Day #1: Busan

So, there are a few kinks to work out when starting every bicycle adventure. Even if it's your thousandth one. The dynamics are always different but that's what makes it fun. Even if you brought your kids. OR I should say, especially if you brought your kids

(Side note: You see, there are loser DINKs (dual income, no kids) today who think they should have all their fun and travels before settling down and having kids. Those people are doing a great disservice to themselves. But I digress.) 

That's also what makes you hate life and start regretting everything, ever. 

This time, what we regretted was not planning more and planning better. With the whole work contract being in limbo and a few other questions in the air of going back and forth with dates, locations, and gear we didn't manage to cross all our I's nor dot all our T's. Nevertheless, we've already experienced the Hand of the Almighty with Tender Mercies aplenty to help us out. 

Let's explore Busan!

We camped at a park near the river. I think camping in Korea has similar, unspoken rules as Japan and Taiwan - you can do it anywhere but hurry up and leave.

He says: "I'm tired!"

(Blogger doesn't let you caption vids, dang it.)

Here's our route from the bottom right to the top left. So if you're curious about other rides to do in Korea, they got you covered. Even up to the DMZ!

They got these really nice trailer toilets everywhere along the trail. This one had the inside of pure chrome.

We're headed to our official starting point. The K Water company that owns or makes the bridges and dams for the rivers are clues we're going to be looking for along our journey.

We got there a tad early and had to wait for them to open up at 9:30AM! We need to purchase our official passport booklet so we can get our stamps along the trail. If we fill it up then we can win $100,000 cash! Hurry up I want to go!

This is the telephone booth we have our eyes peeled for every 30+/- km or so. Each one has a name and stamp for our passport booklet. 

Dang, if we were going the other direction and finishing the journey in Busan we could be enjoying this foot bath like this guy. He was clipping his nasty toenials while we were there. And who knows what other unspeakable acts he performed after we left 👀👀

These are middle school kids decked out in biking gear. You can't afford this in the States.

Sweetest things are already asleep.

Oops! Time to stop at the bike shop because I already have a broken spoke! "It's our first day out, how could there already be a problem?!" (Points will be awarded to whoever can correctly guess the movie quote.) If you recall from our Japan and Taiwan trip (not to mention my USA one) we had loads of broken spokes. Someday, I'll fork over hundreds of dollars to get a custom wheel made to withstand even the fiery darts of the devil!

It's raining. Let's get a cheap hotel and cleaned up!

If you've ever lived in the Middle East like I have, you'll see the coolo minarets with their eerie green lights decorating the sky. Here in Korea, they do a similar thing but the crosses on Christian churches are red. Kinda like the green and red light sabers in Star Wars. Makes you think, huh?

Getting things ready in our hotel.

Time for Sabbath Day Worship!

Outside the Church. I love matching gear. 

Man, Blogger really cussed the pooch with how they "imbed" videos and forcing us to use YouTube just so they can get revenue with their ads. Google is the worst and a POS, everyone! If you didn't know it before, surely, you do now.