Granny's Got a Bike: Home again

Once I arrived home , it almost felt like my visit to South Korea was just a dream! Funny how quickly the excitement of being on holiday, disipates once back in familar surroundings. Though the suntanned patches on my feet remain, just as a reminder of being recently in the summer!

Leaving Korea was relatively painfree! I rode over to the front of the airport, where there were trolleys lined up outside. Thankfully there weren't any issues getting Hennie into her travelling bag and my cargo bag packed. Hennie is a tough all-steel touring bike and has handled travel in a plastic bag before. I definitely wouldn't suggest doing this with a carbon-framed bike!

For 5000kwn ($5approx), the trolley with Hennie, cargo bag and trunk bag was safely stored at the Han Jan express for about 5 hours, leaving me free to wander around. There was plenty of seating and a couple of eateries, donuts, coffee, sandwiches plus a couple of restaurants I didn't bother checking out. At 5pm I collected the trolley and was soon checking in. Then there was still a few hours of sitting around before the 9pm flight was boarded and away we went.

Like Izmo, I can't sleep on planes. There was about 30mins of really bumpy flight over the tropics before safely arriving at the Sydney Airport. After a bit of a shamozzle with luggage and transfer, we were soon flying back to Brisbane. Karina met me at the airport and soon we were zooming back to our island home to a wonderful welcome from Roxy and Laddie.

Time to reflect on my visit to this relatively unknown country.

The countryside was different than I imagined. I had thought there would be a similar landscape to Japan, as these two countries are so close. The lack of bamboo growing in the forests amazed me and there seemed to be almost a lack of diversity in the forests. Farming practices were similar with rice paddies being common. Vegetable market gardens were flourishing, with corn, chilli/capsicum and beans/legumes being the most common plants, as well as heaps of different and unknown "greens". The shade cloth structures were something I hadn't seen before and I think they were covering ginseng plants, but that's a guess.

There were also quite large orchards of peaches and apricots, their growing fruits covered with little yellow sleeves, probably to protect them from the many sparrows and other birds. The amount of flowers, especially holly-hocks, growing along the vegetables gardens and along the bike paths was always a joy to see.

But the lack of cultural buildings was something that amazed me. Maybe during the 1950's war a lot of their cultural history may have been destroyed. Now buddhism has been pushed aside for the more popular Christianity, as most small villages had a christian church, while temples were few. Perhaps I should have read up the history of the 1950's war. It did feel the re-creations of past fortresses were more as tourist attractions, therefore lacking the feeling of history. But I had stayed away from much of the 'historical' places in Seoul, as they did sound like tourist traps!

However, I thoroughly enjoyed cycling through the countryside, just experiencing the views and peace and quiet. Apart from the very busy bike paths leaving Seoul on the weekend, there were very few other cyclists out on the path, as summer is known to be very hot and it does coincide with their heavy rain season. And all of that was true! Several days were extreme-heat days, but only one day I was drenched in heavy rain. The constant warnings of flooding and landslips, made me cancel the last 5 days of cycling and head back to Seoul by bus, something I regret, but probably was wise.

Now back home again, I am seeing reports of flooding and landslips and sadly loss of life, in the regions I was cycling through. Several sections would now be under raging flood waters. I think of the flood dyke that I rode along, which was washed away, causing that underpass in Cheongju to be horribly flooded causing deaths... It seemed so high and safe, but obviously not so. There would be a lot of market gardens destroyed as many utilised the flat land alongside the major rivers, maybe had done so for many years.

Now I feel I know a tiny amount about another country, its culture and is geography. It is a very small country about the fifth the size of Queensland, with double the population of Australia. No wonder there are hundreds of apartment towers! The small country towns I rode through were maybe a little shabby, but they were all driving large cars, mainly SUVs and 4WDs. The air quality around Seoul was poor, the blue haze never lifted, causing my eyes to feels irritated. The lack of signs of renewable energy with solar panels few and far between and where I cycled, no sign of wind power. However, there were several weirs, so I guess that hydro is a major source of energy.

My total kms for the 2 weeks cycling were 630km. I had expected to do another 200km at least, cycling back to the airport along the west coast. So am still a tad miffed about that... but this tour was generally a fun trip, though let's not forget the hassles of finding accommodation in the smaller towns.