After intensive efforts, much discussion, and a great deal of consideration, the Rotten Dead MC has rolled out its new colors: Gray on Purple

On 6 and 7 June 2009, the Rotten Dead MC went natural.  Instead of the usual ride to some distant city to spend the night eating and partying with the locals before crawling to some motel to hide until late morning, the Club decided to camp out on the beach.

The Pusan crew and guests rolled out early in the morning and began the 7-hour ride to the west coast of Korea and tiny Gosapo Beach. They stopped in Jinju for a snack break after a good 2.5 hour ride.

The remainder of the ride through onion fields, fields of flowers, and farmland was very relaxing and quite beautiful.

The Pusan crew arrived at the beach in the mid-afternoon and found a good campsite in a stand of trees on the edge of the beach.

Shortly after setting up camp, The Seoul crew arrived.

The remainder of the afternoon and evening was spent sitting on the beach, talking, eating, and having a generally great time.

Contrast was evident when comparing the level of camping preparations:

Pony: Blanket and bread. Was quite content to wrap up in his blanket and sleep on the sandy beach.

Koz: blankets, 4-man tent (with ground cloth and rain cover), gas camp stove, pots, utensils, swim suit, towels, beef, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, spices, insect repellent, suntan lotion, ramen noodles, booze, kitchen knife, and numerous othe amenities.  However, he was lamenting forgetting his skin cream and hair brush. Koz insisted on sleeping in the trees to be protected from the wind and and sun.

Koz took a serious amount of ribbing because of his extreme over-preparedness, but he took it in good fun.  After much beer, rum, whisky, and coke, Koz was renamed “Boy Scout,” as he is always prepared for ANYTHING.  However, Pony was also disappointed that Boy Scout forgot his brush because Pony was looking for something that could be used to comb the bugs out of his beard.

After some chocolate pudding made by Big Daddy, the group walked the 10 steps to the beach to light fireworks.

At some point Big Daddy thought it would be fun to start a roman candle war.  It suddenly became a bad idea when Boy Scout sent a flaming magnesium ball from a roman candle down the back of Big Daddy’s shirt, giving him 1st and 2nd degree burns down his neck and back. GAME OVER.

Eventually things settled down and everyone fell asleep on the beach, except for Boy Scout, who ensconced himself in his tent along with all of our gear, which he allowed us to keep in there despite our having given him a hard time about the tent.

Morning brought pancakes, pop tarts, and a light rain.  We packed up as quickly as possible (Boy Scout took a little more time than everyone else) and headed back to Pusan and Seoul.

The Seoul crew got wet, The Pusan crew managed to stay ahead of the storm most of the way, except for the few times they had to backtrack into the storm after making a wrong turn.

Great ride.  One of the best ever.

 The Rotten Dead MC kicked off the 2009 riding season by riding to a “paension” (Korean condominium type of lodging) near the small town of Keumsan near the west central part of the country.

We had all anticipated arriving in Keumsan in the early afternoon.  However, as could be expected, several things went wrong.  Heretic got a flat tire late Friday night and had to wait until Saturday morning to get it changed.  The Pusan group had their own issues to worry about on Saturday morning.

Big Daddy was scheduled to have surgery the following Monday morning to remove the titanium plate in his leg that had been there since he plowed his bike into a concrete power pole in September 2006.  As the surgery was scheduled for Monday morning, check-in procedures at the hospital had to be completed on Saturday.  Koz and Big D. met up and rode to the hospital at 9:00am.  The check-in procedures were more time consuming than expected.  Three hours.

After finishing at the hospital, Koz and Big D. had a quick lunch at McDonalds and hit the road at just after 1:00pm, 4 hours behind schedule.  They made tracks out of Pusan and through Masan.  After about 2 hours of hard riding, they pulled off into a rest area to stretch the legs and warm up a bit.

 Koz took some time to soak up the sunshine.

 They called the Seoul group to find out how they were progressing on their ride.  The Seoul group had not left yet.  Apparently, it was going to take the wonderful and effecient people at Harley-Davidson Korea in Seoul approximately 7 hours to change a back tire.

At around 3:00pm, Pony got tired of waiting for Heretic for 5 hours at the Seoul group’s meeting place.   He took off to Keumsan with a guest, Achilles, in tow.  Eventually, the tire got changed and Heretic set out on his 4 hour trip at around 5:00pm.

It started to get dark and cold as the March sun set.  The Pusan group arrived at the paension just after dark and settled in to wait for the other two groups to arrive.  While waiting, Big Daddy and Koz explored the house.

 Pony and Achilles arrived hungry and frozen shortly after 8:30pm just as Koz and Big Daddy finished watching Transformers on the big screen TV.  Heretic arrived just after 9:00pm.

With everyone assembled, the first and only item of business was to begin grilling dead animals and imbibing several different beverages.

 Pony was the first to succumb to the evening’s festivities.  He has paid handsomely to destroy all photographic evidence of what happened next.

 However, he had everyone else had recovered nicely by morning in time to enjoy a breakfast of champions of ramyeon, Cap’n Crunch, Pop Tarts, Cheese, bagels, and leftover meat.

 We cleaned up our gear and prepared to leave the house for the rides back to Pusan and Seoul.

 Before leaving, we took a short ride around the neighborhood to see some of the sights.  It was quite a lovely area.

The Seoul group took their time riding home.  However, as Big Daddy had to report to the hospital by 7:00pm on Sunday night, Koz and Big Daddy tore up the highway and got back to Pusan as quickly as possible.  The ride back to Pusan was interrupted just long enough to take a few pictures of an odd, man-made waterfall.

We had an awesome Toy Run this year, far surpassing last year’s donations and this year’s goals.

We held a raffle and auction at Ghetto’s a local bar in Pusan and raised around 1,400,000 Korean Won cash for donation to the Heerakwon children’s center.  Also, a truck load of private donations of clothing, toys, and household items were collected and delivered to the director of Heerakwon.

The Rotten Dead gathered at Pusan City Hall to launch the ride.

We were joined by the president of the Wombat RC and by two members of the Ocean Riders, a Korean riding club.

Children from Sunny International Home School also joined us at Heerakwon.

We saddled up and made the 30-minute ride to Heerakwon.  We made our donations to the Heerakwon director and then enjoyed a performance by the kids from Sunny International Home School.

After that, we showed the kids our bikes.

We then played some basketball, soccer, and other games with the kids before heading home as the sun began to set.

The RDMC would like to thank Dr. Martens,  R Led Hair, United Seamen Service Center, Ghetto Bar, Fuzzy Navel Bar, Jinsung Motors, and Sunny International Home School for their donations and assistance with this years Toy Run.  We would also like to thank the numerous individuals who donated cash and items for this year’s toy run.

We look forward to even better results next year.

For some reason, we returned to Jeonju after having been there only two months earlier.  Most likely, it had something to do with Pony hoping to run into a woman in a bar there that he knew several years ago.

The P., Koz and Prospect Nate started out from Pusan late in the morning.   They rode throughout afternoon through Masan, Jinju, Hapcheon, Geochang and over to Jeonju.  They arrived at the hotel just before dusk and settled into Nate’s room to await the arrival of Pony and Heretic from Seoul.

The Seoul group arrived at around 8:00pm.  We all gathered in Prospect Nate’s room.

After a bit of small talk, we held a super-secret patching ceremony and made Prospect Nate a full patch member of the RDMC.  As Nate fancies himself to be a bit of a behavioral psychologist and therapist, we tried to get Nate to accept an officer position of the RDMC analyst/therapist, but Nate refused to accept the “ANALRAPIST” tab.

The five RDMC members then headed out to dinner for Ddalkgalbi (spicy stir fry chicken) and beverages.

 The next several hours were spent walking the streets of Jeonju’s university district sampling local food, drink, and people.  Feeling that he had sampled a bit too much of the local drink, and the flask he brought with him, Nate decided to head back to his room to sleep it off.

The four conscious Brothers then headed across town to the Bar where Pony hoped against hope to meet the mysterious woman.  No woman. Just adult beverages and interesting characters.

Thereafter, we headed back to the hotel and retired to our own rooms.

The next morning, the Club rolled out of Jeonju and headed back to Pusan and Seoul.

22 & 23 November 2008 - RDMC rides to Jeonju, Korea