Asia Update #38 - Land Mines

Got out for another ride last weekend, but to a different area than the last set of photos. This was Namhan-sanseong, which means Namhan Mountain Fortress. There is a wall, with gates at various intervals, on the mountain ridge surrounding (protecting) a valley. This is much like the Pukansan (see update #35 for a photo of the wall and gate there) and Seoul itself (all the gates in Seoul that I've mentioned before were part of the wall which ringed Seoul).

Finally got a photo of myself riding. Team Wrong Way will be happy to see that I still wear the uniform, even though I don't race much with them any more.

While on the ride, I also got some pictures of the mine zone signs. Definitely smart to stay on the marked trails. This area is roughly the same as a national park in the States - hard to imagine anyone allowing the military to bury mines in Yosemite. Of course, Yosemite is a bit further away from its nearest enemy…

The full set of photos from my mountain bike adventures are on the web. More gory details than most would want to see, so I didn't put them directly into these updates. I do have a couple of animated GIF files (kind of like choppy video) of various people riding (the picture of me above is from one). If you do want to see them, they are athttp://www.singlespeed.org/koreamtb/koreaMTBphotos.htm. I'll probably remove the less looked-at ones in a few months to save disk space, but for now they are all there.

One question I get often is when I am returning to the States permanently. Good question. The answer could be 'now', 'August', or 'who knows', depending on your definition of returning permanently.

It could be 'Now', because from this point on I plan to be in the Bay Area about 2 weeks out of every month. I guess that means I am living there.

It could be 'August', because that is when my apartment lease expires in Korea. Whenever I am in Korea after then, I will be staying in hotels. So I guess that means that I won't be living in Korea then (not that I am really living here now, given that I travel so much and never got a resident visa).

It could be 'Who Knows', because I will be traveling a lot to Asia for the foreseeable future, until I change jobs to something with less travel. No plans to change jobs right now, and with all the international-related marketable skills I've gained, chances are a change (whether inside or outside of my company) would still involve travel.

So if the question is when I return to that hardcore mountain biker you all loved (or hated), then the answer continues to be who knows. Maybe never?