April 13, 2017

What a difference a day makes. Today was a great day of cycling, although we did wonder on a couple of occasions why the route took us up two beejesus hills. They were so steep even Ralf had to push his bike.

The weather was warm to start with a little chill in the air. The reflections on the river were amazing and Ralf captured some good shots as we cycled along the top of the dyke.

Once again we passed many poly-houses in the valley. Most of these were filled with corn – we had to laugh as we passed rows and rows of corn “fields”.

The hills we had to climb were very steep.  However, you get the reward of the views and if you are lucky a lovely rest place at the top.

As we came down the second hill we saw two touring cyclists on Bike Fridays. Wouldn’t you know it they were Canadian from Vancouver. Julia and Rick are cycling from Busan to Seoul. They told us about a couple of hotels where they had stayed. We have booked the one in Busan for tomorrow night it is called the Sense Motel.

We cycled in to Namji where we were hoping to get to last night. Thank heavens we hadn’t tried to push it to this Town. With the two beejesus hills, we would have been really cursing. Fortunately for us we had fresh legs to carry us over the hills and when we came in to Namji there was a Spring Flower festival. There were a lot of people wandering along the path so we slowly made our way through the crowds. The tulips were blooming and so were the rape seed plants.

We stopped at the first food stand we saw and had a pita style bread with cinnamon, eat dessert first. As we continued along the route we spotted another food stand with sausages on a stick, fake crab in tempura batter and sausages dipped in batter with potato chips stuck on them. Sausage and chips on a stick – lovely!! It sat like a lead balloon in my stomach for a while then it was o.k.

We crossed over the bridge and spotted a small temple.  It had a Buddha and a Confucian temple – confusing?

At one point on the route we had a decision to make which way to go. We stopped an older cyclist, again the guy directed us in the right direction and then told us to follow him until the next certification centre. He had done the Korean Triangle 7 times, we think he was in his 70’s. After the certification centre, he had a cigarette and then headed off leaving us in his dust!

We arrived on the outskirts of Hanam and decided to cross the river to look for a motel, it was only 2:30 but the next stop was possibly another 40 kms away. We found the Princess Motel, another love motel but a very new fancy place. After we had checked in we discovered that Julia and Rick had stayed here last night.

This love motel was very nice, it could have passed as any good hotel in North America, except for the extra goody pack and the auto-check-in machine.  The rooms available are lit, you choose the room, pay your money and the key is dispensed in the machine.

After our shower we headed out to explore the Town. There was a lovely market and we found our dinner. A mixed bean salad, we thought we had bought some savory pastries but it turns out they were sweet. Oh well it is an adventure.