We arrived in the main town, Ganghwa, early on Saturday morning. There's not much to see in Ganghwa, so we walked around looking for a scooter to rent. No luck. Our tourist map showed a bicycle rental place near a museum, so we picked up two tiny mountain bikes with terribly uncomfortable seats for 2 days. Our plan: bike west across the island (10 miles) to a tiny fishing town called Oepo (Way-pa), find some fish markets, some beer and some rocks to sit on and find a place to stay. We took the flattest route across the island, so despite the pains of tiny bikes, we made it to Oepo by around 2pm. Had some amazing fish stew (I picked the head clean with chopsticks--the cheeks are delicious), found our rock, and sunned. On the way we poked around a dondae (fortress)--one of many many on the islands. They're basically just ringed walls of stone about 6-10 feet tall with 3 or 4 entrances and grass growing on the top. They're beautiful.
After sunning (and beering) we biked to the East of town to watch the sun set over the bay. I said "hello" to a four man army patrol that walked by our perch. They had been looking at us, but when I said hi they snapped their heads forward, blushed and tried to suppress smiles. On our way back to the hotel we passed them going the other direction and one of them gave a shout of "hello!" as we rode past. Koreans.
On Sunday we hopped a ferry from Oepo to visit Seongmodo, a smaller island to the west of Ganghwado. It was just a 10 minute trip, and we set off to circumnavigate the island on our bikes. This time around the road wasn't so flat, and we walked our bikes up a few nasty hills/mountains (and subsequently rode down the other sides in terror at the thought of our crappy brakes failing). On the west side of Seongmodo is a temple, Bomunsa, which we visited, along with a very impressive 10 foot industrial scrap metal woman (we weren't looking for her, she just happened). Kate bought some caramelized sesame candy from the Bomunsa market, we got lunch and we rode around the other half of the island to the ferry terminal.
Back on Ganghwado, we took a more circuitous route to Ganghwa to return our bikes (by 5:30pm). We cut south on the island and rode through small towns and on smaller roads through farms and over some hills. Most fields had been flooded and a lot of farmers were driving their tractors through them with machinery that levels the mud to prepare the fields for planting. We stopped at another dondae and had a few more funny Korean encounters. Korean Army guards saluted at us as we biked by a military installation (5 minutes apart) and I elicited a surprised, happy, but still confused response from an old man walking around a hospital parking lot in pajamas and an IV. Near the end of our trip we met a Korean who grew up on the island but who has been living in LA since the '80s. He was visiting with his family.
We made it back to the bike rental by about 5pm, the trip across Ganghwado having taken about 3 and a half hours. We rode 40 miles in two days on tiny bikes and our legs and butts were killing us. God ride, but I was glad to give my bike back.
A few days later Kate and I bought bikes here in Yeoju. Hers is a green cruiser and mine is a mountain bike. It had to be ordered by the bike shop because Korea simply does not have bicycles large enough for me. So there shouldn't be anymore exceptionally painful weekend rides.
Photos from Ganghwado:
This weekend is a 3 day weekend (Buddha's Birthday) and we're going to travel way down to the south end of the Korean peninsula to stay in Gyeongju.
