It took us our entire stay in Korea to learn and master saying “Thank You” [Gamsahabnida pronounced as “kam-sa-ham-ni-da”]. Sadly, 3 months of intense Duolingo to learn some Korean did not help much with our travel communications. On the other hand, the Papago app (an alternative to Google Translate) proved to be invaluable. After much consideration, we finally changed our ferry option to Japan by booking our passage on a slow but much larger ferry. This latest approach called for us to extend our stay in Busan.

During this segment, we reached the end of our cycling journey in South Korea – after 924kms.

2024.04.24 – [KR] Daegu ==> Yusan-Ri (46 kms | Total: 749 kms)

After our hotel’s breakfast, we loaded the tandem and left our hotel around 9:30am. We had to cycle 5 kms in the city to rejoin the bicycle path. Just as we got close to the bicycle path, we struggled to make sense of our OrganicMaps gps directions – until we found a well hidden tunnel under the highway. We felt happy to be back in the saddle after a day of rest. The cycling was easy and pleasant – especially riding through a tunnel. As we arrived at our love hotel, there were no reception staff. Thankfully the room cleaning staff managed to reach the hotel owner for us. Some 15 minutes later, we had access to our room – a few hours ahead of the official check-in time. It took us a bit time to learn the ins and out of our room access mechanism – no key at this love hotel. Since the town center appeared to be one km away, we opted to cycle over there to purchase some snacks and review the restaurant options. In the evening, we walked to the town center for our dinner.

2024.04.25 – [KR] Yusan-Ri ==> Namji-Ri (56 kms | Total: 805 kms)

We had a light breakfast in our room before leaving town and rejoining the bicycle path. The sun was shining after yesterday’s cloudy sky. The cycling was nice through the peaceful country side. We had our first flat tire of our journey. A small road construction nail puncture our rear tire. We managed to quickly change the air tube and get back on the road. We expected a steep hill towards our last 15kms. Although, we kept on hoping for a tunnel option, we had to walk uphill for 1.3km. Once at the top, we thought our day was done, but unexpectedly had to conquer an even bigger/longer hill before reaching our hotel. Our KML and our OrganicMaps routes were showing different path. Sadly, the KML route matched the bicycle path signage. We were suddenly presented by a steep uphill profile. Regardless of the climbing challenges, we were still able to reach our hotel by 2:30pm. As it was our Wedding Anniversary today, we splurged a bit by having our dinner at another Korean BBQ restaurant.

2024.04.26 – [KR] Namji-Ri ==> Antae-Ri (58 kms | Total: 863 kms)

We had yet another light breakfast in our room before leaving town. Jenny felt the scenery more interesting along the way. The covered sky made the temperature quite enjoyable for our cycling. We ended our day at a small leisure town – a few kms away from the bicycle path. We stopped at a cafe for a coffee and smoothie before reaching our nearby hotel. We resigned ourselves at paying a premium of $25 for an early check-in at 2:00pm while the official check-in was set to 6:00pm. In the evening, we had a great beef bulgori meal with a wide and diverse set of side-dishes. Throughout our stay in South Korea, Jenny kept on pointing out that many of the side-dishes reminded her of her childhood food.

2024.04.27 – [KR] Antae-Ri ==> Busan (61 kms | Total: 924 kms)

Once again we had a light breakfast in our room. We cycled a few kms out of town before rejoining the bicycle path. We noticed a lot more cyclists on our route as folks were enjoying their early Saturday morning bike ride. The cycling and pedestrians traffic kept on increasing as we got closer to Busan. We collected our next to last bicycle passport stamp mid-journey. On the last 10kms to our last Certification Center, we increased our speed in order to reach the management center before their lunch closure at 12:00 pm. We finally arrived 15 minutes before the door closed for lunch. We were prideful having our Bike Passport reviewed and certified and then receiving a personalized certificate of the achievement. After a rest, we got back on the tandem and started slowly pedaling towards our hotel some 14 kms away. It took us a long time and a lot of efforts to navigate the sidewalks and roads across the city in order to reach our hotel. Clearly the cycling infrastructure in the city of Busan was not developed as in Seoul. After check-in into our room and taking a well-deserved shower, we took advantage of the hotel’s complementary clothes washing machine. We ended up doing our largest clothes wash of the trip. Later, we purchased some snacks from a nearby grocery store. In the evening, we walked around our lively neighborhood in search of a restaurant for dinner.

2024.04.28 – [KR] Busan ==> Busan (0 kms | Total: 924 kms)

Jenny and I were both eager to enjoy the hotel’s complementary breakfast. It was sadly a major disappointment (no espresso coffee machine, instant noodles, etc). The hotel referred to it as a minimalist breakfast – we agreed. We spent the large part of the morning reviewing our options to get to Fukoaka (Japan). Although we had purchased tickets on a hydrofoil ferry, we were increasingly concerned that we would not be able to carry our broken out tandem and luggage to meet the requirements of the ferry company. Hence, we decided to reserve tickets on the large overnight ferry and cancel (with refund, but charged us $25 cancellation fee) our hydrofoil ferry tickets. What a major stress relief. As a result, our sailing to Japan would be delayed by 2 days. We booked a different hotel near the ferry terminal for two extra nights. In the afternoon, we took a subway to visit the Busan Citizen Park. We enjoyed seeing the locals enjoying the park’s amenities – including walking barefoot along a path of red clay. On the walk back to our hotel, we picked up some pastries and purchased some take-out coffee. We spent the later part of the afternoon reviewing the broad stoke of our Japan cycling itinerary. In the evening, we again found a restaurant for dinner in our lively neighborhood.

2024.04.29 – [KR] Busan ==> Busan (0 kms | Total: 924 kms)

We woke up to the sound of rain drops. We had originally planned to do some sightseeing but given the heavy rain fall forecast for the entire day we opted to rest in our hotel room. We took the opportunity to review our Japan cycling schedule. We encountered our first struggles with a Japanese website. As we wanted to purchased ferry tickets, we had to register on the website. We were facing with converting our English names to full-width katakana characters. After much effort, we managed to complete our ferry reservation except that our Visa credit card payment kept on being declined. In reaching out to our credit card company, we learned that they had blocked the transaction. The rain finally tapered down in the late afternoon. We took the opportunity to visit an underground shopping mall before having dinner at a pork cutlet restaurant. We spent a considerable amount of time reviewing available accommodation for our upcoming stay in Osaka. It was pretty discouraging being confronted to the bottom of the barrel offering at sky high prices.

2024.04.30 – [KR] Busan ==> Busan (0 kms | Total: 932 kms)

Before our final minimalist hotel’s breakfast, we managed to secure our 3 night accommodation in Osaka – the city from where we scheduled to fly to Italy for our older daughter’s wedding. After breakfast, we repeated our accommodation search for Fukuoka – our first city in Japan after our ferry from Busan. Sadly, we needed to book our stay on the two most expensive days of the week: Friday and Saturday. We checked-out of our hotel at 11:00am with our loaded tandem. We had opted to move to a different hotel slightly closer to the Busan Port International Passenger Terminal for our last two nights in Busan. Along the way, we stopped at the terminal to get familiar with the facility and inquiry about the boarding process. As we arrived at our new hotel shortly after 12:00pm, we were delighted when the hotel reception allowed us to check-in promptly. After settling into our room, we set out to visit two side-by-side attractions nearby: the Trick Eye Museum and the Busan Museum of Movies. We had a fun time at the Trick Eye Museum. Later we visited the hill top of the Busan Tower. We stopped for a rest at our favorite coffee chain: Mega MGM Coffee. Since we had hoped to eat some fresh seafood at the famous Jagalchi Fish Market, we showed up for an early dinner. Unfortunately, it appeared the main fish market building was closed on Tuesdays. Instead we had some pizza at a large and busy sit-down pizza restaurant (a rarity in South Korea). Later in the evening, we continued our walk to a nearby shopping mall. We covered almost 10 kms over the day.

2024.05.01 – [KR] Busan ==> Busan (0 kms | Total: 932 kms)

We were delighted by our hotel’s breakfast offering as it was the best we had encountered throughout our stay in South Korea. At mid-morning, we took a long subway ride to visit two (of seven) popular beaches in Busan: Haeundae Beach and Gwangan Beach. After walking along our first beach, we snacked on some Hotteok pastries at a food market – otherwise our trip to South Korea would not have been completed. After walking along our 2nd beach, we took the subway back to our neighborhood in order to visit Gamcheon Culture Village. Given the distance from the subway station and the steepness of the Village’s location, we ordered a Uber for a ride to the entrance of the Village. As this was the first time we used Uber in South Korea, we were pleased that it worked seamlessly. After a short visit of the hyper-touristy Village, we took another Uber back to our hotel. For dinner, we walked back to the Jagalchi Fish Market and splurged on our most expensive dinner in South Korea. Jenny had a plate of small crabs while I had some grilled octopus. It was not our best value meal but we could brag that we had seafood while visiting Busan. We returned to our hotel after covering over 14kms during the day.