bombs on North Korea than they did in the entire Pacific War imagine that like we Americans we dropped more bombs just on the half of the peninsula in North Korea or in Korea than the entire Pacific War against Japan and so it's easy for the Koreans the North Koreans to run with that message (anti-American message) and so Douglas MacArthur the commander of the American troops here he wanted the same result that he had in Japan with Hirohito and the emperor he wanted an unconditional surrender and he didn't get it unfortunately because well you had the pressure and the support of the Chinese and the Soviet Union but in many ways that's why so many people died and it's very very sad and uh and again we all know the result The Korean War just in the end just permanently uh separated the North and South and at the end of the day the Korean people are the ones who suffered the most and have to live with that reality to this day anyways okay thought maybe there'd be more murals down here but not really going through Dimensions here or something uh H okay just about to get out of here thought I'd share that with you guys and uh got a beautiful day today I love it the air feels a lot lighter it's cooler it's uh September 2nd or 3rd today and so let's get on the road so this is the rock painted on that mural right there m okay okay yeah so does really say much about if this was uh North Korea in the past but yeah you can see the line and so I guess this was all South Korea to begin with actually now it's north and so there's parts of both sides that uh started off on the other side interesting all righty let's get on our way beautiful day some happy Bears over there holding up the rock let's go let's do it let's see how far I get today I want to go to Gangneung it's the next big city and uh from there I'm hoping to go out to Uluengdo I think is the name I probably butchered that but there's a really small rock out there that uh has a very interesting story to tell and so that's where I'm headed let's see if I make it it's only 40 km but I stop all the time and meet people and just uh end end up hanging out so we'll see we'll see I wouldn't count on it how would you like to have that house beautiful all right don't get stuck in this town just keep going keep going that's a big poodle not a bad place to get stuck in though I would say beautiful beach looks like some nice places uh-huh keep going I mean it really is just beautiful beach after beautiful beach though nice soft sand I'm curious what it's going to be like when I get further south you know and then when I do the the southern coast and head towards Jeju What are those beaches going to be like but for now until now it's been so nice it really has especially when you have beautiful weather like this it's not super hot honestly it feels so good outside a part of me is thinking like oh man it would have been nice to spend like all of August in one of these little beach towns learn how to surf like that would have been really cool cause they're really fun lovely day it would have been nice just to hang out around here somewhere find a place learn how to surf and yeah maybe next year maybe next year whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa coming through somebody just yelled my name nice to meet you nice to meet you I have seen your YouTube uh oh tomorrow all right thank you what's your name my name is Lee Lee Lee looks like you're out cycling too today you're going north? do you have time to rest? for coffee? no I'm actually I'm going to go I'm going to go um nice nice yeah I want to it's a beautiful day, I just want to want to get going it was nice to meet you thank you so much let me see if I can't zoom in on this couple here doing a little photo shoot maybe some good places to camp back in there I mean it's just nothing but nice beaches the whole way I know I keep saying it but I mean there really is not a bad place to pick I mean just pick your poison so to speak just anywhere you go you're going to have a nice beach nice sand no rocks there's going to be and these don't look open yet but there's going to be something close by so much out here it's really nice oh perfect yes yes yes wow I see thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you perfect timing thank you perfect timing Ah that's so good damn look at that they built a uh staircase literally uh out to nothing is it worth stopping woo there you go it's kind of a funky feeling it's kind of staircase off into nothing got a nice view yeah they made this uh extra high for a reason but it's pretty cool tell you what there is definitely not a shortage of cafes and coffee shops along the beach every single place is a cafe what do you know another nice Beach and check that out that is a nice hotel right there I'm guessing it's a hotel could be Apartments but and you can definitely tell I'm getting closer to the city got lots and lots of more people out in the about got uh a lot of restaurants and bars and a lot more action that's for sure and I think this is a town a city about the size of Sokcho if not bigger so I think it's actually a pretty big place so kind of on the outskirts here here in what does that say Gyeonpo yeah all righty so I've made it to the port but but there's nobody here it's all closed down um I got another problem on my hand though I was riding and I kept hearing a click click click click I'm like what the hell is that I kept looking down I got down I was looking to see if anything was hitting my uh spoke and nothing and then like what the heck and then I look down at my back tire and I notice it's kind of like it's not it's kind of wobbly in a way and I'm like what the hell so I get down and I take a closer look and uh I don't know where it is but there is a there is a spoke that did break and uh that ain't good and so luckily I'm in a pretty good sized city and there's going to be bike shops and I already looked one up and I'm going to go take it to them now and see what they have to say nice little bike trail that heads off into the city it looks like this ain't too bad can you hear that it's driving me crazy I kept looking down there like what the hell is that hopefully I'm not doing more damage riding my bike right now I probably am hopefully it's an easy fix please another reason why Naver map app sucks for the bicycles for one you you can't hit play or go and do it you just see a uh the preview of the course and two it takes you to the stairs like what the hell can you tell I'm a little pissed I'm not in a good mood because of my tire I'm like are you kidding me oh do I want to carry my [ __ ] bike up there or do I want to go around I mean it's just right there that's why I don't really use Naver map but when I'm in the city uh that's why I like to use it I know you guys said use Kakao maps I should have downloaded it but I forgot and I just I'm lazy at the end of the day that's my problem hopefully I didn't bend the frame of the wheel kind of what I think I did cuz it's not it's not rolling straight you know theres a little wobble to it so found the bike store and yeah what do you think going to be a quick and easy fix or am I going to have to drop some cash hopefully not I mean I definitely feel like I came to the right place look at those guys's workstation though jeez how does he know where anything is all right so that guy got me all set up should be good to go and it only cost 10,000 which is uh which is around seven bucks I think when I asked him how much it was going to cost me he was like uh 100,000 I was like all right this guy's either joking with me or he doesn't know how to uh say 10,000 and so I pulled out 10,000 he was like yep that's it and I was like all right sweet like there's no way this cost 70 bucks now what to do jjimjilbang alright so this is what we're doing we're doing another jjimjilbang this one looks like it's been here for a while too nice looks like we have another Korean War Monument awesome wow cost 17,000 come check out the museum I'm sure it's worth it kind of gives off an Edward Scissorhands Vibe doesn't it snow crab noodle soup so I'm going to give crab another try some kind of seaweed maybe
2024-10-25 18:50