Clearing the Bikes...

Today we were back to work after our day off yesterday to head back to the airport to clear the bikes. We decided to take the $9 airport shuttle instead of the subway as we had to lug our bags with us and the subway route would have involved several transfers.  It took about 1.5 hours and we arrived about 10:30am at the passenger terminal.  The process started in the baggage clearance section and we got through in about 1.5 hours. Then, armed with the necessary paperwork, we traveled to the Korean Air cargo warehouse to pick up the bikes.  Our customs agent Wendy had forwarded all the necessary paperwork in advance so we were mainly just signing forms and answering questions and paying the various fees.  Easy breezy!  We then took the shuttle to the warehouse and signed more forms and paid more fees.  Then we were led into the warehouse and the forklift operator brought out our bikes. We broke open the crates, put a few bits back together that had been disassembled during crating, aired up the tires and we were off.  All in all it came out to about $300 USD per bike to pay customs, broker fees and warehouse storage.

It is illegal to drive motorcycles on the expressway and the airport is on an island with two bridge expressways as the only roads to get back to into Seoul.  Our customs agent told us about the car ferry that would get us back to the mainland, but a local (Seoul Joe) who we had made contact through a motorcycle travel website told us to skip the ferry and just blast through the toll booth through the non-gated Hi-Pass lanes and we would be fine. So we decided to go that route as we were having trouble finding the ferry dock and it was getting late (ferry only runs until 6 and it was pushing 5pm). We blasted through the scanner lane and since we had no RIF chip the sirens and lights instantly went off.  A little unsettling, but we made it over the 8km bridge and quickly got off the expressway to gas up.  The most I had paid for a fill up so far - about double what we had paid for the most expensive fuel in North American.  Luckily we probably won't have to gas up again until Russia where gas is cheap.

Now we had to get down to our new hotel in Incheon, a port city southwest of Seoul - only  about 15km, but the hotel address did not pull up on the GPS, so we had to kind of guess on the route.  It was rush hour so the short distance took almost 2 hours.  You definitely have to ride like you are invisible here as the other cars will just change lanes randomly without signaling or looking behind.  It didn't help matters that it was also pouring rain the whole way.  A bit nerve racking for our first riding outside North America.  We got into Incheon and hoped we would recognize the street we were looking for.  We did and found the hotel quickly after turning onto the street.  This is certainly not a tourist or business area.  No more signs in English.  In retrospect, we should have taken the ferry across, which would have put us at a dock about a mile from the hotel.

We checked in, met up with Mark from Australia (British national who had been living in Australia and was riding a similar route to us to move home).  Wendy had connected us with Mark the day before and we has exchanged emails yesterday and planned to meet at the hotel in Incheon.  We had made plans to meet up with Wendy and Seoul Joe back in Downtown Seoul, so tossed our gear into the room and jumped on the train.  It took about 1.5 hours to get to our destination as we missed the transfer for the express train and had to ride the slow train that makes several extra stops.  Three transfers later we popped up to the street and headed to the bar we had all agreed to meet.  This area of Seoul was very international and western (no, not the cowboy kind of western).  Lots of Europeans, Russians and young progressive Koreans who mostly all spoke English.  We enjoyed beers, Tequila shots (way too many, but Joe was a very persistent host).  Joe had traveled extensively through Russia, so was telling stories and giving us pointers on the both Korea and Russia.  We all had a really great time and parted ways about 11:30pm.  We headed back down to the subway station confident that we had mastered and could get back with no problem.  Turns out that that was the Tequila talking.  On our last transfer, we got on the wrong train and didn't discover our mistake until we had gone several km in the wrong direction.  We then hopped off the train to find it was after 1:00am and the station was closed and the trains had stopped running.  After consulting our trusty tourist map we found ourselves about 45km from the hotel.  Oh, well - turned out to be a $50 mistake as that was the cab fare to get back, our first taxi ride since arriving in Seoul.  So basically yesterday turned out to be a navigational disaster between the ride from the airport on the bikes and then the subway fiasco.  Good thing we are heading out to the country today where things should be less congested and routes easier to follow.

So this morning Ken and I decided to forego the hotel breakfast restaurant (coffee $8.50, juice $13 - just stupid), and checked the neighborhood for some coffee and food.  Nothing here was in English and there was nowhere near the plethora of choices we had in the a Times Square area.  We found a little cafeteria place open, grabbed a tray and had a very Korean breakfast of fish (that was super boney) squid, Kimchee, rice and some meat that looked like beef - but actually not too sure.  

We are leaving in an hour with Mark to hit the hills, do some camping and hopefully get to our ferry port by Saturday afternoon.  Might not have internet so this might be the the last post for a few days.

Ken unpacking his bike.

My bike still on the pallet.

With Joe, Mark, Wendy and Ken.

With Mark, Wendy and Ken.