Tongyeong, Mireuksan.
Lovely hike, just up from Parky's parents' place. Pitty it was overcast, it's such a sureal view. Look west and it is stepped rice paddies from almost the top, right down to the water's edge. Look south and it is sea and scattered islands as far as you can see. Look east and you can see the entire city on both sides of the water. None of the views look like they belong anywhere near each other, but they are just 3 sides of the same hill. Nice.
It was a preety gloomy ol' morning down in Jangyu this morning, grey, wet and foggy. But up on Gulam Mountain it couldn't have been better.
Namwon Ride
(I found an old blog from about a month ago, I forgot to post it. But considering the dearth of written entries lately, I thought I'd post it now)
The first real ride of the year is taking place this weekend. Wombatters are heading to Namhae as we always do in early spring. The week before last, Dennis, Rodney, Parky, Booky and I trundled down to Geoje, as you can see in the photos. Last week, Parky, Booky, Russian George and I did a nice Saturday ride through Samnagjin, Benegol, Gajisan, Unmun, Changnyeong and Pajeon Hill and home as a warm up. But this coming Saturday, Bill and Lisa will be taking their third annual Namhae Season Opener. I can’t wait. Further updates next week. Two interesting driving experiences that have happened in the last week though are 1) getting pulled up in Eonyang and 2) not getting pulled up in Jangyu. Of all of the laws I have broken in Korea. Hundreds of different laws, thousands of different times, thrown out the window. Look, I am no criminal and I am not bragging about breaking laws here, but if you look at the traffic situation here, sometimes it is ridiculous. Pedestrian crossings between unused rice paddies, a kilometer from the nearest dwelling or intersection, if/when you stop at that light, you sure as hell aren’t going to wait for it to go green. 20 kilomteres of straight dual lane carriageway in both directions, no lights, sweep in/sweep out junctions, forward facing speed cameras only, yes that 80km/h gets a nudge from time to time. But the biggest thing is no enforcement. Policemen/boys (they are never women or girls) with acne and breaking voices, they get abused by the Koreans and they run and hide from the foreigners. Is it any wonder that no road rules get obeyed here? The point of this post though is this, of all of the rules that I have broken, and there have been a few, I was finally pulled over last Saturday. I was pulled over by a pimply faced teenager and given a stern talking to. My crime; turning left at a T-junction and riding over the yellow line. He was pretty keen on his job, this boy, and I thought he was going to lumber me to the full extent of the law until we realized he was a dog lover and he realised that we had a dog, on the bike, that he could pat. We held up traffic for probably 2 minutes while he patted the dog and lectured us on the rights and wrongs of crossing various types of lines. Another job well done for Korean Traffic Law Enforcement. I guess the clincher though happened tonight. Parky and I went out for “chicken in a pot”, otherwise known as samgyetang. It is only a block from our house, but circumstances had it that we arrived there by car. During the course of meal I had some ginseng wine. Not much by any means, but as it is homemade you never know ‘exactly’ how much you have had. It might be 26% or it might be 16% alcohol. I felt fine and got in the driver’s seat of the car out of habit, I never thought about it. Even if I had though about it I still would have no reason not to. I don’t drink drive, if I was the slightest bit tipsy, I would have asked Parky to drive. Nonetheless, we had only traveled about 200 metres when we came to a breath-o. It was about 50 metres in front of us when we saw it. I had had my last drink only about 3 minutes previous. There is no way I would have been over the limit in my blood, but there was a distinct possibility that I would have blown that machine to pieces and have to sit around (50 metres from my living room) and wait for my second breath test to come back (as good as) negative. Long story, cut shortish, I stopped the car in the middle of the road, got out, walked around to the passenger side of the car, asked Parky to drive (she hadn’t had a drink since we were in Australia a month ago). She got out, walked around to the driver’s door and got in. She drove through the breath-o and blew zero. What a surprise! Nobody gave a shit. They were watching us and they didn’t care. No wonder the road rules are not obeyed. If this country wasn’t so achingly beautiful, no-one would ride in it. But it is, so we do.
Bike and Hike
Parky, Books and I are officially Biker-hikers. I read Bill Bryson’s book “A Walk in the Woods” and I was hooked. Combine that with my idea for a “Bike and Hike” club, that I have been pushing uphill with a rake for a couple years now, and we have done it. But motorcyclists don’t seem that keen on hiking and hikers don’t seem to ride bikes. I kinda feel like that chick from the Jim Carrey film who led a combined jogging and polaroid photography class (if you haven’t seen “Yes Man”, go do yourself a favour). Anyhoo, our club now has 3 members: Me, Parky and Booky. (Side note; My camera shat itself, these photos are all taken with my mobile phone).
5th Anniversary Ride. Gayasan.
April - Namhae Ride
March Geoje Ride
PARKY'S FIRST RIDE
She's been in training since November. It started out with me buying a pushbike and following her around an as-yet-not-complete suburb. Then we progressed to me having to follow her on the Mirage, 'cause she was gettingt too quick for the pushbike. Now my wife is ready for her first trip out of Jangyu. Where do I take her ... straight onto the motorway for an illegal 17 kms to Jinyeong. Nice!
NEW CX-500
I had a feeling in me water that there was going to be a bike awaiting me when I arrived in Melbourne. I wasn’t quite sure why, neither why I had that particular feeling nor why someone would have organized me a bike. But I was quite sure it had happened. It started last October when I was looking for bikes to purchase in OZ. Parky and I had decided that we should have a bike here for when we are home and thanks to a side job Bill set me up with a year previous, we were making enough coin to justify it. We started looking at a few mid 80s ‘BMW R80’s. They were selling for around the 4-4.5k mark. Not bad, good tourers, reliable and all, but they all had upwards of 120 000kms on them (as any 20 year old beemer should have) and that made me nervous. Anyhoo, trawling the classifieds in my hometown trading post I happened upon a HondaCX500. Never heard of it? Neither had I. But I took one look at it and I was in love. A 1978, 500cc transverse twin touring machine, two straight exhaust pipes, flared out and up, a big fat touring seat you could park a bus on and a gear sac ready to go. A bit of research told me that they are among other things, comfortable, still surprisingly popular to this day, sometimes turbocharged (???) and bulletproof. This one had 68 000kms on it and apparently they usually need a new timing chain at around 50 000. A quick phone call to Uncle Dave, who lives not far from the point of sale, a quick trip over by him and we discovered that this bike has had only 2 owners and a full service history from 18 000kms to today including the timing chain at 55 000kms done. That was that then, a done deal, all I had to do was wire the money which I was going to do straight after my lunchtime lesson. Unfortunately, during my lunchtime lesson I was informed that one third of the workforce was being laid off due to lack of demand for the cars that we made and I was a part of it, effective as of the end of the week. I didn’t buy my 1978 Honda CX500.
About a week or so later it was gone. That didn’t make sense to me. It wasn’t impossible, just unlikely. A 31 year old bike, not particularly cheap, being sold off a farm near a piss ant village in the middle-of-nowhere-South-Australia, in a recession, within 3 weeks of going on the market. And then my family started acting cagey, taking over the organization of all tour related items back home. Insisting that I could have one of the cars for the entire duration of the trip. Thwarting my every move to try to pin down bargain rental bike for the weekends.
But who would buy me a bike, and mores the point, WHY? Well, mum would. There’s no solid answer on the why except that she is the rockingest mum that ever lived. Maybe she thinks we might holiday at home a little more if we have a touring bike here, and she might be right. Whatever the reason, if I were any happier I would simply explode.
The Soju'd Hojus ride again.
Last weekend (14th &15th Feb) we had a Soju'd Hojus reunion tour. 3 bikes from Adelaide, 6 from Melbourne, only Max was missing. 7 Guys and Gals met the first night at Dunkeld, 4 joined them at Lavers Hill (Great Ocean Road) the next early afternoon. We toodled along to Apollo Bay where we spent the night and caught up merrily. Next morning saw us easing our steeds through the twisties between Apollo Bay and Lorne and then headed up-country, away from the Sunday traffic, taking the back roads through to Gelong and on to Melbourne. On arrival in Melbourne we stopped at the Mona Castle Hotel for a counter meal and a photo. Its a good pub, the Mona. It's got a real community atmosphere, social clubs and organisations and an eclectic mix of regulars. It has the atmosphere of a country town pub, but it sits right in Yarraville. I see why my brothers spend a bit of time there.
Just a quick note about nationalized medicine.
I have been getting progressively worse for a few days and yesterday when I awoke I was unable to walk unassisted. It doesn’t matter why, it was just that bad. I took a cab to the emergency room at 8:30am and was admitted by 9:00. I was seen to (in turn) by a student doctor, an intern, a gastroenterologist, a surgeon and an anesthetist by midday. I was in the operating theatre by 3:30pm and in recovery by 5:00pm. I was kept in overnight and fed good meals in a (standard) 2 person room. I was released today with all the medicine I will need for the full course of my recovery and I will be treated by a recovery nurse who will visit me, IN MY HOME, ONCE EVERY 24 HOURS, FOR THE NEXT 3 WEEKS. How much do you think that might have cost? Surgery, an overnight stay, drugs, 21 home visits by a nurse, NO HEALTH INSURANCE-NONE-ZIP-NADA. Please tell anyone that thinks nationalized medicine is a bad idea and who might consequently also be laboring under the misapprehension the States is yet to become a first world country, that the grand total came to $14.05, just less than ten American dollars. (If I were a student, unemployed, a war vet or over 65 it would have been free)
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