Korea look what we did !
Official Korea Bike Routes PhotosIn 2011 a multimillion dollar bicycle network was constructed across the country. The network consists of 2,700 kilometres of trails. There are sections on the network that are shared with cars but most of the network consists of beautiful bike paths. Some sections are so straight and level as far as the eye can see.
To get a taste search ‘seoul to busan bike’ on YouTube and you will soon be amazed and may be even emotional (I did).
To get an idea of the scale of the cycling network gotto https://map.naver.com/ and click on ‘자전거’(bicycle) in the menu bar top right above the map. By zooming in and out you will see the purple coloured bike routes (there is also a mobile version mostly in english – search for ‘Naver Maps’ in your app store).
With my wife we spent three weeks in June cycling 1000km around Korea on our tandem and had the time of our lives. We completed the ‘Cross Country’ route from Seoul to Busan (about 630km) which was all that we were supposed to do. We found we could not stop so we ended up doing another 250km around Jeju Island.
Our Journey
Here’s a quick description of what we did. If you plan to follow us this should hopefully be used to get you going as well.
We did our journey on a tandem bicycle which we brought with us from Australia. We were about nervous about transporting the bike on the plane and were pleasantly surprised how well the airlines handled to bike (we packed it in an evirobikebox).
We landed at Incheon airport which is located on an island which is inaccessible by bike so we caught a bus to the hotel. There are a number of hotel bus routes from the airport going to downtown Seoul which is about an hour away. We stayed at the Best Western Seoul Garden because we have had good experiences with the brand and also it is the first stop on the bus route. They were also happy to store all the stuff that we did not need on the bike (e.g. the bike box , packing, suite case). You can also take the train from the airport but it is not so convenient with luggage and a large box.
The next day we took the Seoul Subway to near the start of the Han River cycle way (Ara West Sea Lock) and purchased our Bicycle Passports (see Certification System later). It was a bit of an exercise to find the place but after a bit of guessing and asking around we found it (tip, look for the information centre then go into the building next to it – here https://goo.gl/maps/Dr2W3QyfEi62).
We then rode back to the hotel ready for the rest of the trip. Because it was Sunday the cycle way was very busy almost like Spring Cycle all day. It was such a buzz to see so many people out on their bikes. We then spent the next days in a cycle the consisted of getting up riding somewhere, getting more stamps in our passports, finding accommodation and sleeping.
We then kept riding to Busan when all this neat stuff happened:
1. Friendly locals – although english is not well spoken we met a lot of people who just wanted to say hello and chat.
2. Helpful locals – we managed to strip a thread that hold on our bike rack. We had a local person help us to a bike shop and translate for us to fix it.
3. Unusual things – we found a pond with literally car seats around we also saw a skate boarder riding down the side of the mountain at high speed with a car following him.
4. Nice accommodation – so long as you stopped in a town there was plenty of accomodation. So of it very nice and great value for money. More about this later.
5. Korean food – Lots of nice food. More about ordering food later.
6. Bicycle repair and support – Repair shops, pumps (in stores and as a facility).
7 Chungju Light world – I think as a tourist attraction this was the highlight of the trip. It is a spectacular display of led lighting.
8 Clean toilets – I mean clean – really clean mostly, with music !
We finally ended up in Busan where we went to the Certification centre and got our certificates and medals for the Cross Country route.
From there we took the overnight ferry to Jeju island and cycled around the island.
Certification System
Korea has a certification system for completion of tours with the country. In order to use the certification system you will need to purchase a ‘Bicycle Passport’ (here https://goo.gl/maps/Dr2W3QyfEi62 assuming you start at Incheon). Along the route you will find some red telephone boxes to stamp you passport. When you have completed a prescribed route you can go to the certification centre where they will issue with a certificate and medals.
When you finish a tour you can go to the certification centre and have nice silver and gold stickers put in the back as well has receiving certificates and medals.
Certification for finishing Jeju island
Eating
We found a few major differences when it cam to easting food (apart from the cuisine):
1. Restaurants often close at 8:00pm. Generally you will not be able to get a meal if you don’t get there by 7:30pm. This is not such a problem in bigger cities.
2. Each restaurants only sells a small number of dishes. This is really quite good if you make sure you are early as you can see what other people are eating.
3. Ordering – this is a bit of a hurdle because very often your waiter will not be able to speak english. At one stage we typed into the translator ‘Choose something nice please’. At other time we could translate the menu using Google Translate or just point to another table and say ‘Can I have this please’ in Korean (see Korean Unnie later).
4. If you stuck for food generally the 7-Eleven type stores have instant noodles, hot water and a place to eacy.
5. Our conventional idea of breakfast does not seem to work in Korea. A lot of cafe’s open at 10:00am mostly see sweet bread or heading up preprepared food. There is aways option 4 above.
Navigation
The route from Seoul to Busan is generally well marked. To keep on the route you need do two things:
1. Look for the 4 Rivers logo
2. Follow the blue line
If you don’t see these for a while you may be lost. We did not really get lost but we did make a few wrong turns and had to back track.
The other took we used was ‘Naver Maps’ (download from your app store). Google maps does not work in Korea and as such Naver Maps is a worthy replacement. It will do bicycle routing and seems to know where the official routes go.
Communication
We pre-purchased an ‘EGSIM’ (see http://www.egsimcard.co.kr/ ) mobile phone SIM before going. This SIM only did 3G as you seem to pay a fortune for a 4G connection. To use your mobile phone with a Korean SIM you need to make sure that you phone is unlocked and supports the frequencies used in the country.
Wifi is available for free everywhere.
Accomodation
The one thing I was apprehensive about before going was accomodation. This is because if you use the popular search engines (Booking.com, Agora etc) next to nothing comes up.
What we found is that most accomodation was not listed and there was plenty off it. Most but not all of the accommodation is however available on Naver Maps. We worked out our next stop by just picking downs that showed a few places and then showing up to the front door.
Some of the accomodation was extraordinary. We stayed mainly at motels and pension houses. The motels in Korea have are sometimes referred to as ‘love hotels’. Don’t let that scare you away as they are used for all purposes and are usually very clean and well appointed and I am sure there is love at all motels ! There are other types of accomodation such as guest houses, overnight saunas and international hotels (very expensive).
Generally breakfast is not available with accommodation.
This was about $80AUD for the night, also had a double spa bath and massage chair !
Language
Outside major cities english is not widely spoken. To make matters harder the Koreans use their own alphabet know as Hangul. It is not quite as scary as it looks as each block is a syllable and the shapes within each block are letters. I would recommend that you learn to read the alphabet as it make recognising place names, food and accommodation easier. It also helps you when you want to pronounce (which is easier than you think) something in Korean as you end up learning the sounds at the same time.
Here is an example using everyone’s favourite word:
Bicycle
Hangul: ‘자전거’
Romanisation: jajeonggo
Pronounced: jar-jong-gor (sort of)
(Note: Romanisations of Korean words are a direct transcription of the Hangul. Don’t rely on these for pronunciation as you can see from the example above).
I used https://www.duolingo.com/ for learning the alphabet. It will probably take around 5 hours to do this. I did find that this programme was not very good after getting past the basics so I dropped it.
This video in particular https://youtu.be/kwGrmSWfxFY (Top 10 Must-Know Korean Phrases for Tourists! | 한국언니 Korean Unnie) was super useful.
The other resource you use is a translation app (we found Google Translate to work best). You can use the camera function on the translate app to translate signs and menus. It was helpful to have a few prepared phases on the app before going into a situation (just make sure you know what ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are in Korean).
If you never been to a country and to communicate in a language you don’t know it can be done !
Links
If you think you want to purchase a supported tour there do not seem to be many operators. Here is one: http://www.bikeoasiskorea.com/
Information about routes: http://www.bike.go.kr/en