date: 29 Aug '09
week: 12 of 16
day: 80 of 113weather: Warm, sunny & humid
country: South Korea (the non-
scary one)
nearest town: Seoul
distance traveled: +19,000km, +12,000 miles
An 18 hour trip on the Dong Chun ferry from Vladivostok brought us to South Korea and normality. Perfect tarmac roads signs in English (and Korean), people who smile and who have heard of customer service :), food is good too. (I didn't write much about Russia at the time but the Russian food is often dull and as a customer in shops, cafes and hotels you feel you are an inconvenience to the person serving you).
The Korean countryside is very pleasant and even though there is often a mountain backdrop it seems as if the place is one big, regularly attended to, garden. The country is ordered and despite the language barrier, not at all intimidating. The rides around Korea to Seoul have been more like Sunday afternoon rides back home compared to the previous challenges of Siberia and Mongolia.
Seoul marks the end of our ride from the West of Europe to the East of Asia
Yesterday the bikes, panniers and riding gear were packaged into crates for America, a surprisingly painless 2 hour
process. Tomorrow I catch a 10.5 hour Air Korea flight to Seattle to arrive 6 hours before I depart to start the beginning of the final stage of the trip across North America to New York.
View from the top of the John Hancock building on the side of Lake Michigan.
The Jasper National Park, one of the most scenic rides in the world......
Fantastic scenery and empty roads in the Yukon Territory
Yesterday was a long ride of 440 miles (700 km) from Beaver Creek, Canada (on the border with the US) to Anchorage in Alaska. But, the border crossing only took approx. 10 minutes and even included jokes with the official (Turkmenistan included no jokes and took 8 hours).
The roads and scenery through Canada were fantastic, this is on the way to Beaver Creek, our last stop in Canada before crossing back into Alaska. 
The highway runs over the top of China and then 'round the top right hand corner to Vladivostok. The initial 3 days of the 6 day journey were across mostly unmade roads with plenty of other vehicles, earth moving & road laying equipment and of course lots of dust. Several of the riders had some close calls particularly on the freshly laid wet tarmac, I lost the back wheel at one point but managed to stay upright another wasn't so lucky and slid down the road covering herself and bike in the wet tar.
