Gibby comes to town (Damyang ride)

Last week Jenny and I had a week off so our friends Gibby came down from Seoul for a couple of rides. We had some mixed luck with the weather. On Tuesday it started snowing. It didn't seem all that bad at first, but it just kept snowing. The snow kept getting in our eyes on the downhills and we just did a lot of freezing in general.


Tuesday Lake Loop


The Gwangju reservoir was still partially frozen over.


I love this coffee shop. We were both surprised and relieved to see it was open so we could get a hot drink.






By this point it got really bleak. We decided to take a break at a rabbit restaurant so we could warm ourselves on the heated floor.


The side dishes in this restaurant were amazing, especially this sour plum (mae shil) dish.


Hot steamy rabbit stew!

Wednesday Damyang Ride (68km)
(gpx file download)




The weather was glorious on Wednesday so Gibby and I took a ride out to Damyang. We stuck to the farm roads for the majority of the trip and we even managed to get completely lost (see below).













We stumbled across this very noisy dog farm. Poor dogs.


We were shocked by this jazzy bus stop in a tiny farming village. We didn't see any buses on this route. I've never seen such a nice bus stop in Korea.

Sean and I came across this restaurant some time ago but we never checked it out. Gibby and I decided to eat there as it looked pretty interesting. It was AMAZING!









The restaurant was next to a small bamboo forest.


All the food was served in bamboo trays (these are just the side dishes by the way).


This is a bottle of daetongju. It's bamboo soju and it's delicious! It comes in a real, fresh bamboo container and has to be opened with a hammer.


















This lake was frozen over despite it being a really warm day.


Finally, some bamboo makkoli!