walking

Walking down the Broadway.

NY

NY

Bye-bye

tomorrow will be a memorial day, not for the world, not for USA nor Korea,
but just for me......


I began this trip with ' why' .
And now the goal is already nigh.
it's time to say 'bye-bye'
but don't worry, I feel high.

Birthday Party

....Oh...God.

JK told us to bring some liquor for his birthday.

there were about 16 people, so the fridge was full of heavy liquors...

I don't remeber if we finished them all because I passed out before it happened.

There were some bottles left last time I checked it.

HAppy Birthday to U, JK!

Trenton, NJ!

I'm in Trenton, just 100 miles away from NYC!

I'm so excited about spending Christmas in Manhattan.

To save some bucks on lodging, I'll be at my friend Junho's house until Sunday. (He's celebrating his birthday on Saturday!) I'm looking for nice motels in NYC which seems impossible.

There are either big expensive hotels or cheap youth hostels.

Junho told me there are some cheap motels in Jersey City, which is right next to NYC.

I'm wondering what it's going to feel like to stand in Time Square with my bicycle, after this 4 months- pedaling.

Wish me good luck!

Toll

I'm in Philadelphia, in the UPENN area. My body is full of beer now. Haha.

I just don't want to go to New York City. I should have stopped in Washington DC.
I should have been modest and realized my limit. I've been pushing to the limit and it's making me ill physically and mentally.

I just checked all the possible roads that lead to Manhattan.
New York City is surounded by tolls. It seems like there's no way to get in there.

Damn..


Cuba was a lot more worth traveling by bike. There was no such thing as toll. There was no sign saying "cars only". Cars, trucks, bicycles, coaches, horses, cows and people shared same roads.


Maybe I might have to take a train to enter NYC after all this ordeal with bicycle...

I don't know why, but I have bad feeling about this last route. I fell, I got arrested, and still have cold. Maybe it's my obsession of karma; I've done so many bad things in my life. I feel like I'm getting it back on this one trip!


The weather forecast said it will be warm for the whole week. Is it some kind of trick from God?

DUI

(24miles, freezing)

I had lunch at Burgerking along with a small bottle of bacardi.
I had to keep myself warm.

I felt so warm inside (which is good)
but I was depressed after I rode bike for about 5 miles.

I'm stuck in a lousy motel in a town where there's nothing. Even no Chinese restaurant.

I was thinking why I started this.

Maybe bacardi made me wiser.

Fallin' into mud

(50 miles, sunny, 35 F)

I saw that big Chevy truck coming right behind me in the rear view morror. But the truck didn’t slow down. It’s either 1) the driver didn’t see me or 2) he didn’t care whether he hits a stupid foreign bike rider. I didn’t know what to do. I shifted the handle to the sideroad. It was muddy, my bike trembled and fell.

I didn’t bleed. It didn’t hurt much, I just got a bruise on the side of my right knee. But I was covered wih mud. I laid down on the mud, bitching about my life and destiny looking at the sky.

It was a beautiful,sunny day.

150 dollar fine ticket

(47miles, cloudy, 39-48F)

It was a very cold day. It wasn’t a good day to be arrested by a cop. I was crossing a bridge from Maryland to Delaware. This bridge was on highway 440. There were two bridges that connect Maryland and Delaware. The other one was on Interstate 95 which was marked green- that means there is a toll.

The bridge was 4 lane road, about 1mile long. There was no sidewalk, the fence was very low, so it scared me to death to cycle next to the vehicles which don’t take cyclists into their consideration.

At the end of the bridge, there were tolls where drivers paid 5 dollars, and a cop was standing, looking tough, waving at me. I didn’t know why.
“Are you blind or fxxking stupid?!”
He said there was a sign saying that no bikes were allowed. I said I didn’t see it.

“then you must be fxxking stupid”
He took my passport and went into the police office. I couldn’t move because he didn’t tell me not to move. Sweats on my body started cooling down. I stood outside, 39 F, shivering for 20 minutes.

He came out with another officer. He asked me questions where I stayed, where I got my money from etc.

I said “I get money from a fried chicken company. I stay at hotels”

He asked me if I’m from North or South Korea. He didn’t know “Republic of Korea” means South Korea, which means, in his mind, I couldn have been a North Korean terrorist who attempted to enter Delaware by bicycle without paying for the toll.
He wrote me a ticket, 90 dollars for ignoring a road sign and 60 dollars for causing disturbance on the road.

Then he let me go.
I took some pictures of the bridge because I really wanted toremeber the bridge which cost me 150dollars. The cop came out of the office, howling “take the fxxking film out! Now!”
“But officer, I can’t”
“Do it, now!”
“But this is a digital camera”
He stared me in my eyes, looking scary, and screamed.

“I don’t’ care. Do it!”

I thought he was kidding, but unfortuenatley, he was not.

This is the first impression of Delaware.
I need beer desperately.

Leave some comments, please

Now anyone can leave some comments on this blog.

When I started this blog two years ago, I couldn't stand criticism from irresponsible browsers. That's why didn't allow any comment.

But now, I want to hear what other people have to say.

I'm about 250 miles away from the finish line.

Some might say what I did was just stupid.

But I just want to hear one person saying that this trip was worth doing it.

Thanks for watching.

Bad Karma

It’s raining. This is because of my bad Karma.

It took such a long time to have the courage again to cycle 300 more miles to NYC.I said goodbye to everybody so everybody thought I was gone. I didn’t go outside.

I checked weather on the weather.com. The temperature will drop drastically after this rain – it’s going to be 30~40 degrees.

Maybe this is not a bad karma but a test given by the God. Either way, I will suffer. And I will learn. Hopefully.

AFKN and I

[We're almost there!]


[what is this sign supposed to mean?]

( sunny, 53-61F)


When I don’t cycle, I watch TV. Most of the stuff are boring, rude and covered with commercials.
But it just came to me, that there was time I loved American TV.
It was about 20 years ago. I used to watch the channel two, the AFKN-American Forces Network Korea. Korea had 3 Korean channels, but AFKN was my favorite.

AFKN used to air cartoons in the morning. I didn’t speak English but enjoyed watching it.

I don’t remember the names of the most characters, except for Bugs Bunny.
I remember a ostrich which made some funny noise and fooled a wolf.
There were a black duck, a piggy.
I think the broadcast was called Loony Tunes. Back then, America seemed to very far far away somewhere in the galaxy. It was like a fairly land.

Now I’m in the middle of Ameirca, literally. But I don’t know how close I got to America.

I don’t watch the Loony Tunes no more, but I watch Oprah Winfrey Show instead.

I still feel estranged.
America seems to be running away from me. This country is very strange to me. But I like Oprah. She’s "awesome".





[Izaka, almost got attacked by a small red car but escaped using an ancient Asian trick - photo by Choi J. W.]

Pictures of "My Great America"

some folks have sent me emails regarding various subjects.
One of the most frequently asked question was about the photography.
("How the hell did you take pictures like that?", "What kind of camera are you using?" "is there a photographer following you?")



1. I've been using Canon 5D and 17-40mm Lens for the entire trip. I use canon G5 as a sub-camera. I carry Lomo-AC for special pictures.


(17-40mm is ideal for taking wide pictures likes this; a biker and a nice blond lady on a same picture!)




Sometimes I put my camera on something and set in on timer.
I have to make sure that people around it don't notice the camera so that I can get very natural pictures)


You don't have to put your camera on a tripod to get a self-portait.
I use various tools to take self-portraits. My favorite is - simply putting it on the ground.

Taking pictures of Diana has never been easy.

She's so cocky (is that a right word to use?)

....

..... because she's a woman... (just kidding)

I think everybody has to find something to enjoy while they on a bike tour.
Since I don't like riding bicycle (that's so true) I devoted lots of my time taking pictures when I take rest.

The problem is, I hate riding bicycle, And also, taking pictures.

Thank God I don't have to do them anymore!!

thanksgiving

I was invited by SFC Taylor, who replaced SFC Miller and became my supervisor for the following year.

This is my second Thanksgiving I celebrate in Washington DC. It was as good as the first Thanksgiving here. 12-pound turkey and mashed potatoes. I love Mrs. Taylor’s gravy. It’s fabulous. 6- year old Alea blessed the meal this time (last time it was SFC Taylor)

I used to hate the gravy sauce. The first day I spent on the military base as a fresh private, I thought the gravy was a soup. I put some salt and pepper in it. It still tasted awful. I wept that night thinkin’ about all the terrible food I had to deal with the next two years.
It was good to see him again and his family.

Jamie made some very delicious gravy. The 15 pound turkey was so big that we could eat the half of it even though SFC Taylor brought some of the neighbors who couldn't leave the base for the Thanksgiving.

It was great!

thanksgiving in Korea

I’m at Taylor’s again.
Thanksgiving on military base was very hectic. It wasn’t a holiday for soldiers. It was all about “looking happy”. 4 star generals used to come to our unit’s dining room. Low ranking soldiers like me had to clean up the area thoroughly. When it comes to Thanksgivng, we used to have lots of fallen leaves, so it was no use cleaning up the area a week prior. But the First Sergeant didn’t care.

On the Thanksgiving day, the commander and other high ranking officers came in special uniforms- the calvary style. They cut the turkey for us. We had something special like a lobster, shrimp cocktail, ice cream with banana and whip cream. The KATUSA soldiers didn’t care about the food much. All we cared about was the 4-day weekend starting from Thursday. We didn’t understand why we had to celebrate and spent some of our precious time on pass for the historical event where Native Americans saved 107 starving pilgrims by feeding them with 107 10-poundturkey. (I don’t know if it’s really the reason Americans celebrate Thanksgiving but I’m sure it involves some pilgrims and Native Americans and some turkeys.)