We stayed in Busan for a 3 days. Nice, relaxing days; days that we didn't feel compelled to do too much, which is becoming a bit of a theme any time that we aren't cycling. We hung out on the beach, visited the Korean War Memorial (a must see monument dedicated to all the nations that aided South Korea; a place of serenity and simplicity), ate delicious food, cooked some more delicious food, rode the subway a fair amount, and planned our ferry escape to Japan in a few days.
We still had a couple days till some packages were to arrive so we found a Warmshowers host and decided to visit Geoji Island. After waiting out a horrendously windy, stormy morning, we set out to ride out of Busan in the afternoon.
Busan is a cool place. If Seoul is a slick, well-mannered college grad of a city, Busan feels like the wild, slightly unpredictable cousin whom might make out with your boyfriend on the sly. Busan is also in steep hilly territory in the south of the country and the Koreans that live there have managed to cram skyscrapers into any available space no matter how precarious the slope may appear. Busan is also about 1 mile wide and 20 miles long. Or so it seems as one is trying to ride through the city. Start. Stop. Huge uphill. Fast downhill. Avoiding pedestrians, busses, traffic and noise that seems to never end. We rode through a ton of industrial areas, replete with that nice diesel-coated mouth feel that can only get from being out on the road with endless huge trucks. After hours of this, we were rewarded with a beautiful little campground on a random greeen island right outside of the city. 6 hours to get half way across a city...not exactly a bikers paradise but GREEN?! Yes, please.
Our second day of riding was not exactly picturesque either, a lot of highway riding, in and out of towns, and we camped on a little sidewalk area by a soccer field. We're not sure if the grounds keeper who tapped on our tent while we were alseep was really OK with us staying there for the night or eventually decided that the language barrier was insurmountable and just gave up on trying to ask us to leave. Whichever it was, we both slept super well after the longest day of riding we have had thus far.
The third and final day of riding was beautiful by comparison, we hit a little-used road that lined the ocean for much of the actualy trip to Geoji Island. Though there was a lot of elevation gains and losses, we felt like we could really gather some inertia on this stretch, and we started pretty early in the morning trying ot outrun the stifling late afternoon heat. It felt good to feel like we are starting to get our "legs" back, where all the climbing starts to hurt less and every looming uphill feels less like a puch to the gut. Unfortulately our entrance to Geoji Island was more highway riding with a fairly limited shoulder but we were so excited about a place to stay and a few relaxing days. Our host, Reily, even came out to meet us on the highway to lead us back to the apatment!
Geoji Island and more specifically, Okpo, the micro-city that we stayed in are lovely. The island is best known for the massive ship-building yards (33% of the island's population works in this industry) and the second highest cost of living in Korea next to the Gangnam district of Seoul (think Williston, ND but beautiful and worth visiting). Geoji also boasts the most multi-cultural population that we have seen thus far in Korea due to the large industrial complexes. It is weird after all this time spent cycling through a nation and at the end when you least expect it you find all the Westerners. It is, however a beautiful and really relaxing place, withn wonderful beaches, cool history, and a whole lot of western-style bars and eateries. I dont know, I never thought of Michael Jackson as a ribs sort of guy (look it up...there is an actually eatery)!
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