Pat’s Diary
• 5th April to 14th May 2026
• Paul Slattery, Kevin (Sponge) Smith, Stan Fields, Pat Moran
• Section 1: Seoul to Busan, Section 2: Islands off South Korea, Section 3: Japan
• Total Distance 2,114 miles
Update 1: 12th April – 375 miles
Getting into a rhythm now at the end of day 6. Roughly on track overall with a few longer days compensating for some time lost with punctures and mechanicals; It’s seriously hard to find bicycle repair shops here !
Now in a city on the south coast called Changwon and tomorrow we plan to finish the official “Four Rivers Route” from Seoul to Busan, before Stan leaves us and we head to cycle the islands off the south coast.
Overall impressions are of a well developed and affluent country with amazing infrastructure of roads, bridges, dams and the best cycle paths any of us have ever seen. Apart from the cities, it’s sparsely populated and some of the infrastructure seems overkill for the numbers of people using it. It’s very traditional with almost no western brand shops; a few Starbucks in Seoul and one Burger King somewhere; otherwise it’s 100% Korean.
Food is almost all traditional, mainly BBQ pork and fish like mackerel and fresh water eels. Every meal, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner is accompanied by little shared side dishes (Barchan) of seasoned veggies, various pickled stuff and Kimchi (fermented cabbage or veggies, usually spicy with garlic, ginger, and chilli). Beef is rarely on the menu, chicken is nonexistent and we haven’t seen a spud all week.
Lovely friendly people, in-spite of the language barriers. Today we couldn’t find lunch as places closed for Sunday but we stumbled on an outdoor celebration of a 60th anniversary for a primary school. They waved us in, fed us and gave us presents of 4 embroidered towels, all without really being able to communicate! Later we stopped at a roadshow shop for a coffee but unfortunately they didn’t serve any. As we sat outside the owner came out with 4 energy drinks for us but wouldn’t take money. Lovely people.
Update 2: 22nd April – 738 miles
As we start the 3rd and final leg of our journey, I’m writing this in the middle of the night somewhere on the Sea of Japan, on an 11 hour overnight ferry from Korea to Shimonoseki Japan. We had intended to sail to a port a little further south called Fukuoka but there was “no availability” on any of the days we tried to book online. After some confusion, it turned out the route is suspended for 2 weeks maintenance in April; lucky we didn’t over plan this trip!
On the last update a week ago we were coming towards the end of the first leg of the cycle; from Seoul to Busan along the Four Rivers route; but when it came to actually finding the official end of the route on the following day, we spent ages tracking it down hidden away in a car park behind a Korean Water Company building in Busan suburbia; obvious really! I hope and presume Korean Water were big sponsors of Korean cycling.
Stan our US friend left us at that point to fly to Tokyo for a short holiday before heading back to the states. In hindsight that seems a much more sensible plan to get to Tokyo than ours!
Anyway, the remaining 3 of us headed off to explore the islands off the south coast of Korea (Geoje, Tongyeong, Hansando and Mireukdo) before looping back to visit the cities of Yangsan and Ulsan and travel down the east coast of Korea back to Busan.
The first thing we noticed when we headed off was how difficult it is to navigate here once you are off the official cycle paths and onto the open roads. We were being routed onto very busy A roads with lots of speeding traffic and had to go through several tunnels which thankfully were only a few hundred metres long; so not too bad.
All fine until we somehow unknowingly drifted onto a motorway and into a 4.5 km long undersea tunnel. That was pretty scary when after about 2 km into the tunnel, the narrow hard shoulder started to disappear pushing us out into the traffic lane. That was about the time we heard the sirens and saw the flashing lights of the policemen and Motorway service workers coming up behind us who stopped the traffic and escorted us out to safety. They couldn’t have been nicer once they realised we were merely stupid and not intentionally flouting the law.
The only other real mishap during the week was when Kevin Sponge took a tumble with bike into a giant puddle. I missed my opportunity to take a photo of him and bike submerged in the muddy water by stupidly checking if he was ok; schoolboy error!
The islands themselves were beautiful once we got there, deserted apart from little fishing ports dotted here and there. A couple of meals of fresh fish were a welcome change from the nice but repetitive Korean BBQ pork.
So we arrived back in Busan yesterday and Kevin Sponge has now left us to fly back to the Uk, leaving Slatts and I to sail for Japan.
We leave Korea with fond memories of lovely gentle friendly helpful people, some stunning scenery and cycling infrastructure in a well developed and affluent country, heavily attached to their own language and cuisine with not much western brand influence to date. We won’t miss the fact the pedestrian crossing and traffic lights take forever to change, Google and Apple Maps don’t work, they don’t do breakfast ( at least not early enough for cyclists ) and we couldn’t find chicken, beef or spuds.
We look forward to exploring a new culture in Japan; first main stop Hiroshima in about 3 days time as we make our way up the coast.
Update 3: 1st May – 1321 miles
Kon’nichiwa,
It’s about 10 days since we took the overnight ferry from Korea to Shimonoseki in the south of Japan and we’re now fully immersed in Japanese culture, language, cuisine and cycling practices; in other words we’ve eaten sushi, learned 5 words ( 5 more than Korea !) and managed not to run anyone over on the road!
We’re been gradually working our way up along the south coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, and have now arrived in Kyoto where we’re taking our second rest day.
Our first rest day, a week ago, wasn’t planned, we were rained off. Overall it’s been wetter in Japan and we’ve regretted our strategic plan not to carry more wet weather cycling gear. The alternative plastic bag over the feet strategy has only been partly successful.
The rained off day we were staying in a pod hotel ( cosy!) so not much space to relax and in order not to waste the day, we took the bullet train to Hiroshima. This took 15 mins and we then returned that night to cycle the same route the following day, which took slightly longer!
Perhaps the one positive take away from the poignant Hiroshima experience is there is no blame or recriminations at the War memorials; it’s all focused on promoting world peace and preventing a reoccurrence.
The food is more varied than in Korea and we’ve enjoyed the sushi, sashimi, chicken, beef and for some reason there is a lot of spaghetti Bolognese which has become the go to midday cycling fuel. The most interesting desert we’ve found is sweet potato fries and Vanilla ice cream; shouldn’t work but it does!
We’ve continued to struggle with breakfast as lots of hotels don’t do them and finding a cafe on the road open in the morning is very hit and miss. So 7-eleven has been our saviour on many mornings; even if the machine coffee isn’t great. There are lots of McDonalds but we’ve not yet got that desperate.
The people are really polite and helpful once they know what we actually want. Our 5 words are working great and always get us a smile. People are however a bit conformist and rules based leading to a few interesting interactions when we want to go off-piste. One example, after arriving cold, hungry, tired and wet at one hotel, under no circumstances would they let us park the bikes anywhere in the vicinity. After a “discussion” was getting nowhere, we gave up. Slatts cycled off to find an alternative, leaving me on luggage duty, and next thing 4 police people turned up (yes another police encounter!). No idea why the receptionist called them (he wasn’t Japanese btw!) but probably because they are not used to any sort of disagreement. As I couldn’t really communicate with them I took a selfie with them instead, which seemed to annoy them a bit so that had to be deleted. We parted as friends!
The country feels very safe and no graffiti or litter etc. Google maps works well so navigation is easier than Korea, but, apart from hotels there isn’t much WiFi and many places don’t take credit cards; all a bit strange for such a technically advanced country.
We’re really enjoying it and are still just about on speaking terms and have seen some wonderful scenery, temples and quaint little towns like Kurashiki (the Venice of Japan). Tomorrow we head inland to cycle round Lake Biwa; Japans largest lake. We then redirect towards Tokyo which we hope to get to by mid-May, as long as the Earthquake alerts are ignored like the one earlier today !
Sayōnara,
Update 4: 5th May – 1600 miles
30 Days and 1,600 miles into Seoul-Tokyo and still talking to each other (just about). On the hilly days we don’t need to speak much as Slatts is well ahead of me up a mountain somewhere.
About 400 miles to the finish following the Pacific Coastal Route.
Daily routine is locked in of 05.00 alarm with 06.00 wheels turning; with small adjustments for my faffing. Bikes holding up well but creaking; a bit like us.
Seeing full range of Japan from Industrial to Cities on steroids and small run down tired and empty towns; but overwhelming standout is the people who are so incredible respectful, helpful, honest and 100% law abiding – They will wait for 5 mins on an empty road waiting for green light to cross.
Early morning ferry tomorrow heading for Toyohashi for a cheeky 75 miler.
Update 5: 11 May 26 – 1,952 miles
An update on progress as we get very close to the finish line. We should break 2,000 miles sometime tomorrow (Tues 12th) and will likely be about 2,100 miles by Tokyo on Thur (touch wood).
We’re staying tonight in a little quiet place called Hayama before cycling to take a ferry tomorrow to the Chiba peninsula. There isn’t a restaurant for miles so dinner was rustled up from what we could find in the local corner shop.
We’ve cycled through the vast urban sprawl that is the adjacent cities of Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka (apparently they’re separate but I don’t think the concept of Greenbelt is strong here and it was hard to notice where one ended and another started!). Contrast that with the total different experience of amazing scenery in very rural sparsely populated areas around Lake Biwa and along the pacific coast. We cycled by Mt Fuji even if it was a bit shy and kept trying to hide behind clouds. The last week or so the weather has been kinder, with less rain though we have had some bad headwinds at times.
We’ve got used to the fact that the locals will always do things by the book; hotel check-in is 3pm not 2:50 or 2:55, and we don’t even ask where we can leave the bikes as the answer will usually be “not allowed” so we just say nothing, find a little hidden corner and we’re gone in the morning before they notice.
When our interactions don’t involve us trying to get them to break some rule, they couldn’t be friendlier or more helpful. And those little human interactions are what you remember long after the views of mountains, rivers, coastline and cities begins to fade.
Memories like when we got lost trying to cycle over a VERY steep mountain. Along came a little man in a van who started drawing us a map on the ground with a stone; when that didn’t work he progressed to pen and paper; we’d still no clue so he gestured for us to follow him in his van and he’d show us the way. But he lead us back down the mountain by a different route and we ended up pretty much where we’d started. We didn’t have the heart to tell him so just thanked him for the half hour he’d spent trying to help us and went on our way.
Or the time in a rural area when we were walking trying to find a restaurant but it was getting dark and starting to rain. We knocked on one restaurant door and they were not open but the owner gave us some instructions of where we could try. 10 mins later as the rain started to increase he pulled up in his car behind us having decided we needed rescuing and took us where we needed to go.
Or the time we went into a little Shop / off licence for a beer as there seemed to be some activity in an area which was otherwise pretty dead. There were about 10 other customers and within 15 mins we’d been invited to the 5km park run next Saturday, found out the owner liked the Beatles and played the flute, Slatts was leading the sing song and little Mica was our new best friend!
Genuinely helpful, polite and friendly people.
Update 6 (Tokyo): 14th May 26 – 2,114 Miles
Well that’s a wrap. We separated with a hug in the middle of Toyko, not because we had fallen out but because we were staying in different parts of the city due to separate plans next week.
Trip of a lifetime, memories for the rocking chair and thanks so much to everyone for all the messages and encouragement along the way. And of course, the most important bit is thanks for the generous donations on behalf of the fantastic charity, O2E.