Jun 19 2017

“I am sailing, I am sailing”

We look out of our hotel window eastwards as the morning sun climbs higher over the Sea of Japan, which, in a few short hours, we will set sail upon. Today is the first day of real adventure on this trip according to Anne, I however feel that when we set off from Vladivostok, we will be on our way back. Interesting that we each have different views on how we perceive the road ahead, but both agree that then last two months have been very comfortable, certainly reflected by my expanded waistline.

View from our hotel in Donghae, Seoul

Which way to Donghae passenger terminal?

We had scouted the location of the Passenger Ferry Terminal on arrival yesterday since highway 42 ended at the main port entrance where we ascertained our entrance was around the corner. A five minute ride in non existent Sunday morning traffic had us entering the port and being directed to join a group of four motorbikes parked outside what we learned was the ferry logistics office. Other travellers, who what where: questions in our minds as we park alongside a mixed bunch of bikes, all really loaded, including spare tyres. We quickly learn that three of the four are Korean brothers setting off on a six month journey that will take them across Russia, Mongolia to Europe ending in Spain in December. They all speak good English and over the next half an hour, we are joined by another six motorbikes and scooters all with Korean riders. We have a small army of adventurers with everything from BMW1200GS to 110cc scooters, maybe a motorcycle enthusiast can identify all the models, I could not.

Some of our band of motorcycles

All new Korean Facebook friends

Almost all are carrying replacement more off-road oriented tyres, their current road ones are all partially used. We have no spares but put new, what we think are, long life tyres in Vancouver, Heidenau K60 Scout. It would be interesting to do a comparison on how we all ended up. Ours must last until Turkey some 10,000 miles / 16,000 kilometres distant, which, based on previous experience, should be doable. We shall see.

You call that a top box? THIS is a top box!!

We have become so used to seeing western adventure motorcyclists in our travels, online and in electronic media that we forget that others, ie Asian, have that thirst for adventure as we do. We exchange blogs, look at each other’s bike setups. Anne and I are taken with the mesh seat covers which create ventilation passages for air to flow. Our Scotoiler attracts some interest as did our panniers and spot lights.

We all have to undergo the same customs process and this is detailed in our Visas and Borders section. We do get to ride without helmets, at 30 kph, to the customs inspection area. It is always a nice experience to have the wind in your hair, even for a couple of minutes, but I would not risk it on the highway. We spend a couple of pleasant hours, mostly waiting before the Customs inspection is complete and we ride into the bowels of the ship to leave Streak and Storm to their slumbers.

Riding around Donghae port, wind in the hair

Waiting for VIN inspection and x-raying of all our belongings

We have to then go in reverse through immigration, security, and customs to collect our hand luggage and then return in the opposite direction. We had a booking made for us, but still had to pay and collect tickets so we joined a somewhat chaotic scrum at the booking/ticketing counter that shared the same space as the access to customs/immigration. Still it all worked out and half an hour or so later we have passenger tickets in our hand as we climb the gangplank onboard the ‘Eastern Dream’. We are told our cabin is open, we do not have to collect our key? Open the door and guess what, we are sharing! Our advertised 2 person cabin now has four floor mats jammed in so closely that the outside mats are bent upwards by the wall. Even in the 90 person room you get a curtained off bunk. Not what we are paying USD$200 pp for! Our Russian roommates kindly leave to allow us to change from our motorcycle gear and then Anne feels a visit to the information office is warranted.

Our private 1st class cabin, really?!

We are told that four to a room is company policy for first class, even though the advertising pictures show two mats per room. We are told to come back at 15:00, but shortly afterwards we are approached by a staff member to be told the other couple has vacated our room, hopefully to one of their own and we have our own place. All I can recommend is that you are probably better off in a cheaper bunk bed than pay this amount for a shared room where the sleeping mats run up the wall to fit. We would do that if we came this way again. We find different maps onboard rating these rooms as first and second class cabins, company greed at work here I think.

In preparation for departure we are treated to a lifejacket demonstration, unlike the airlines I have flown with, they show the light works and test the whistle. I think the airlines could learn something from this. Now where is the cupboard with our lifejackets?

As we get underway I can hear playing Rod Stewarts ‘Sailing’ over the loudspeakers. For mostly Korean, Russian and Japanese passengers someone has a sense of humour, I wonder how many people get it. We sail out of Korea having only spent a few days glimpsing this intriguing country. We have so many questions, what is Korea’s history?, why are roofs and walls painted blue? We both agree that we would like to return, not on motorbikes, and see and learn more, probably as a stopover on the way to Europe one day. As always, we have met kindly and generous people whose paths we will never cross again and their actions cannot be returned by us. It reinforces our view of the positive nature of people around the world, not just when major tragedies strike, but everyday kindness that exists worldwide.

As I am writing this blog, Anne plays a Dido song which has the words , “I will go down with ship” ha… I prefer Rod Stewart “Sailing” any day, it has an upbeat floaty appeal to me. Must stop looking at the lifejacket cupboard.

The sea is calm, a big benefit for fair weather sailors such as ourselves, may it last the full 22 hours of the journey across the Sea of Japan. Hey, is that not the place where what’s his name lands all the missiles he fires? Maybe a moving ship is like being on a motorcycle in a lightening storm, keep moving and you are insulated by the tyres. Must stop looking at the lifejacket cupboard. At least we have four.

On the ‘Eastern Dream’ ferry from Donghae to Vladivostok

I think there must be a good couple of hundred passengers and we have not seen most of the motorcyclists again. We have meal vouchers, the benefit of being first class passengers, interestingly at meal time, the majority of diners are Korean or Japanese, the Russians seem buy the instant noodles and eat them in their rooms or on deck.

We wake to calm, thankfully but misty views as we plough on towards Vladivostok. Breakfast and lunch pass without the low cloud lifting, we must pack to be ready for arrival.

All ready to pack, now if I can only get those lifejackets in the top-box…..Stop it

– Anthony

Jun 17 2017

Video

Ferry to ferry, highway 42 Korea

Jun 17 2017

42: the answer to life, the universe and everything

For those of you who have read the book ‘Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams, the title is self explanatory. For those who have not read this series of books, ‘Forty Two’ is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything. In our case, the answer to a little challenge: how to cross Korea from west to east, avoiding all major highways.

In Korea, motorcycles are not permitted to travel on expressways, the main direct highway system between cities. Travel must be done on secondary roads and we discovered that highway 42 starts close to the Incheon airport where Streak and Storm arrived and runs across the country to our port of embarkation for Vladivostok at Donghae on the east coast. A good starting point.

We will need to overcome a number of challenges in this journey, the first being that the only two roads connecting Incheon and the mainland are expressways, but luckily there is a small ferry service which will give us access to the mainland. Our second will be to cross the Seoul Capital Area which has a population of some 24 million people. Still we are always up for a challenge so off we go. We start with broad avenues and no traffic, excellent. Someone here in Incheon built all the road infrastructure around the airport way ahead of any population development. Easy riding.

We are blessed with sunny weather, which will allow us to bed in our brand new, and very slippery Heidenau K60 Scout tyres that need 200 km / 120 miles to be run in to both settle the tyres on the rims and scuff the tyres to remove any chemicals used in the manufacturing process.

Early urban planning, Incheon

We track the ferry down and find ourselves waiting with one car and about 20 foot passengers. I cannot say I am looking forward to riding the new tyres on a metal deck but off we go, slowly. The ferry’s deck is fine, but appears to be well spotted with bird droppings? The source of the droppings becomes apparent as hundreds of seagulls start to circle the ferry in a clockwise direction, Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ comes to mind as the ferry slowly backs out, but no people throw food to the seagulls as they pass the deck. Our car driver spends the journey in a losing battle to keep seagull droppings off his car. We suffer one pannier strike, for luck I assume.

Waiting for our ferry to mainland South Korea

Down the steep ramp onto the ferry

Anthony doing the U -turn on the ferry

On the ferry to South Korea’s mainland

Ferry to Incheon on the mainland

We depart the little ferry, up the ramp and through a giant amusement park that would dwarf Sydney’s similarly located Luna Park. A couple of minutes later we are in the thick of it, riding in Seoul proper has begun.

I have found that Korea is a visual assault on the senses, Hangul (한국말) as the language is called seems to adorn buildings, street signs and vehicles, sensory overload when one is also trying to ride and follow the GPS. Highway 42 starts almost immediately after we leave the ferry, interesting how this one road links our ferry disembarkation and embarkation points. We quickly realise that the easy riding days back around the airport are over as we try to adapt to the Korean driving style. In addition to the no expressway rules for motorcycles, we had read that we must always stay in the right hand lane, not overtake and only pull out to turn left 30 metres from the junction! We understand these rules apply to all slow moving vehicles, trucks, buses etc, but as usual this information comes from websites that rank highly but may be dated. How does one determine what is relevant?

Typical road signs on route 42

Oops, wrong turn, Seoul

What we have learned about the Korean driving style is as follows:

– Fast acceleration and heavy breaking are the norm, scary in the rearview mirror when you are slowing for red traffic lights
– Red traffic lights are sometimes treated as advisories only, especially when turning right, use your own judgement
– Changing lanes is indicated when the bonnet/hood of the car next to you starts to get closer, but does not illicit horn honking or road rage
– Highway speed limits of 60 kph are always exceeded by at least 20 kph except where there are speed cameras
– Busses will pull out in front of you, especially to turn left.
– Motorcycles do overtake and travel in the centre or left lanes.
– We have yet to discern the signs for hairpin bends!

There will be a video, but as usual the best bits are missing as I am busy riding, not thinking of filming at that time.

Anne has planned a route today of a couple of hundred kilometres to a forested area south east of Seoul, we would have to see how the GPS will cope having turned off the main roads option to avoid expressways. This plan quickly evaporates as we make slow progress through the crowded streets. Our aim now is to get out of Seoul then see where we are before making a decision on the day’s destination.

Anne has written up a list of 43 forbidden expressways and 8 different road numbers to get to the first temple which she is carrying in her water pack for quick reference. The problem is that some backroutes directly lead onto forbidden ones so you have to be very careful. We don’t want the police closing the expressway to chase after us as we have read!!

Traffic lights seem to dominate the landscape, at every intersection it seems equal time is allowed for all permutations of crossing, I am surprised we are not bombarded with street vendors given the captive nature of the traffic, coffee anyone while you wait? An hour after leaving the ferry, we have progressed about 8 miles or 12 kilometres, the Greater Seoul Area is endless. We are lucky to find that although we have no idea what the signs say, number 42 is displayed at each major intersection so we at least know we are heading in the right direction. The occasion miss leads to an interesting combination of back streets via the GPS to recover our momentum.

Loud electronic advertising along the side of this truck, Seoul

Rice paddy fields, Icheon

Progress is made slowly: at the end of the day, we will have spent six and a half hours riding to cover only 77 miles / 120 kilometres, we really are the 2slowspeeds. After a number of hours in the saddle, we start to see trees. Seeking a hotel, we head for a forest resort, identified on my GPS and Anne’s Mapsme app. Sounds like a great location to rest after a busy day, unfortunately unlike Canada which has seen ski resorts become summer destinations, everything is closed. We are directed to the next town, Icheon where we find a grand looking hotel, well a grand looking Korean hotel, where the room is completely empty, bedding including mattresses are in a cupboard. It is nice however that each room here has a vestibule, no shoes allowed inside, just like home for us. We have also realised there is no 4th floor as the words for ‘four’ and ‘death’ sound similar in Korean, Chinese and Japanese. This manifests itself in tetraphobia, the fear of the number four. A word I did not know and a great addition to the scrabble board. A meal at a Japanese restaurant outside our hotel rounds off the day. Sleep follows quickly.

Our hotel room in Icheon, Korea

Where to find breakfast, well, one we can understand, we walk the rows of shops trying to make sense of the contents, then hey presto a place to buy WD40 one element missing from our arsenal of glues and gasket makers due to the high flammability of WD40 clashing with Dangerous Goods clearance for the flight from Vancouver to Seoul.

Everything you could ever want from belts to bearings here in Icheon

Got our WD-40 in Icheon

A 24 hour resturant offers bone soup for breakfast, we are not that ‘Local’ yet. Broth is tasty but he photos of the soup with bones in it and the pungent smell puts Anne off. Further searching leads to ‘Paris Baguette’, a Korean company that has now gone global with 3,500 branches provides ‘authentic French baking’. Croissants and coffee, we are saved. With our slow first day, we decide to travel directly but slowly towards Donghue on highway 42. We cannot afford to miss the weekly ferry as our Russian visa has a fixed starting date. Progress is sedate as we leave cities behind but the hilly and undulating nature of the terrain, plus the highways 60 kph speed limit our progress. We try to find a group of temples en-route, but the GPS and Mapsme lead us to a blocked entrance. As I have wondered before, what is the provenance of the data that supports our global maps? Traffic has thinned considerably and we are now scooting along at a fair clip, keeping up with local traffic. We have however been introduced on a regular basis to one of our lesser favoured surfaces: grooved concrete. This wet/icy anti skid road surface gives an unpleasant wobbly feeling and we have found it to be used here on downhill sections near traffic lights, tunnels, bends etc. We know the answer is to slow down and relax, but still not a pleasant surface.

Korea’s unpleasant road grooves

Along highway 42

Auraji, home of the Jeongseon Railbike, Korea

Auraji, Korea

Civilisation hugs the narrow valley floors with tree festooned hillsides looking down on us as we zig and zag eastwards. I never get the feeling we are out in the wilderness, on our route anyway. A short stop in Jeongsoenup and the purchase of a single bottle of Coca Cola introduces us to the shop owner who, while, we are sitting outside her shop brings us a green tea ice-cream each. While I eat mine, Anne cannot eat cream based products, she returns again with two local energy drinks as gifts. When we complement her on her plants outside her shop, she immediately runs into her shop, gets a parcel out of her fridge and hands it to Anne: two massive cucumbers. We cannot exchange words, but we understand she has two sons, both living away and sadly her husband has passed. Her actions speak for the generosity of people to strangers. We are lucky to have met her.

Our lovely shopkeeper

Our shopkeepers gifts

Our generous shopkeeper and her smile

As the afternoon wears on we reach Imgyemyeon, a small town at the junction of highways 42 and 35. A towering hotel by local building standards beckons and we will stay two nights, this place has a nice feel to it. Dinner is a Tofu and mushroom dish and we learn our host makes the tofu from scratch, another memorable meal and we are now just 50 km from the coast.

A day packing and sorting and exploring Imgyemyeon, covered in a separate blog entry, followed. Saturday morning and we are off with our sorted load and extra fuel containers filled. It is interesting that at each gas/petrol station they will only fill to the automatic stop level, regardless the amount of pleading ‘Full, Full’. They just will not exceed that limit.

Sinheungdong mountain ranges, Korea

Some sharp twisties climbing and descending make for the most enjoyable ride to date. Much closer to the type of riding we favour. The highway 42 does actually finish at the port main gates, a real ferry to ferry road. We have ridden across Korea and now the adventure begins.

Which way to Donghae passenger terminal?

– Anthony

PS how to entertain small children at a wedding, now where are those permanent markers?

Kids having fun with the Just Married couple’s car, Donghae, Seoul

Jun 16 2017

Relaxing in Imgyemyeon

As we ride into the tiny village of Imgyemyeon, just 40kms out of Donghae, I spot a tall motel. It is too soon to get to Donghae, so we pull over and I go back to have a look while Anthony stays with the bikes. For some reason, the place has a good feel, I am shown a lovely room, I quickly check the current availability and rate at the hotel we had booked for 2 days later in Donghae and decision is made, we’ll stay here for 2 nights. A good base to spend the remaining of our time in Korea (locals only refer to their country as ‘Korea’, not ‘South Korea’).

Imgyemyeon is not a quaint, pretty little place, but a thriving farming community. It feels gently alive. Our 2 nights here were spent repacking, washing, walking, blogging, eating, exploring, shopping, eating, using Google translate to communicate and of course sleeping. While we didn’t sleep on the floor this time, the mattress was not only rock hard, but was circular – we had the love room!!!

Enjoy your stay in Imgyemyeon through the photos.
– Anne

Our love bed, with mood lighting above, Imgyemyeon

Is it soap, moisturiser, cleanser?!

Dinner of tofu, mushrooms and ground beef, Imgyemyeon

Dinner in Imgyemyeon

Cooked eggs in the local supermarket?

Yes, cooked egg for breakfast but brown!

Dried octopus

Most advertising has a photo of happy woman

Take your pick

Not sure what this completely painted hut was about, Imgyemyeon

So many farming hardware shops in Imgyemyeon

Local police car – choose the appropriate number to call, Imgyemyeon

A walk along the river, we try out the various exercise machines, Imgyemyeon

Cabbages for Kimchi, Imgyemyeon

Most delicious dumplings, Imgyemyeon

Inside a dumpling, Imgyemyeon

Rice field in Imgyemyeon

Bridge over Imgyemyeon river in Imgyemyeon

On the edge of Imgyemyeon

View of Imgyemyeon with our tall motel

Fish ladder on the Imgyemyeon

Walking and cycling track sign, Imgyemyeon

Imgyemyeon is on Korea’s extensive walking/cycling cross countryntrack!

Temple in Imgyemyeon

Imgyemyeon

Imgyemyeon

Enjoying peaceful Imgyemyeon

Jun 13 2017

Seoul

Waiting to board our flight from Vancouver to Seoul, we eagerly watch for any new pallets being driven to our plane to see if we can spot Streak and Storm. At each sight of large brown crates we rush to the window for a closer look, no, still not them… Time to board, we wonder if they’ll be on our flight as planned… 11 hours later, after a smooth flight, practicing writing some Korean words to memorise them when we see them on the road and having well and truly contoured North Korea, we arrive in Seoul.

Crossing over Russia

Staying well away from Pyongyang

Our immediate feeling at the airport is that everything is clean, calm and ordered. It is hard to describe the atmosphere. It is immediately clear that we are not to jay walk and walk on the correct side of the pedestrian crossing as identified with arrows – saves bumping into people walking in the opisite direction.

We get our first taste of hotels in Korea, although this one is clasified as a ‘tourist’ hotel. As you open your hotel room door, you are greeted with slippers in a sort of vestibule, and a little step to the main door. In the room is a tray with all sorts of men’s grooming products, even a hair brush (can you imagine using this hair brush?!) but the funniest is the large spray can which looked like hair spray, except for the picture of a cockroach lying on his back. Anthony reckons it too is a man’s grooming product designed by women who probably consider men to be cockroaches! The bed is super hard which I am looking forward to.

Porch into our hotel room

Free toileteries

Once we connect to wifi and I find yet another frustrating email from our shipping contact here, Wendy: in addition to being asked a few times before our departure if we had arrived yet, despite having given our departure and arrival dates several times and her having our Airway Bills with all the details, and my asking several times where we would meet on Monday 12th, we arrive to find out that our bikes arrived a day early and she wants to meet us at the airport at 19:30 that evening, equivalent to 3.30am for us – sorry, not tonight! Same time tomorrow she suggests. And no word from the shipper… Pretty disappointing to say the least as this means we will be charged additional storage fees for having our bikes there over 24 hours. It is already equivalent to 1am for us but we decide it is in our interest to return to the airport asap and start the customs clearance process to save us time and money tomorrow.

The whole customs clearance process will be detailed in our Visas and Borders section soon, but suffice to say here that the customs staff at the airport terminal were incredibly helpful. The customs officer we were directed to immediately called an interpreter. They had our Airway Bill in their system as we understood our name being mentioned. Within the first half hour, three people were involved and placed 6 phone calls. We then lost count of the number of calls and people involved, I think another 5. At one point the interpreter came over just to chat with us – it was her duty she told us to be with us while the paperwork was being processed. When she had to leave, after the official closing time, another customs officer called us over to her desk. She spoke good English and she too explained that it was her duty to chat to us so that her colleague could continue her work for us and feel less pressured that we were just waiting alone. Such amazing courtesy and consideration. Two hours later, we had all the paperwork we needed to clear the bikes out of the warehouse the next morning. Time for some dinner and some sleep before an early morning for the next stage of getting the bikes out.

Every government office or bank provides these

Delicious dumplings

Breakfast is a funny mixture of western and local food. We try our first kimchi, pickled chilli cabbage, it gives a bit of flavour and a bit of a bite to otherwise bland food. By the end of breakfast, we can see that are growing to enjoy Kimchi already. The next day was another whole process made the more interesting by a series of ‘helpful’ signs – which office are we meant to go to?! Yet again, someone came to our rescue: one of the Korean Air Services staff organised a car to drive us to a building to collect the original Airway Bill. It would have taken us hours to walk there and back. Paid the warehouse charge and after returning to the first office, got more signatures and stamps, we were ready to be taken to the warehouse to receive the crates.

Information sheet

Where to now?!

Crate removed

Time to finish reassembling the bikes

2.5 hours later, we are on our way!!! We are back at the hotel by noon – plenty of time to go into Seoul but not before lunch. We had been told of a great little restaurant around the corner from our hotel and decide to give it a go. What a feast, great dumplings. With Kimchi again of course. We are struck by the assault on the senses, just in our little area alone.

Left then first right to our hotel

Quiet Incheon where our hotel is

Cash machine

Toy arcade?!

We take the airport express subway into Seoul centre, which is 60kms away. Again, we are struck by the efficiency, cleanliness and ordered feel of the subway. It seems that a lot of thought has been put into making travel easy and stress free.

Next train approaching

Reserved for pregnant women, whether showing or not

Subway entrance for kids

I have a little wandering tour planned out to take Anthony on. When time is limited, I prefer ambling the streets rather than visiting important landmarks or museums as I find you get a better sense of the place as it is today, and can still read about the history. I had read of an arty suburb called Gahoe-dong with good views of the city. Getting there would take us past the Gyeongbokgung Palace, the National Palace, where one can watch the changing of the guards, except on Tuesdays, that’s today.

Impressive motorcade near the national palace, Seoul

King Sejong statue in front of the National Palace, Seoul

Seoul

As we meander the streets, we come across two young ladies taking lots of photos of each other. Too photogenic, I ask them if I can take a ohoto of them and ask why they are in traditional dresses. Just because they are spending the day together Vivi tells me as Chong-Ing from Busan on the right is visiting her. There is something special to see people proudly wearing their traditional dress. After them, we came across many more, young and not so young.