Bin Bags and Bad Tans: Riding the 4 Rivers route from Busan to Seoul

The ribbon of pristine black asphalt snakes away into the distance, bisected by a neat white dotted line. Bordered on one side by the Nakdonggang river and on the other by tall grass. The sounds of busy traffic can be heard faintly, blowing in on the breeze but mostly overpowered by the calls of birds and frogs.

What’s weird, is that this isn’t some quiet backcountry lane but a dedicated cycle path, stretching further than the horizon. It’s totally deserted. A whole bike motorway just for me.

The Troublesome Nature of Road Furniture

There’s an old gentleman lying on the pavement, bleeding from a cut on his face, half tangled in a fallen bicycle. Worse still it’s probably my fault.

Shrink-wrapped Sushi

I come from a culture of bread. Big, heavy, satisfying hunks of wheaty oven-baked goodness, which can often form the basis of all 3 meals in a day.

In fact it’s not unheard of to have toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and pizza for dinner, whilst snacking on scones and doughnuts.

The first days in Japan therefore were a real test of this as bread here is not a big deal. The bread products that do line the shelves of the convenience stores are mostly of the lighter than air, whiteness that dissolves without touching tongue or stomach (remember the UK slimming bread Nimble anyone?). In short, it’s unsatisfying.

After a few days on the bike trying desperately (and failing) to survive on air-sandwhiches, a new strategy was needed. Embrace the sushi.

Turning Japanese

I always knew that there were a lot of people in Japan, (approx 125 million), but I knew it in that kind of abstract way, the way that you know there are lots of stars in the sky or fish in the ocean.

What you don’t ever expect of course is to be dunked in the tank with them all at once.

A Fond Farewell New Zealand

After 4 and a half months in New Zealand the time has finally come to say goodbye. Weirdly it only seems like yesterday that we were arriving and yet here we are back in Auckland and packing the bikes into boxes again, this time bound for Tokyo, Japan.