Daily Miles: 55
Total Miles: 129
Start Location: Hajapu-Ri
End Location: Chungju City
It rained hard last night for what seemed like a long time, and when we woke up, everything was in a cloud. I could barely make out the river and the hill behind us when I peered out of the tent, and the ground and trees and everything else was soaked through. The air was damp and cold, mid 30s, and it took all our effort to pry ourselves from our warm tent and sleeping bags and head out into this mess.
Once we started riding it really hit us how cold it was, and we stopped to put on more clothes 30 minutes in. The clouds weren’t lifting and a small but cold breeze gently pressed into us making everything colder.
“Not gonna lie, this is pretty miserable,” I said to Carolyn.
“Yup. Pretty much,” she said, laughing.
Sometimes you have to laugh to lessen the sting.
We stopped around 11:00 AM at a coffee bar to get inside and warm up. The tea was good and the coffee was bad, but it was nice to be inside and out of the drab and dreary atmosphere outside. There were some Seattle branded coffee mugs for sale and Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven was playing over the radio. If it weren’t for everything written in Hangul, the name for the Korean written word, I could have tricked myself into believing I was sitting in a Starbucks in the Pacific Northwest.
While we were inside, the low clouds lifted and gave way to clear but hazy skies. We took off some layers and continued on.
The path took us into some beautiful rural areas. A few farms lined the path but mostly it was just us and the River and the hazy but warm sun. We followed a road for awhile where the path ended but signs guided us along our way and it was easy riding. We arrived at a small store overlooking the river and we went in to see what we could find for lunch.
At a lot of convenience style stores here they have at least 10 different ramen style instant noodles to choose from. You take the bowl and usually there is hot water to rehydrate the noodles, or they have microwaves set up for you to use. It’s pretty great because it’s so cheap as well, and you can get lunch on less than a few American dollars.
We sat and ate instant noodles and rice and a bag of potato chips which were quite good. We said our Kam-Sa-ham-ni-da’s (the Korean word for thank you), and continued on our way.
We eventually arrived in Chungju City which was our stopping point for the day, based purely on the assumption there would be a place to stealth camp in a wooded area near a large city park. Our bet paid off and we are camped a few hundred yards from the bike path in some woods overlooking the river. We aren’t that hidden but we figure it’s okay. It’s getting dark and soon we will blend into the dark too. It seems as if camping is okay here in most places as long as you are being respectful. The cops here look harmless as well, and we joke that many of them look like young Korean Pop musicians. The cops here don’t carry guns which is different, but they do have large black batons to chase people down and beat them with. I’m not sure they really even use them. Crime here is so low that it is completely unnecessary probably. Maybe once a year they will have to remove it from its sheath and strike down some poor guy who didn’t even know he was stealing a bowl of ramen from a 7-11. 
