Last week, I cycled from Seoul to Busan.

This week, I'm writing about it. I'm not really though. I'm writing about writing.

The journey started not with a single turn of the pedals, but with buying provisions and gear; with checking weather forecasts and hotel recommendations; with debating whether my tyres would hold out (one replaced) and my panniers would survive (barely). Still, that was not nearly the imposition my mind had built it to be. I left a day later than I thought I would out of inertia and (whisper it) laziness, not necessity.

But left I did, and 620km later arrived in a hotel in Busan for a shower and a celebratory slice of pizza. And along that way I ate instant noodles and gukbap and sweet and sour pheasant and fried rice and many cereal bars, hunting open restaurants in each place and just once being abandoned to the supermarket.

Flat, straight cycle tracks followed rivers for kilometre after kilometre. There was fun in guessing which hills the path would curve completely around, and which it would take us up and over - and less fun in grinding up those unskipped. Somehow I had four punctures, one rear and three front, for reasons I never discovered. Tubes were purchased and my lack of foresight in bringing a frame pump cursed, and the passive voice employed.

And along the way I realised there were words inside of me. I find myself without work, without immediate prospect of work, rejected without interview from a few more roles and wondering what comes next. I delete some words that feel too introspective. Finding work is a numbers game, and now numbers are not on my wide. GDP growth, vacancies, applicants per vacancy, age? Perhaps I'm not ready for that last reflection. I'm closer to 50 than 30, after all.

In any case, in two weeks I'll likely leave Korea and I'll know very soon where to. I have preferences and possibilities and fall-backs, and an unwillingness to commit right now, so the flotsam will share the tides with me a little longer.

This is my blog, and I guess I'll write.