The Road to 40 Day 175/365: Nami and Railbike Adventure

This was our earliest call time yet, as we had to travel about two hours to get to our destination. It was a fun day, but not without hiccups.

Our bus was going to pick us up at 9am, so everyone started moving quite early. The previous night, we had to pool together some money to pay for our bus, so the sisters are all cashless. Since we were heading out, we figured we should withdraw some money in case of emergencies.

I went out at around 7:45am to find an ATM machine nearby. Google pointed me to the end of our street, and I reached the Namdaemun area already. And I had to buy food at a convenience store.

When I returned, the bus had already arrived, and we were all rushing to leave on time. Unlike our previous driver, this one was a bit more chatty and jolly. He had a translator app hooked up to his speakers, so every time he talked, there was an automatic translation, which made it easy to communicate.

Most of us slept on the journey that took a couple of hours. It was about 11am when we arrived, and we had a rail bike session at 2:30pm. The driver told us that we should hurry back at 1:30pm to reach the place, because it takes about 30 minutes to get there.

This is my third time in Nami Island, and it’s always a different experience. We’ve seen it without leaves, with colorful leaves, and this time around, the leaves are not as colorful just yet.

However, it was nice to experience it with two groups that are closest to us. Learning from past experience, it was best to break away into groups so that we could do what we wanted on the island.

The sisters went ahead to recreate some shots they took from the first time they visited. The other group had some photoshoots and snacks elsewhere. The kids wanted to see animals, so I took Vino and Neo to see the ostriches.

We were closer to the exit, so I decided to just walk around the area with the boys instead of going back to where they were.

We found a stream and stopped to skip rocks. It took me a while to get it going, but I wasn’t as consistent as before. I’m not sure what I was doing wrong, but I didn’t know how I was doing it right enough to teach the boys how to do it. They were able to skip a few of them, though.

Che, Christian, Nicky, and Arianne all went to ride bikes to explore the area a bit quicker. They had to rush, though, as we didn’t have a lot of time.

We missed a ferry heading back to the other side, and it took a while before we got back. When we did, our tour guide was fuming because he was nervous that we were not going to get there on time.

He drove like a madman, trying to get us to the rail bikes. It was an effort that was appreciated, but kinda scary, considering we had kids on board.

Thankfully, we made it in time, and he was back to his chatty self. He even offered to snap photos of us while we were riding the rail bikes.

It was quite an experience. It’s like riding a rollercoaster for a while, but later it felt like a small train. Along the way, we were treated to amazing views of the mountains and the river.

We passed by four tunnels, each with a different vibe and music. The last tunnel had party music that made it feel like we were in a spin class. It was tiring, but fulfilling at the same time.

There was a train that took us to the exit, where we met our bus driver again. It was time for lunch – the area’s specialty, Dakgalbi.

The ahjussi suggested a place for us to eat at, and it was quite nice, actually. The kids had a non-spicy version, while the adults had the regular one. We enjoyed it with some beer and cheongha, which was a combination we discovered to be really good.

According to our resident Korean, Kathreen, it was close to the authentic taste of the dish, albeit a little less spicy.

After filling ourselves, it was time to go home. It was around 5:30pm, so we decided to skip dinner plans and just move to shopping, walking, or fixing up stuff.

The gang decided to head over to Hongdae, but we stayed behind to get things organized in our room. We went up to the sisters’ room to have some drinks and talks.

The kids stayed in our room by themselves. The pork place that the gang went to in Hongdae was tempting, but while I had confidence to leave Vino with Tia and the sisters, I didn’t want to burden them with the two other kids.

I bought the kids food at some point in the night when they got hungry. Later, Che went ahead to sleep, so she asked the kids to go to their rooms to turn in. I stayed a bit longer, but the other guys were apparently out until 4am.

The guys check out tomorrow, and it’s our last full day in Korea. We’re hoping to move before lunch, but we’ll see if it will happen considering how we all ended the night.