Woke up and rode off without any breakfast this morning. On the way to the city of Gumi we saw a deer walking in the tall grass fields along the river. Apparently Korean deer have fangs, it was too far for me to notice but it was quite cool as always to see wildlife thriving so close to civilization. As we rode on we could see the large city sprawl slowly appear in the horizon ahead. Gumi is a large city, called the Silicon Valley of Korea...there were tons of large factories in the city including a massive LG plant right next to the river. Since it was the weekend there were many people out and about. Company baseball teams were playing games at the baseball fields along the river. We were quite hungry so we sought out sustenance in a neighborhood that we were passing through. It is always a little guessing when it comes to finding places to eat, but we got lucky as there was one restaurant that had its doors open. After some pointing and hand gestures we got our breakfast of beef innards soup...luckily the soup wasn't spicy although it was red. I don't think my stomach would've liked that in the morning! We've noticed that restaurants and cafes here open much later than back in the states which means we usually end up skipping breakfast.
During a break along the river road, we ran into the man from Hong Kong again and we also spoke with a 73 year old Korean man...he looked great for being 73. He showed me the medals he got for all the 4 Rivers Rides he accomplished as well as pictures of him in Guam and in Japan where he cycled around Mount Fuji and Okinawa. Language isn't a barrier when you share the same passions in life. As I look at the Google Maps, we are now getting closer and closer to Busan. We passed Chilgok Patriots and Peace Memorial which had a huge Korean flag flying out front in addition to some war memorial sculptures along the river road. The day was mostly overcast and as we neared Daegu it started to get windy. At one of the rest stops we saw another team of cyclists with team jerseys on who were from the States. As the route passed through town we decided that we would treat ourselves to a motel stay so we detoured into town and found a motel to stay at for 50,000won. The lady was friendly and helped us store our bikes inside a storage room. One of the workers there was a Chinese girl and we joked about how I wanted to take her out on a date. I guess Chinese immigrants come to Korea to work, as well as Russian and Indian immigrants. As we walked through town to find dinner, we would see more non-Korean foreigners. We found a Mom's Touch about a mile away so we walked there to get dinner and also coffee and dessert afterwards. On the way back to the motel, we saw a drunk guy getting dragged out of a convenience store by police.
