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Month in Pictures: October 2013

November 5, 2013

This is a gallery of our latest photos and stories from the road!

White cat twins — It is no coincidence that the ‘Kat’ in Alleykat is exactly what it means – we love cats! Our day is definitely 1000x better when we meet twins!

Artwork in Ulsan Korea — It seems that Korea is a very artistic place. Check out these murals that we’ve seen about!!!

Pirate tattoos — Alleykats sometimes get creative: decorating cousins for Pirates Day at International School, yarrr me hearties!

Spoke tensiometer — We’ve had wheel problems since Azerbaijan now, but we’re confident that our current build by Jin Bong Kim at Bike-Spoke.com in Seoul will put an end to that! The graphs show the spoke tension for every spoke – blue our new wheel and red our old. You will notice that our old wheel was pretty much dead when it arrived in the shop!!!

Sleeping on the train seoul korea — When you travel on the train in Korea, it is mandatory to either be asleep or on your smartphone. Because no one was looking, we broke the rules and took a few sneaky photos!

Bicycle touring korea — Being the lucky ducks that we are, we are on our first ever guided bicycle tour courtesy of the Korean Tourism Organisation! The scenery is divine and our guide Minuk from TeamaxAdventure.com is a star!

Bicycle touring korea — Today’s ride turned from road… to river! Korea has recently experienced a bit more rain than usual due to a close by typhoon. It sometimes makes touring tricky!

Windy road — Heaven or hell? Alex votes heaven, but given Kat has a sore back, she votes hell!

Holding onto back of truck — When the climbs exceed 15%, there’s only one thing to do! Who else has hitched a ride on the back of a truck? Successful or not?

Stunning Red tree autumn — The mountainsides are sooo close to becoming red blankets of leaves in Korea. We found the precise tree that is leading by example!

Bicycle touring korea — We had our first ever guided tour a week ago! We never thought that riding with a guide would give us the type of experience we’re after, but having learnt so much, tasted so many foods and been shown so many amazing places, we’d recommend them to even the most competent world cyclists. Thanks Adventure Korea TeaMax for helping us experience Korea!

Quadlock iphone case review — We started navigating with our iPhone last month – it’s no doubt the best GPS for bicycle travel! We use this great case from Quad Lock which very securely attaches our phone to the stem and comes with a waterproof cover for use in the rain!

Speaking to children — We’ve just accepted a place as guest speakers at the Ara Lock Fall Bike Festival in Seoul on the 26th! We’ll be talking about some of the things we’ve learnt from the road and about cycle tourism in Korea. Moving up in the world – booyah!

Bicycle touring Jeju island — It’s been all about black volcanic rocks and ocean waves the past four days on Jeju Island!

Udo Island Korea — Is it day or is it night? It is quite hard to tell at the moment; hundreds of squid boats are out hauling their catch off Udo Island, Korea.

Expensive mango — Korea is one of the most expensive places in the world to buy fresh produce – it’s almost painful buying apples. But the fruit that takes the cake is this $30USD mango!!! Have you seen produce at more outrageous prices than this?

Korean homestay — Meet Jini and Young. We heard about these guys in a cafe 800km away! The cafe owner contacted them and they’ve now hosted us the past few nights on Jeju Island. What makes these guys so special is that they’ve ridden all over the world too, after selling all of their assets. These guys don’t fit the Korean mold – a rarity in our experience here.

Jeju island bicycle touring — We’re about to say goodbye to Jeju Island. It’s always excellent to travel with people; Nadine and Philipp made our circumnavigation of the shore road simply super and Jini, Young, Tae Min and friends gave us a taste of real Jeju life. Delicious.

Ferry Seoul to Jeju — We aren’t sure how this happens, but with anything we do in Korea, they upgrade us for no charge! Do the Korean people think we are movie stars?! This is Alex in a private cabin on a 15h ferry trip, we paid only for a seat. THANKYOU generous Korea!

Charm Lee tourism — We were invited to meet the Chief of Tourism in Korea, Charm Lee! You’ll see Mohammad and WorldBiking there too, offering feedback and ideas about how cycle tourism can take the next step.

Ara lock bicycle festival — We’re just about to walk on stage as guest speakers at Ara Lock Bike Fest with @worldbiking! We’ll be talking about getting perspective and changing perceptions while travelling by bike. Super pumped!

If you asked us to sum up Korea in one picture… THIS IS IT!

Weneedtrees.com — This is Mohammad from Iran. He may be small, but he is interesting, inspiring and determined. He travels the world by bike speaking to children about the environment and peace, hoping to make BIG change. Keep it up Mohammad, you rock! www.weneedtrees.com

Fukuoka Japan arrival — We’re bouncing-off-the-walls excited to have arrived in juicy JAPAN! Our next six weeks will take us on a wild ride from Fukuoka in the south to Tokyo!!!

Author

Alee Denham

Alee is a bike and travel addict who has cycled through 100+ countries and doesn't really have any plans of stopping. Along the way, he creates technical resources, in-depth reviews, inspirational videos, how-to guides and more. If you've learned something from him, you can support his mission to create the best bike travel content HERE.