Prior to travel I tend not to do much research. I check out the visa and safety situation and then just go. No itinerary. It means I risk passing very close to something cool and missing it. But it also means I can blunder into something unexpected, like today.

The last thing I expected to see on a minor road in the middle of nowhere is a catholic church. Worth stopping to investigate for sure! This is the memorial to Father Choe, Yang-eop Thomas, the first recorded scholar of Catholicism from Korea. I’ll post his picture in a minute.

He wasn’t there of course, the memorial was built to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death. However, there were a lot of Korean Christians, including a reverend who gave me a set of rosary beads and a nun. (He didn’t give me the nun, you know what I mean!!).

Standing out from the crowd somewhat I was asked a few questions, the trip is certainly raising a few eyebrows. A nice young chap called David came over to talk for a while, who translated the history for me.

Considering a trip to a church would be far from the top of my list of things to do on a trip, it was really good. That’s why I don’t over plan things, and what makes adventure motorcycling the adventure it is!

I’ve been here a while now, and after the initial pains of navigation I’m starting to get the hang of it. The road network is superb, with some major roads to get you where you need to go quickly. There’s also a whole heap of minor roads off the beaten track. I try to get the balance between good progress and seeing the real Korea, by mixing the two.

Today that worked well, getting me out of the city of Daejean quickly at the expense of scenery. Lots of industrial sites, but again it’s part of the country and you may as all see it all, right? I then hit up some minor twisty roads across terraced rice paddies. Three up mopeds were the transport of choice for the workers, all elderly people with a smile and a wave for johnny foreigner.

Some of the roads and scenery were just stunning. Just take a look at this….

One thing I like here are the flags you see everywhere. Most towns and all cities have the Korean flag flying from every lamp post. They’re not secured (I checked!), just placed in holders on each lamp post – usually two per post.

I like this for several reasons:

1) They’re nice flags. Quite pretty and bright.
2) People obviously like them, or they’d get nicked and vandalised.
3) The people in charge aren’t afraid to show it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything sinister in it.

I’ve had plenty of time to consider this whilst riding today. I tried to remember the last time I saw Union Jacks flying in England. It would probably be 1977 for the Queen’s silver jubilee. I’ve certainly not seen one for a very long time.

Granted you do see the English flag now and then, usually on churches for St. George’s day or pubs during football tournaments. But they’re soon taken down again. The only flags I recall seeing in England recently are the Nishan Sahibs outside Sikh temples.

Funny really. They’re just arbitrary designs on cloth that swing in the breeze, but people do get worked up about them! Even bike clubs have them. Maybe I should design my own and fly it from the bike??

Crossing a high summit yesterday I stopped at a cafe. There was a strange tower with some steps going up that needed further investigation. At the bottom was a little hut advertising extreme “zipping”.

This is part of a large network of zip wires between mountains. Drops of 1600 ft and speeds of 120kph were quoted, which sounds quite fun! I stepped up to the plate for a look, the distances and steepness certainly looked like serious business! Maybe I should have a go?

In the end I didn’t. I was wet through and it was drizzling, a huge dampener for any outdoor activity. It was also cloudy and obvious that they weren’t going to get any custom that day. I did have a minor pang of ‘only live once’ type guilt, but it quickly passed.

Was that because it’s petty tame compared to hang gliding? Or adventure motorcycling? Or sidecar racing? Or street luge? Nope. It’s because it was 80 quid! Sod that!

I met up with an old friend tonight. It was a strange coincidence that big Nige was working in Daejeon, Korea this week. Not somewhere that either of us imagined we’d ever be I’m sure. Courtesy of a Facebook status I nearly didn’t make, the wonders of the internet brought us together.

When we were working in Maidenhead all those years ago, if you’d told me we’d be cruising around Korea on a bike one day I’d have fell off my chair laughing! Especially if you’d said he wouldn’t have a helmet and we’d be doing an illegal bandit run!!

Anyway, it was a great night. Good food, great company and even a couple of beers. Here’s to our next meeting in Slough. (Or maybe Moscow – who really knows??).

It rained overnight. I wild camped and used the tent as the forest is too dense for the hammock. (Lots of trees but no space between them). Not heavy but a continual patter. The tent isn’t 100% waterproof, but I stayed mostly dry.

I had a dry window between showers this morning to pack up. Then it rained all day. My new 1 piece rain suit leaks, soaking my groin in just an hour. I’d take it back if I could. By the end of the day even my feet were wet. I should be miserable but the scenery made up for it. That and the fact it’s not cold.

Steep mountains covered in lush forest, oragraphic cloud forming to obscure the peaks. I wanted to take the back roads over the Jirisan national park, Mt. Jirisan is the highest in Korea. However I could see it was all in cloud, no point really. I took the major road which eventually turned into a fantastic twisty hill climb. I really enjoyed it, even in the wet!

There really are some awesome roads in Korea. A quick look at the map and you can see they’re everywhere! I’m looking forward to spending some time getting lost after the weekend, when I’ve found the ferry terminal and have a day or two to cruise about the north east corner.

The same memorial from another angle. It always makes me wonder when I look at these. Who were the people and how did they come to be there? I’m probably older now than they ever got, it seems such a waste.

Still, there’s nothing I can do about it. Just remember that life is short, seize the carp people!

You can’t beat a good bit of Arny surplus, so on passing this I had to turn around to have a closer look. It was some kind of a memorial to American soldiers, in fact to all soldiers who lost their lives on foreign soil.

Unfortunately only one sign was written in English, so I’ve limited information. There were other memorials in the same spot. I’m sure it’s on Google somewhere, it’s near to Hadong if you want to look for yourself.

It seemed well kept, I’m glad I made the u turn. I saluted the memorial and went on my way. I don’t know why, I was never in the armed forces – but on a rainy Thursday morning or seemed the right thing to do.

No, but a swift glance at a temple and you might be excused for thinking that. The temple signs have the tails the wrong way round to be swastickers. (Or should that be, they simply have them the correct way?).

I took a detour on seeing a temple sign. It was about 8k out of my way, where the road turned into gravel, which turned into a track, which turned into a path. Very steep climbs but I got there. I thought about giving in a few times, but I pressed on.

Greeted by the monks nothing was said. Prayer hands and nods were sufficient mutual acknowledgement. They had something going on so I left them to it, which is when I dropped the bike turning it around! After all that off roading getting there, I dropped it on a flat concrete slab!!

No real damage, just my pride. I managed not to swear my head off in front of the monks either. I couldn’t pick it up though, not with all the luggage on. Help was at hand when they came running out to assist. What a sight that must have been!!