Trip Through NorthWest Korea pt. 1

Prelude... We told Okwhan we wanted to have a fun trip, and that his rendezvous with a tv producer in ChangJoo in the south for Thursday was unreasonable. That meant riding down for two days straight, having an interview, and returning back to Seoul, non-stop. He said we should all relax and chill, and things would work themselves out. Well they did.
The blogger software is difficult to change the order of pictures, so I'm going to have to work around a messed up order.
Pic 1. On day 1 of the trip I took a moped and was to meet Mike and Okhwan en route. I was to drive ahead of them and take pics of them riding. Remember, the whole point of this trip was to get promo footage for Okhwan in order to raise awareness about him and get some sponsors for his next trip. This pic is of beautiful greenery on the road between maybe PyunTek and Chunan.
Pic 2 & 3. This is a really bad part of Korea as compared to Canada. The bathroom facilities are often, if not usually, very sub-par for the developed country lavatory circuit. This is only one example of a VERY common situation (I actually, really saw this at a place in Seoul -not a hick, country place!- tonight!). If you look at the sink and the urinal, you will note that there is no running water in the sink - no connection actually. Also, the only usable water comes from a tube connected to the piss pot, and the tube's spout is lying in the piss water, dirty shoe sole zone. Nice.
[Skip to] Pic 10. We met Okhwan at the agreed upon place at roughly 8am Tuesday (Wednesday?) morning. We were pissed at having to go so early, but at least we would get on the road nice and early. Remember, we're under time constraints as we have to bike as far as we can today. So we leave right away in order to maximize our travel right? Wrong! Okie walks through a tiny, dilapidated market, with token white folk in tow, to get to a tiny SongPyun shop. There we waste an hour and a half of travel time so we can get some (yummy) breakfast and (instant) coffee. I had already eaten, as had Mike. Pic 10 is Okhwan leading us, and Pic 9. is Mike and Okhwan. Note the Seoul/PyeongYang 2016 shirt Okie has.
Pic 8. This huge church is on route to Ansan city hall. It's in the middle of the biggest vacant lot I've ever seen (maybe). Lots of churches in Korea.
Pic 7. This is something sold in Lotteria, the McDonalds-esque fast food joint owned by the Lotte family. They also make food goods, buildings, malls etc. This is a hamburger with two patty-esque pieces of rice patty. 7/10 for taste but 3/10 for bun holdtogetherability.
Pic 6. The town that Mike and I finally met at is called KohngJoo. We were searching for eachother for more than an hour, and the main points of reference in this fun town are the bridges. This is the view from one of the many bridges, and you can see it's a pretty nice view, except for the dirty-ass stream. If they clean it up, it could be a major attraction for walking, something like ChungGayChun in Seoul.
Pic 5. This is some sort of refining plant in the countryside between KohngJoo and Ahsahn. The logo is that of the Kookmin Bank, which may show that most major companies are in fact institutions which can be crazy diversified.
Pic 4. I saw pillars like these three times on the road from KohngJoo to Ahsahn. It's like a huge bridge to nowhere. Maybe there's a invisible highway with invisible space-cars running overhead.
So, long story short, no Okhwan. He was playing strange games all day the first day, and actually tried to cut out on me in KohngJoo (maybe). So, we let him keep on his way to GwangJoo, and Mike and I turned around and went kind of in a circle heading back to Seoul.
Part 2 coming soon!