Chuesok and the DMZ

‘Chuesok’ is the Korean Thanksgiving. After celebrating with our students, Amy and I celebrated the harvest season by testing our physical, mental, and emotional endurance… we rode our bikes to the DMZ (the delmilitarized zone between north and south korea.) It was fairly exhausting, and now that we’re back and safe, I can say it was my favorite adventure thus far in my lifetime.

 

On Chuseok there is a mass exodus of Koreans returning to their hometowns, since hometowns are not only where one was born and raised, but where the spirits of one’s ancestors are enshrined. People perform ancestral worship rituals early in the morning. They often visit the tombs of immediate ancestors to trim plants and clean the area around the tomb, and offer food, drink, and crops to their ancestors. Harvest crops are attributed to the blessing of ancestors, and Chuseok offers Koreans a unique opportunity to refresh their memory and gratitude to their ancestors. <-::thanks wikipedia!:: Our school celebrates Chuseok by dressing the kids and teachers up in traditional "ham-bok" and doing various traditional activities. We made some steamed rice dumplings with sesame seeds and sugar inside by hand, did Korean-style wrestling, threw a pretty stick in a bucket, and had a tea ceremony. The best part was after we learned the traditional way to bow at an ancestor's grave, we played a fun game where the kids line up in Child's Pose. One of them stands up and has to walk on the backs of the other kids. They were moaning and groaning, but in jest. Fun was had by all, especially me, who looked mighty fetching in my enormous "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" ham-bok.

Okay, Hambok Chuesok day ended, and “quickly” Amy and I prepare for our four day adventure into the unknown. We pack some goodies, a sleeping bag, my ‘bubby’ flaslight, and we’re on our way around 10 pm.

The universe always delivers, as you may know. We needed a tarp in case of inclement weather. We were only riding for a half hour, and we found one.

We needed a flashing red light, not anouther hour later we found one of these, too.

We rode in the rain, I poncho’d and Amy braved it in her most favorite black worn in hoodie (RIP).

We got to Juminjin around 1 am, and were too wet and cold to continue. We found a nice dry bridge to set up camp under. We were in view of the ocean, and out of view of all the creep-o’s (just joking mom, there ARE NO CREEP-OS! i swear!) Nevertheless, we slept lightly (and with a pocket-knife in my hand). The sound of the roaring waves and the rainwater runoff was like a lullaby, I slept well.

Amy, on the other hand, was plagued by mosquitos all night. I have a theory about this: I think those bothersome ‘mogis’ are attracted to sweet things. I ate garlic hummus earlier before sleeping… Amy ate peanut butter and jelly. I think mosquitos love sugar, and are attracted to it, and maybe garlic isn’t their ‘thing.’ So maybe, that’s why they didn’t bite me. Being dirty and smelly pays off, again!

I woke to this:

AHH! AMY WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYE!?

Good old mogi must have bit Ame right on her eyelid, causing it to blow up and not only impede her vision, but also cause fits of uncontrollable laughter by both of us upon it’s examination.

Back on the road, in the rain, we stop at the 38th parallel to get some warm lunch and a poncho for shivering Amy.

We run into a girl who biked all of Korea in the past few months. GET THIS: she’s a tae kwon do MASTER. AND, she biked over 100 K per DAY. She biked the circumference of Korea in 20 days. She is my hero and inspiration. I can’t believe how perfect her timing was, she came to us just as we were getting back on our bikes, grumpy, soggy, and coughing. I WISH I WISH I WISH i got her email address. WHY OH WHY didn’t I?!? I was so distracted and wanting to get back on the road I didn’t even think of it, until we were riding again. We headed up good old route 7, and again the same girl’s car slows down and they all yell “heeeyy” and thumbs up all around.

We were motivated. We were excited. We got to Yang-yang.

We found some horses. Amy pet one. It scared me.

We rode like the wind.

We arrived in Sokcho early that evening.

The ride was quick and fairly painless. We parked and ate our hummus/pb&j dinner on the jetty overlooking the sunset. It was dazzling.

We met a fisherman named Lee. He was really kind and let me fish with his pole. It had no reel. It was my first time with such a thing. You have to be really gentle (which I am SOO good at…) I didn’t catch anything.

Lee invited Amy and I to have tea with his brother Wind in his small house. It was very cute, we stayed for a few hours.

We talked on whatever we could communicate about. Lee kept saying really hilarious things. His brother was more of the quiet type, DJing our tea party with some great 60s hits. Lee and Wind gave us some gifts; an ink picture, a wooden box, and some caricatures of Amy and I. We promised to call them when we are back in Sokcho so they can show us around Seoraksan. They helped us find a min-bok (small room) to rent for the evening, we reveled in the comforts of hot water and soft bedding.

We awoke with the sun, as it SHONE in our window. WAIT, WHAT? THE SUN IS SHINING!? NO MORE RAIN! I excitedly jumped around the room and ran outside to do some yoga facing the shimmering sea.

We headed out of our min-bok pretty early, wanted to get as far north as we could in the next few hours without missing Sokcho’s fish market, beautiful coast, narrow coastal bike paths, and human-propelled river ferry!

The ride this day was gorgeous. I couldn’t stop exclaiming, “This is SOO BEAUTIFUL!”

We arrived in Geosang early afternoonish. We were hungry, so we got some ramen from a local shop and tried to find the beach. We didn’t realize how far inland we had ridden, and we explored the rice paddies to try to find the beach. One other man was riding in the fields, he kept turning towards the sound of the ocean waves, so we followed our ‘white rabbit’ waaayyy downnn into that rabbit hole. He took us the most difficult curvy path we could have imagined. At one point we passed our rabbit. He must have known we would follow him, and set a trap earlier (or else I mistook the sturdiness of a mud puddle and collapsed into it.) Somehow, I ended up in the mud, bike atop me, laughing quite heartily.

The rabbit rode on by, not bothering to help me as I moaned half under my now very heavy bicycle. We quickly caught up to the rabbit, went through mud, forest, weird farmer plots, and finally arrive at a… MILITARY COMPOUND.

NO BEACH. grrrr.

We find a pagoda that wasn’t inhabited. We lunched, chatted, and eventually laid out to take a short nap under the now cloudy skies.

While we slept, someone was watching us. We couldn’t see him, but sensed he was there.

Korean yelling, we awoke with a start… the military are ambushing us…

Nooo… its just CHILDREN! With BB GUNS!

I chased one down and gave him a good scare.

As we rode off one boy told Amy, “Die Meeguk die.” If you didn’t know, Meeguk means American. Wow, I remember thinking, we must be really close to the DMZ with these crazy street kids running around.

Soooooooooo, we PC bong for a few hours, talk to our loooooveeesss… and head on up north. Only now, it’s dark. We get our night riding gear together. This consists of the flashlight bubs gave me stuck in a hole in my helmet, amy’s flashlight rigged to her handlebars, and the flashing red light… still flashing… on the back of Amy’s bike. We must have been a funny sight to passerby cars.

We looked for a place to crash. Amy suggested a park. Nah, too open and well-lit. I suggested a rice field. Nah, too swampy. Finally we reached the coast, the sound of the waves eased any apprehension I had at finding a place to sleep. We locked our bikes to find the perfect boulder near a hill and a jetty besides the ocean. The gentle ocean waves and trickling nearby runoff lulled us into a beautiful, warm, non-mogi, sleep.

3 AM? 4 AM? AMES! ITS RAINING! HURRY UP, ROLL OVER! LET’S WRAP OURSELVES IN THIS TARP LIKE A BURRITO! Amy follows my directions, and almost instantly is sprayed in the face with a blast of sand. AHH SORRY! I DIDN’T REALIZE THE TARP WAS TOTALLY COVERED WITH WET SAND! I inch myself down into my sleeping bag beneath the wrapped up tarp. We start giggling. The rain is barely hitting down anymore. Amy feels the sand between her molars. I feel the moist air, everything is wet and hot, I CAN’T BREATHE! LET ME OUT!

Okay, okay… i calm down. It’s wet out there, we have to think. Ah-ha, what about a stick! A stick to hold up this end of the tarp, so it’s not pressing wet and sandy into our eyeballs! The stick beside our tarp is at the perfect angle and a SUCCESS! I’m so innovative! We curl up beside each other and try to fall back asleep.

Morning, sunrise, the rain stops but the beach is crawling with fishermen. Some soldiers walk by, one comes to talk to us. “Here, not safe, 22 to 6, not safe! Bunga, bunga, bunngaaa!” He held his hands in the shape of a machine gun while he made the ‘bunga’ sounds. “Okay, sorry! Kamm-saa-hammm-ni-da!” We replied. We were fine, it was well after 7 am! Another night bumming around, success! Aaaand, no BUNGAS!

DMZ time, we start riding the final 20some Ks. We, of course, get sidetracked. Breakfast, then some signs for an Aquarium… we followed the signs through some BEAUTIFUL mountains beside a lake… and explored the Aquarium for an hour or two. We saw many beautiful shells, some really unique fishes, a huge octopus, and sharks! It was probably no where near as cool as Camden Aquarium (because I love New Jersey?) but worth the 5 chan anyway.

Arriving at the DMZ, it was a zoo. Where do we get papers? Can we bike in? Does anybody speak ENGLISH!?!!? They tell us yes, we can bike in, and give us papers to fill out. We start the final 10k to the Observation Point. They must have forgotten to tell us that the observation point is through some VERY STEEP and curvy roads! The shoulder was almost non-existant… we struggled up these very difficult hills WITHOUT WALKING ONCE and cruised down them in a near-heart-attack state. That doesn’t matter though. What matters is, we MADE IT!

We arrive at a road block. some soldiers tell us, actually, we can’t take our bikes all the way in.

“NEVER BICYCLES!” he screamed at me.
I retorted, “They said JA-JANG-GOS ARE KAY-CHAN-A-YO!”
Finally, he resolved to help us hitch a ride in if we agree to lock our bikes at the road block. OKAY! We’re tired of the hills anyway! A sweet family of four let us into their SUV, wow, I forgot how FAST you can go in a car!

We arrive at the Observation Point, only to behold a million bajillion steps leading us to our final destination. WE CAN DO IT! Arm in arm, Amy and I pressed up the MF steps, whilst the small child from our carfamily bounded up happily and laughing.

There it is, the DMZ! The vastness of the end of South Korea… uninhabited rolling hillsides… undeveloped beaches… random military stations, but otherwise the area is untouched. The small island is South Korea. The camelback mountains (they look like an M) are North Korea. The area between is the DMZ. I reflected, considered, breathed it all in. The mountains were so vast in the telescope I paid 500 wan to view. It really took my breath away, more for the political and emotional implications than the physical beauty.

After this moment, the rest of the trip seemed just ‘getting back home.’ We got our bikes on a bus to INJE. We slept in a love motel in INJE, and the next day explored the town, disassembled our bikes, and headed back to Gangneung.

I hate the aftermath of fulfilling a goal or a dream. I always forget. I usually feel like… NO! It’s not really over!!!! I KNOW there will be more adventures, but I can’t imagine any other trip topping it.