Former U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Kathleen Stephens has completed a five-day bicycle tour along the country's four major rivers being refurbished as part of a water-management project, the land and transportation ministry said Sunday.
The ministry said it has conferred a medal to Stephens in recognition of her being the first foreigner to tour the country via the bicycle trails built along the rivers -- the Han, Nakdong, Geum and Yeongsan.
Korea launched the four-river restoration project in 2009 in order to enhance the nation's overall water management. Still, critics claim the project could cause ecological disaster.
Stephens started in Yangpyeong near Seoul on May 27 and pedaled about 617 kilometers on a bicycle tour that stretched to the southeastern port city of Busan, according to the ministry.
She was accompanied by 10 people, including a U.S. embassy official handling agricultural issues and a former Korean official who dealt with refurbishing the four major rivers, according to the ministry.
Stephens, who is better known among Koreans by her Korean name, Shim Eun-kyung, has praised the riverside bicycle trails as excellent infrastructure and some of the sections have reminded her of Korean culture and history.
Stephens, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Korea in the 1970s, served as Washington's top envoy in Seoul between 2008 and 2011.
In 2010, she went on a bike tour along with U.S. embassy staffers and local university students across Korea to battle sites of the 1950-53 Korean War. (Yonhap)