Although we had not planned to cycle much in our first few days in Korea, we did have a one day outing.

2024.04.05 – [KR] Home ==>Seoul (Gangnam) (0 kms | Total: 0 kms

After waiting over 6 weeks following the early wrap-up of our cross country skiing season, the day of our departure had finally arrived. To our surprise, the weather forecast was predicting one of the winter’s largest snow storm. Thankfully for us the snow fall prediction somewhat fizzle out. Our friend Peter, who often joined us on our ski outings, kindly picked-up us from home at 6:30am and drove us to the airport. Our Ottawa to Toronto flight was delayed by one hour due in part to the de-icing procedure. Our 15 hours flight from Toronto to Soul was uneventful. Jenny and I both felt reasonably well rested as we arrived in Seoul. The immigration process was quite efficient. As planned, we purchased tickets for one of many airport shuttle buses covering different parts of Seoul. Our hotel was located in Gangnam – a suburb of Seoul on the south of the Han river. We were lucky to be able to board an hour earlier shuttle bus than our ticket schedule. After the 90 minutes bus ride, we got off at the bus stop near our hotel but still too far to carry our luggage. I borrowed a luggage cart from the hotel to transport our bicycle box and luggage to the hotel. After settling into our room, we went to a nearby convenience store where we had our first (of probably many to come) instant noodle meal in Korea.

2024.04.06 – [KR] Seoul (Gangnam) ==> Seoul (Gangnam) (0 kms | Total: 0 kms)

Although we fell into a deep sleep in the early part of the night, we both woke up at 2:00am from our jet lag. We did manage a few more hours of sleep before the morning. As we learned that our hotel breakfast offering was $24 per person, we set out in search of a more affordable option. As we stepped out of our hotel in daylight, our previous evening impressions that Gangnam roads appeared quite hilly were confirmed. Not only hilly but steep for which the city clearly marked these sections by painting the pavement red. Needless to say there was plenty of red paint everywhere. As for breakfast, we ended up finding along our walk and only a few blocks from our hotel, of all places, a Tim Horton restaurant. We had a great Americano coffee and some good melt sandwiches. We continued our walk to an exchange bureau where we converted some CDN funds into the local currency. We purchased a T-Money card for each of us as it is said to greatly facilitate payment on all of public transit (subway and bus). We were very envious of Seoul’s expansive subway network and its numerous bridges that crossed the Han river. Later we visited the underground world of one of the subway stations. We discovered that many of these subway stations house a multitude of businesses (clothing, shoes, foods, etc). It was just like an underground shopping mall. I had initially planned to skip buying a SIM for my phone while relying solely on Jenny’s eSIM hotspot but I quickly realized how essentially access to online translation app were going to be. I finally found a cheap SIM offering of 30-day unlimited data for $46. In the afternoon, I spent time re-assembling the tandem in the hotel’s underground parking while Jenny rested and tried to catch up sleep from her jet lag. In the evening, we took our first subway ride to see the 7:30pm water and light show at the Banpo Bridge entitled Moonlight Rainbow Fountain. As we made our way to the presentation site, we came across the bicycle path that we would be taking in a few days. The Rainbow Fountain show was not overly breathtaking but the large gathering of locals was quite a spectacle. We had our dinner at a restaurant in the subway station before returning to our hotel for the night. We walked 10 kms according to our phones.

2024.04.07 – [KR] Seoul (Gangnam) ==> Seoul (Gangnam) (0 kms | Total: 0 kms)

Again our sleep was interrupted in the middle of the night due to our jet lag. We started our day by visiting again our local Tim Horton restaurant for breakfast. Today was our first scheduled sightseeing day. We took the subway to the city of Seoul which lies across the river from Gangnam. We opted to start our sightseeing with one of Lonely Planet’s recommended city walk called the Namsan Circuit. The long, and sometime strenuous, walking up a mountain was quite enjoyable. We shared the paths/roads along the way with an abundant number of locals enjoying their beautiful Sunday. We saw plenty of cherry blossom trees along the way. We were surprised by the cherry blossom color which was generally white color, not dark pink as those we previously saw in London in 2022. We finished our walk by visiting the Namdaemun Market where we bought some dumplings and steamed buns. We took another subway ride for a quick visit of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza which highlighted the ‘largest three-dimensional atypical structure in the world’. Back at our hotel room, we rested a few hours before heading out in search of an affordable dinner venue. We finally stumble on a place serving some tasty noodle soup in one of the subway stations. Our phones reported that we covered 18 kms. We both fell asleep by 9:30pm.

2024.04.08 – [KR] Seoul (Gangnam) ==> Gangnam (via Seoul) (58 kms | Total: 58 kms)

Our night sleep was still interrupted by our jet lag and we struggled somewhat to fall back asleep. Based on Jenny’s recommendation, we opted to move our first cycling day in Korea ahead by one day. Our planned 50kms tandem ride without any panniers would allow us to fine tune any necessary adjustments on the tandem. And further more, since our planned route entailed cycling both sides of the Han river, we would be returning to our hotel for the night. We unexpectedly return to TH for breakfast as we were unsuccessful at ordering from a kiosk at a nearby coffee shop. Back at the hotel, we saddled the tandem and headed out at 9:45am on a slow 4km ride along sidewalks to reach the bicycle path along the Han river. We were quickly impressed by the cycling infrastructure. There were a constant flow of cyclists along the path. As we would be cycling through an area where we would be coming back through in a few days, we decided to try our luck at reserving a hotel room. We spent more than 1 hour reviewing different hotels which we came to realize those were the type of the infamous love hotels. After much negotiation through an English interpreter over the phone, we managed to secure a room with a 2h early check-in (cost extra $20) as the normal check-in was set to 6pm. As our reservation was for a Friday, the price was much higher than any other weekdays. As we rode back to town from the other side of the Han river, our cycling sores started to appear. Back home, we would usually break in these sore across several 20kms rides. We were relieved when we made it back to our hotel shortly after 4pm. Along the day, we purchased a bag of half dozen oranges for $15 and 8 bananas for $10 which in Canada Costco it only cost $1.69. Did we mention that food in Korea was expensive? After a few hours rest, we head back to the same noodle restaurant as yesterday. In the evening, we managed to book online a hand-full of hotels based on our early day experience. We had not spent much time contemplating the hotel offering from reservation websites such as Booking.com. We were led to believe that accommodations in Korea were plentiful but difficult to reserve without a local bank card.

2024.04.09 – [KR] Gangnam (via Seoul) ==> Seoul (Gangnam) (0 kms | Total: 58 kms)

It seemed our previous cycling day tired us a bit more as our middle of the night sleep interruptions were milder. We have blessed to date with some very comfortable weather. We were offered especially a glorious sunny skies today. We had our breakfast in our hotel – coffee from the hotel lobby and pastries purchased yesterday. In the morning, we spent an hour making adjustments to the tandem. Shortly before noon, we began our second sightseeing day in Seoul by taking a long subway ride to visit two adjoining palaces (Changdeokgung Palace, Changgyeonggung Palace). We then proceeded nearby with another recommended by Lonely Planet city walk entitled Bukchon Hanok Village Views. The residential neighborhood consists of many restored traditional Korean houses, called hanok. We finished our sightseeing by visiting a popular traditional food market. This market visit proved to us to be more interesting than the palace visits. We purchased a number of food items for our evening meal back at our hotel and made provision for our next morning breakfast. We arrived back to our hotel room at 7:00pm after walking over 13kms.