Wandering gypsy

 Hot day in Gimje

I have given up explaining where I'm from. I get asked it nearly daily, but have taken to calling myself a wandering gypsy (apologies to the real Gypsys; the Roma people whom I had the pleasure of meeting in the flesh while hitchhiking in Turkey), a wandering nomad (my favourite and most accurate description), or even just that I claim no allegiance. Humans like having a place they belong, a people they can identify themselves with, a culture they feel at home amongst, but I like that I feel comfortable in all the places I have yet gone, and hope the same goes for those places I will go. I want my head full of languages, and my heart full of love for those I meet all around the world, with no separations bulding walls between us. I do not know my nationality, in the sense that I know my citizenship, but not my heritage, nor my lineage.

All I know is what has been built in my lifetime, my feeling,  thoughts, hurts and loves, and that more than anything else simply makes me like everyone else. No division of race or culture.

Just as it ought to be.

Jeonju, you surprised me!

 Traditional Korean paper (known as Hanji), made in the historical villiage in Jeonju

For the last few days I've been living in an alternate reality. I went to Jeonju to rest for a few days, laundry and explore, an I got buckets more than I ever bargained for. To tell you the truth, on my

way in to town I was at a crossroads; I could either head inland or go straight on towards the next town, and along m journey towards the south coast and Jeju island, and I just told myself the island will stay, but now is the time to visit while I know people there, so off in my determination I went, and what a whirlwind few days!

I went off exploring on my bike, ended up in an inconsequential part  of town by just letting my curiousity guide my path, an ended up  sneaking up a hill to get a photo of some school boys sneaking a  cigarette, and ended up making four adorable friends out of them. We  played games, stared up at the sky, and spoke in broken tongues to one  another the best that we could.. until it was dark and their parents  called them home.

The following night was one of the new friends' birthday, so it was a  night out on the town watching the Korean soccer game in the world  cup, in a sea of red tshirts and the glowing devil horns that  represent the fighting Korean spirit. After a loud, good time, we went  to a small upstairs pub with nimblehanded bartenders who put on a  fireshow, and played a videogame version of darts (just like real darts, but plastic ends, a special board, and buttons, scores and player modes), until finally finding my way home at 4am. So, I was in  no shape to bike off into the sunset today, so Ashley, whose apartment couch I've been sleeping on, told me I should just come to Seoul for the weekend, so here I sit, 2hrs into the 3hr bus ride back to where my adventure began, and excited to see my friends and city of the past few months.

I'm travelling light and I love it. All I have is my little sleeping bag case half full to survive the weekend. On the funny side of things, today was not so much my day, I swallowed  a bug to the point of gagging and coughing for a few mins, got caught biking in the rain, and on a bus until almost 2am, BUT I have a place to crash for the weekend for $5 a night! Glory!

208 kms

Today at 6pm I hit the 200 km mark. I was so stoked, and seeing as I was alone, I just took a photo of my odometer while biking to celebrate. Yesterday I was picked up by a cop on Highway 15...for biking on the highway. He just drove me down to the next city and dropped me off at the cop shop.
Earlier that day two other cops pulled me over, but they just gave me two bottles of cold water and we talked for a bit. I was so so grateful for the cold water and also for these random Popeye snacks they gave me.
I stayed last night in Daechon at jim jil bang. Some kids sat behind me and stared at me and gave me a fright when i finally realised they were there. They were cool! Two 17 yr oldgirls and a 21 yr old boy. we just hung out until i got tired and passed out just after midnight in my little cubby.
Today was gangster and tough and beautiful. I went up two mountains, a max speed of 61kms/hr TWICE (booyah!), and saw some of the most peaceful areas in Korea that I could imagine. Rice fields aplenty. Small towns with specific trades. One just a stone cutting town!! All it had was statues littered all over, and huge freaking stone cutting wheels!

66km

Today wast first real day of biking, and I did 66kms by the end of it.

It was a rough night sleeping outside because it started pouring while I was sleeping under some stairs at a university in anseong, so I managed to only get about 2hrs of sleep. The rain was still going in the morning, so I had to get my stuff all packed tight and waterproofed, which means everything is really not accessible, and the load is not bound as tightly.. Plus I was wearing a bright blue poncho (also my waterproof sleeping tarp), and waterproof shoe covers that I got from somewhere, and are about 6 sizes too big, but even though the going was a little slow, I made it through! At one point my bike computer stopped working, but an awesome dude at the bike store sortedtot out, and later in the day, one of my shifters just fell off my bike, so for now that has a temporary fix which seems to get the job done, just with a bit of extra clicking.

I decided to blow past my days goal of Asan, and head for Yesan (예산), but I was getting really hungry at this point (about 6:30), so when the watermelon vendors on the side if the road yelled out hi as I had just passed by, I backtracked a little and got some juicy goodness, while they entained me Non-stop... Apparently one of the ladies likes hairy men, much to the embarassment of a male customer that stopped and ended up with a large watermelon and his arm being loving petted.

I got the sweeter offer and they askednif I would like to sleep at her house rather than go on to the next town and sleep outside. I was in before you could bat and eyelash, and it is so far one of y favourite memories - Her husband collects records, and while eating his awesome homemade pasta and watching Korea kick ass in the works cup, we listened to The Smiths and Led Zepplin! I love farm life!

Can't wait to sleep.

Murphy and his strangely accurate Law

 Taken in Sinseol-dong, Seoul

Lately I seem to be a prime example of Murphys Law, my favourite ring shattered yesterday while tryin to smoosh a mosquito (maybe that qualifies somewhat under karma, but Mosquitos and I have never been friends), my camera went into the shop for repairs, which is over about an hour and a half from home, and upon returning the next day to pick it up (with charges to repair of course), new errors have started showing up. The bad kind too, the ones that won't even let me take any shots, and here I am trying to go on my bike adventure. Did I mention I also got a flat tyre on my bike, and the compass that was supposed to show up nearly a week ago was for some reason delayed? Luckily thatshowed up this morning, but I'm starting to wonder if I will ever get to go with all these things continually popping up.

Meanwhile this has been a pretty good week shots wise, and have been shooting black and white film as well as digital, since I found someone I can develop my film with (I'm led to believe for free) when I return to Seoul after my summer of adventure and Daegu.

The reason I am at the camera store by the way, was to purchase a new lens. At the moment I've decided not to take any film cameras on my trek... A decision I hope I don't regret, so in leui of film, I got a little cheap and dirty 50mm lens. Ive had one of these ad broke it before, so I known its a good little cheap investment. I would really like one of the pricey F1.2 bad boys, but it's really not worth quite the price tag they've given it when I can get great shots for a twentieth of the price.

 Taken in Hongdae, Seoul in a small upstairs bar