Epilogue: Korea

Shortly after I started this trip with Holly and the kids I had a subtle thought that we should have opted for spending a month biking around Korea and really going through all parts of the country instead of only doing the 4 Rivers Trail. Since it’s so close to where we live in Okinawa plus Korea is very bikeable and family friendly. Holly agreed as well. But alas…

Even though this wasn’t our first rodeo, it felt like we had forgotten a lot of things and just acted like total n00bs. It also felt like we were caught with our proverbial pants down and that we rushed into it, which was semi-true.

Some key differences from this tour compared to previous ones:

-            Two kids to manage. Lily Rose was the easiest baby ever. Joaquim not so much. That made it tricky waking up multiple times at night for feedings and comfort while biking on 4 – 5 hours of sleep. But with that said, having the two kids interact and play together was the best thing ever and exponentially more fun. They love to roll around and wrestle. Also, after a tiring day of biking when your child gives you a great big hug there is nothing better than that. Another reason to not wait till your traveling is done before having kids, right, silly DINKs?

-            Heavier loads. Now we are carrying more diapers, more food, more clothes, more liabilities. I think at most I was pulling 180 lbs with the trailer, kids, bike, and gear.  After breaking two spokes the first two days, I was reminded with nightmares from all the spokes I broke back in Taiwan last year as well as the Japan and America trips. Fortunately, two was it though, Holly was a champ and took on a lot of weight, which helped tremendously.

-            Can’t use Google Maps. I like to have a loose plan and make up part of it as I go. Korea doesn’t let Google Maps function properly which is my go-to for research and navigation. I had to use Kakoa Maps instead. Some features were fun as it was very bike friendly but results are in Korean and there are no offline maps available for download. Contrary to what everyone says, Korea doesn’t have Wi-Fi “eVeRyWhErE”.

-            We biked on bike paths 95% of the time. It’s wild to think that there was the option to almost never be on a road with a car, and if we were, we had a lane, and if there wasn’t a lane, then it wasn’t high-traffic, and if it was high-traffic, it didn’t last long. Get the point? With that said, we actually missed biking on roads with cars and going into cities since the 4 Rivers Trail doesn’t really go through towns. How weird is that?

Something I loved: hearing the Bean sing her songs while I pedaled. She would sing songs she made up as well as classics such as Baby Shark. It’s the best ever.

Something I hated: the cars tint all their windows, even the windshields. And it’s dark. Many times it’s the reflected kind of tint so it looks like a mirror. Why did I hate this? Well, the Koreans aren’t the friendliest of drivers and some can be quite rude and honk their horns at us because they’re so impatient. So I’d match fire with fire and be impatient back by yelling at them, waving my arms, sticking my tongue out. But I can’t even see anything because of how dark the tint is. It’s not very satisfying. Imagine getting road rage and you don’t even know if it’s working on the other guy.

Oh, we missed one telephone booth!!!!! Ahhhhhh, I was so mad. There goes that $100,000.