We left Daegu behind and once again entered a more rural area which is always much more pleasant to ride through. There was a pretty tough climb that went into the mountains which awarded us with nice views at the summit of the climb. We didn't grab breakfast again so we were quite hungry as we rode along the river road. Luckily we found a restaurant that opened its doors for us. It was buffet style with mostly vegetarian dishes that consisted of the usual Korean side dishes in addition to fresh made tofu, and the unforgettable ice cold rice and plum flavored water. After that pleasant meal we were ready for the next challenging climb into the mountains once again that led us along a monastery...the monk was chanting the morning prayers as we pushed our bike up the super steep section of the route that was unpaved and ran along plum tree orchards deep into the forest. After descending back down towards the river road, we stopped at a small rest area of restaurants and shops...we found an upstairs cafe that overlooked the river. We ordered some iced caramel macchiato which was delicious and enjoyed the view of the river.
A little further down the river road, we saw a transport plane circling overhead and to our surprise paratroopers jumping out. As we neared the action, we saw pink smoke coming up near the river and watched as the paratroopers made the smoothest of landings. There was another good climb after this with moss covered walls along the road scrawled with graffiti. There were a few written in English including some from around the world cycle tourists. I couldn't resist and left my graffiti mark on the wall as well.
We weren't really expecting this to be a climbing day but it ended up being that way as there was another climb that started from a tiny village tucked into a really narrow valley. It was mostly pushing the bikes again as it started to sprinkle a bit. We took a break in the mountains and thought about just camping there but we still had a good amount of daylight left so we continued on. This was a pretty remote area and we only ran into one other cyclist on a MTB. There were wild strawberries growing along the path so I foraged several along the way; not sweet at all compared to the ones in the store obviously but still quite pleasant. As it started to rain some more we ended up in Namji which was a smaller town. Once in town we found several motels, and one of them had a big bicycle painted on the side of the motel. There was a local guy who kept saying cheap motel and was trying to steer us away from our choice but we politely ignored him and inquired for a room which was 50,000 won. This town felt a little more seedier and country, but at no point did we feel unsafe; Korea like Japan is one of the safest countries to live in. After cleaning up we went down the street to a restaurant that had a picture of a pig on its sign so we figured it was a pork BBQ restaurant. We ordered the dinner set which was pork belly slabs mostly...delicious stuff. We were also served an interesting side dish for the first time in Korea which was silkworm. Tori and I tried a few, a bit earthy but they were pickled so they weren't terrible.
After dinner, I was still pretty hungry so just Tori and I went out to look for a fried chicken spot. We found one that served whole fried chicken for 7000won. It was fried in front of us and we took it back to the hotel to devour it.
