One day on Ganghwa Island

Date:  June 6, 2013

Terrain: Mostly flat, with rolling hills

Difficulty: 

Ara Waterway-Incheon city limits: 1 - flat, well paved, well lit cycle path

Incheon city limits- bridge to Ganghwado: 2.5- mostly flat, no bike path, narrow road with some potholes, poorly kept or no sidewalks. Few street lights at night. 

Ganghwado: 1.5- Mostly flat if you stay near the shorelines. Bike paths for most roads. Heading inland, there are fewer bike paths and more hills, but car traffic was never a problem, even on a holiday.

How to get there: 

With bike: AREX train to Geomam Station. Follow Ara Waterway until the path turns left. Follow the path to the bridge entrance (on left). Cross the bridge and continue north (straight).  Take the bridge to Ganghwado (first bridge on left). 

Without bike: See here

Accommodations: I stayed in 프리존 (Free-Zone), a love motel in Gimpo before entering the island. On the island there are many places to stay and there are many camping areas as well around the island. 

Things to See: fortresses, temples, museums, tombs, a pre-historic site, tranquil farms and the DMZ

Places to Eat: Everywhere if you like eel. If not, Ganghwa-eup (the city) should have more options. 

My Story:

Crane in a rice paddy, a common sight on Ganghwado

Ganghwado is an island just off the coast of the west coast of Korea. It's also chuck full of things to see, from fortresses, temples, museums, tombs, a pre-historic site, and the DMZ. It's not a small area to cover, and sites are spread out, but we did our best to maximize our time on a one-day bike trip around the island.

The story actually begins at about 7pm the night before. We were debating when and how to get there and though we originally planned to throw our bikes in the car and drive the night before, after examining some maps on the smartphone, we (and by we, I mean Sanghyun) decided that it would be quite feasable to ride our bikes there, as long as we left right at that moment. So, already dusk, we hopped on our bikes, fortunately we're fairly well rigged up with blinking lights on the back and flash lights on the front, and made our way to Seoul Station to hop on the AREX train to Geomam station.

Once at Geomam station, we followed the Ara Waterway to the last bridge which crosses the canal. I was worried about crossing the bridge at night, but I was pleasantly surprised to find everything connected by bike path. We crossed the bridge and followed the path north. Luckily, the bike path was well paved and well lit, because it was now after 9pm.

The well paved bike path continued until the city limits of Incheon. As soon as we crossed into the city of Gimpo, the bike paths dissapeared (also helped by the fact that there is a military base which comes right up to the edge of the road as well. Here was the scary part. Intermitant street lights and no sidewalks or bike paths on a narrow two lane road at 10pm. I have a flashlight on my bike, but I realized quickly that it was way too weak. Fortunately Sanghyun's was extra strong and shone brightly enough for me to see most of the potholes before I hit them. Again, fortunately, there aren't many cars on the road at this time at night, but I was very worried about people speeding or drunk driving at that time of night on a lonley country road. Thankfully we made it to the other end and we stopped at the first motel we found along the road, which was probably only 3km but felt like 20km from the end of the bike path.

We asked at the 7/11 out front whether it would be better to stop here at the motel or continue a little more to the island, but the clerk reminded us that motels on the island were significanlty more expencive than on the mainland. So, not really wanting to be on the road anymore, plus not wanting to spend any more money than necessary, we stopped at the first love motel called 프리존 ('Free-Zone', I thought it was 'Prison') and got our room for 35,000 for the night. We could have splurged and gotten a room for 45,000 at the 'hotel' down the road, but personally I don't see much difference.

Crossing the bridge to Ganghwado 

We got a late start due to getting in so late the night before, but we woke up and headed out. It wasn't too far to the bridge to get to Ganghwado, though sidewalks were rough and the streets were full of traffic, sometimes hard to pass. Once we got to the bridge we were traffic-free thanks to this handy bike/walking path along the bridge.

View as you arrive on Ganghwado

As soon as we got to the Ganghwado side, we found ourselves on this fantastic bike path. Separated from cars by a curb and well paved and well marked.

The biggest fortress we found

If you turn right after entering you'll quickly stumble upon the first of many fortresses. I recommend shelling out the big bucks ( I forget, but I think it was less than 2,000 won) for a pass to five fortresses. You probably won't want to visit all 5, but if you visit two or three, it will still save you money in the end. As you continue north you will continue to pass fortress after fortress, so you might be glad for buying that 5 fortress pass.

Typical road on Ganghwado

After visiting three fortresses, we decided to make our way to the DMZ at the northernmost tip of the island. To get there, you need to follow the signs for the 강화평화전망대 (Ganghwa Peace Observatory). Be aware that most of the signs pointing here are not in English, so it's easy to miss if you're not paying attention!

Just checking the map... 

Heading up to the DMZ and observatory there were bike paths for at least 50% of the ride, but even when there weren't bike paths, we never felt in danger. Dispite being a holiday and all the traffic we saw before getting onto the island, up here there were very few cars at all (as you can see on the road behind us in the photos).

This is about as close as we were able to get to the DMZ

Unfortunately, upon reaching the DMZ, we were not allowed to enter because we were on bike. Apparently, according to the guard, bikes and motorcycles are not allowed into the DMZ. The soldier suggested that we take the bus, but when we asked when it passed by, he said 'not often', so we gave up and instead decided to find the famous pre-historic dolmen.

Pre-historic Dolmen

A dolmen is apparently a pre-historic style tomb, and this one on Ganghwa is the most famous in Korea. Probably because it's pretty huge. There were no bike paths getting here either, but we took back roads and there were very few cars, and most of them were driving slowly as they were probably lost tourists.

Bike path back to Incheon

Finally, it was time to say good-bye to Ganghwa, though there is still so much left unseen. That just means, though, that we have a good excuse to come back again! So long for now Ganghwado!

Waiting for the train home at Geomam Station

Cheonggyecheon - Hangang- Ara Canal

Date: October, 2012

Terrain: Flat, riverside

Difficulty: 1

Trail/Path Conditions: Well maintained bike paths

Things to see: Banpo Bridge (water bridge), 63 building, Han River

Places to eat: Convenience stores along the river

My Story:

Originally published on 10/15/2012 

On Saturday afternoon after getting out of work we decided to make a trek across the city, starting from our house and going all the way to the ocean in Incheon. As usual, we didn't quite make it, but we did make it all the way to the entrance of the Ara canal which now connects the Han River to the ocean in Incheon, part of the Four Rivers Project.

The most lovely part about this trip was that there was a bike path the entire way. People say that Seoul is a terrible city for biking, but that is not true as long as you're not using bikes as a form of transportation to get from here to there. For those folks who just love riding bikes for pleasure, Korea is a great country for biking. Nearly every stream and river has a bike path that runs along its side and it's possible to go quite far inside Seoul or even to other cities by bike.

Bike path along the Han River

For this trek we started at the beginning of the bike path on the Cheonggyechong stream, between Sindang Station and Dongmyo Station. For a while the path follows the road, but about two km later it goes down to the stream and you never have to come near a car again for the rest of your journey.

Crossing Banpo Bridge

We followed the Cheonggyecheon down to the Han River and then continued along west until coming to the Banpo bridge (also known as the water bridge for its water shows at night) where there is a large bike/pedestrian crossing on the lower level of the bridge. There were quite a few people around due to an F1 event going on at the Han River park on the other side of the bridge. We squeezed our way through the crowds and continued on our way toward Yeoido.

Yeoido within sight... 

Upon reaching Yeoido, we found more huge crowds, we had totally forgotten that it was the evening of the International Fireworks Festival. Even though the show was not set to start for another four hours there was already swarms of people juggling for the best spots to watch the show from. But, again, we squeezed through and continued on our way further west.

 

So close to the canal.... 

Finally we reached the entrance to the Ara Canal. We really wanted to ride to the end, but it was getting late, the sun was setting and we were starting to get hungry so we decided to wait for another day for that adventure.

Finally made it to Ara Canal

The only problem was getting to a subway. Gimpo Airport is very close from there, but it was impossible to get to without getting on a highway on our bikes. Finally, we used the smartphone to cut through some farm roads in order to find Gaehwa station at the very end of line 9.

Sunset over the canal

All in all, it was a great ride, but I hope to get an earlier start next time to make it all the way to Incheon, it's not far at all!

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