The adventure has drawn to a temporary close as Woody and Scott boarded flights in Incheon airport. AsiaWheeling 2.0 will soon be on the horizon, after another year or two of researching mind blowing locations on planet earth and the logistical fabric that will weave them together with overnight trains, games of whist, and foreign beverages. Until those posts, our dear readers, please enjoy a recap of our finest.

Arriving in India and driving along the Bay of Bengal coast amidst traffic insanity. Sipping salty lime juice and relaxing into a 18th century french mansion hotel.

Visiting a futuristic utopian colony and meditating in a giant golden orb.

Wheeling in Tamil city amidst a communist workers strike

Agra Wheeling. The majesty of the Taj Mahal. The rank and hardscrabble streets of Agra.

Driving to 5 hours to New Delhi and sitting down at a dinner table fit for kings. Watching the general compartment board, as Nikhil, Chief Snakecharmer, narrates all sides of the Indian economy.

Wheeling the holiest city in all of Hinduism, drinking lassi in clay cups, massages on the banks of the river ganges

Visiting hell on earth and nearly avoiding leprosy

Kolkata: the forgotten city

Hong Kong: city of transactions and hot pot.

Traversing the Pearl River Delta and meeting double happiness in Kunming, Yunnan.

Wheeling in the old and new towns of Dali, Yunnan. Vast rice paddys, card games, incredible public busses.

Urumqi: Markets of thieves, dried fruits, crumbling buildings, no bike lanes, and the best Uighur restaurant east of the Taklamakan deasert. Wheeling in the most prosperous city of central asia.

Stocking up on yak meat, ramen, and knock-off chinese stout beer before boarding a train across the gobi.

Kashgar Wheeling: Adventure on the fringes of the known universe. Public housing blocks, muslim auras, hot sand, and new panama hats.

Kashgar Sunday Market: Tea and coffee before herds of sheep sheered before interested buyers. Herds of sheep slaughtered for feasts to follow. Uighur graveyards and street performers. Piles of junk up for auction alongside folk songs recorded on used Korean pop cassette tapes. Millions of watermelons. Domestic brawls in restaurants failing health inspection.

Kashgar Animal Market

Kashgar Sunday Market

Buying a local musical instrument for a dear friend. Filling the case with goodies and a two hour experience of navigating successfully through Chinese post office customs.

A meal enjoyed crosslegged, sipping Goji berry wine under the desert sunset and breezy trees. Watching on stage-left a traditional Kashgar dance performance put on for Urumqi communist party officials.

A guide to wheeling field commands:

Wheeling our faces off in Dunhuang, akin to the Tatooine moisture farms, falling ill and being revived by mobile pharmacy.

Learning Mahjong in China’s ancient capital and reigniting our passion for Halal Chinese food.

Wheeling Tienanmen square, sipping sweet yogurt, navigating hutongs, and scoffing at rain.

Tianjin: A true test of our Chinese wheeling knowledge. Flawless execution in dire circumstances. Smog to the hilt, bicycles falling apart, and men trained to fix them hastily. The last meal in China and a first sip of baijiu. (Video Here)

Jincheon ferry to Korea. Seafaring adventure, and a transition across economies. Plus an added aside regarding the commercial shipping industry.

Arriving in Korea and being bewildered by development. Well ventilated pork restaurants, Korean war veterans and endless soju toasts, plasticine women in basement Hip Hop nightclubs.

Final meal of AsiaWheeling. Flaming pumpkins, courses upon courses of delight, flights across oceans, and battling the great future unknown with wheeling fervor.

Thank you again, our dear readers, for sharing in this adventure. We will be back in the saddle to up the ante in a matter of time.

Scott Norton
Tokyo, Japan

It rained all the rest of the day in Seoul and we worked furiously on correspondence (as you can see by the date of this entry, we did not finish it all). But, as night fell, the rain seased and a warm muggy night crept in on the city. Armed with a recommendation from one of the workers at this, our second hostel of the day, we set out upon the wet streets of Seoul. The fellow had drawn for us the characters for the name, and distinctive shape of this resaurant’s sign on the back of an old Yim’s house business card (dammit, Yim).

We initially had some problems finding the place, mostly because the skies opened once again and rain poured on the city, disorienting our searches. We huddled under a single umbrella and approached strangers showing them the card. Unbeknownst to us, we were presenting the character upside down, so each person we showed, took some time to discover what exactly these strange white guys wanted from them. Finally we asked a motorcycle delivery man. He pointed us in the right direction, and seeing the sign and slowly turning our now soaking wet Yim’s house card upside-down our spirits soared with success.

It was a traditional Korean “courses” style of restaurant. This means course after course after course of the most succulent and exotic dishes you can imagine. We had no idea what to order so we utilized a little slip of paper that the fine woman at the information desk on the Tian Ren Ferry had provided us with. We belive it said something along the lines of, “We have bicycled all throughout asia, and now we are in Korea. This country is like the icing on our cake. Please help us to order the most delightful and authentic food you can.” It worked like a charm. And we were blown out of the water. Take a look at this:

First we were given a kind of mellow yellow porridge. It was mildly sweet and of a textural consistency I had never experienced before.

Then were were given a bunch of courses of little meats and sushi like things.

We were still a bit wet from the rain, but doing great non the less.

Here’s a better look at the flaming squash dish (one of the best).

A number of things were flaming. Our waitress was very freindly. Even when we ate some things which were orniments and “not food,” as she later explained to us. Those were I believe her only words of English. Despite eating what may have been Styrofoam, we remain without sympom to this day. So I will chalk that as a win.

The courses simply kept coming. Astounding. We were needless to say stuffed to the gills. So we strolled around the city, digesting both the feast and the immensity of the trip. Of particular interest on that walk was the discovery of this strange sculpture.

The Next morning we rose and climbed onto a bus to the Incheon airport. Inside, Scott and I were separated prematurely. This is mostly my fault, I believe, as the woman at the United Counter expressed doubt as to whether I could catch my flight at all, citing a 40 minute ride to the gate. I rode an futuristic airport tram, filled (for some strange reason) with Russians, under the runways and emerged in a gleaming new terminal. My flight was indeed boarding and I got on. I should have dallied around the gate for some time, in hopes that I would find Scott, but I had no reason to believe he was even bound for the futuristic new United terminal. So on I got, my mind churning with the immensity of the trip which lay just behind me. And just before we were to pull away from the gate, a flight attendant came over to me.

“Are you Benjamin Schneider?” she asked. I replied and she produced for me an awkwardly folded piece of airport carbon copy printer paper. I thanked her and slowly unfolded the message.

“AsiaWheeling Strikes again,” it said in loud and frantic ballpoint pen. I smiled the deepest and most content of smiles and, for the first time in 45 days and 21 cities, took off towards a place I had been before. AsiaWheeling Strikes Again… Indeed. Indeed.

Somewhere in the distance there was a phone ringing. I rolled around in the luxury of my bed, coaxing myself back towards slumber. I knew if I awoke now, there would be no returning to dreamland, and I was really digging dreamland. Or was the phone in dreamland? Where was I? Was I on a train? I think so, but I couldn’t quite place myself. What city was I in? Too many cities… Then that phone… who’s was that? The conductor must have some system in his little room. So they can communicate with other cars. And of course the higher ups, you know.

Then the door was opened and knocked on at the same time and Yim himself was standing in our hotel room at Yim’s house in Seoul, South Korea. I was suddenly quite awake, sprawled awkwardly in my underpants. Ann had left early to go teach children, or something noble like that. Scott was rolling around searching for up. I sat up and locked eyes with Yim. “The money, oh you want us to pay for the room. I’m sorry we didn’t do that last night…” I began. Yim interrupted: “You have violated the rules of Yim’s house! You have brought a third person into this room! You must leave now; check out by 12pm!” Then he was gone. He did not slam the door. Instead he just left it wide open.

We began to scramble around. it was 11:30 am and we had only retired some 5 hours ago. We scrambled to assemble ourselves. I didn’t know of this rule. Yim’s was so nice too. If only I could just return to the bed. I might be able to get back on the train. “Should we fight this battle?” Scott said from underneath a pillow. “Ah, I don’t have the energy. Lets just get the hell out of here.”

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Korean customs was easy. I was initially frightened by giant lines of people, until I realized that these were only those coming back with goods to declare. In fact, it seemed that we were the only ones on the boat who did not have something to declare, for that counter had no line. As a headed there, I was stopped twice by people in the giant line adjacent to me. A man called out to me over a large box with Giant Bicycle on the side. “Where are you from?” “The United States, I said” “Ah, you are very beautiful.” This was only this first of many such complements that I was to get in Korea. They came just as often from men as from women, and were essentially devoid of sexuality. In Korea, it seems, people just stop you to tell you you’re beautiful. Wow.

Armed with a fresh Korean Visa, elevated self esteem, and plenty of energy from our 27 hours on the boat, we stuck out for the train station. We asked for directions at a tourism counter, and found that they bearly spoke English, suggesting few english speakers tour seoul (at the very least from the Tian Ren ferry). But Scott’s ever developing Chinese was easily understood. We set off to find an ATM. This was no problem. We found, however, that the ATMs in Korea do not, in general, accept foreign cards. So we turned the last of our RMB and the remainder of our american dollars into Wan at a terrible rate, with the help of a tiny currency exchange shop on a side street.

We strolled the outskirts of Soeul. I was struck with how much the place looked like Welseley Massachusetts. The streets were lined with trees. It was mildly hilly and reasonably affluent. The resaurants, however, smelled much more interesting. Most had giant aquariums in front, displaying the many types of mollusk and byvalves to be had, freshly killed for you.

We found our way to the subway, picking up some fresh fruit smoothies from a delightful pair of old korean women selling them in the station. The subway was clean and fast. The view from the window was great. And Korean women are astoundingly beautiful. We were in a great mood.

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