Today is Children's Day! Yey! This means that Penny got a whole Tuesday to herself! I was sorely tempted to stick a pin in a map and just head to wherever the pin decided, but fate intervened (or I spent too much money this weekend and was skint) so I decided to stay in sunny Suwon.
Come this morning I called Rubes and Amy and we all met at the legendary Batman sign (so named as it's the place we all meet, as when I first arrived it was the only sign I could understand!) at Suwon Station. For once I was on time, but this time Ruby was a little late, which gave Amy and I time to sit and check out the Korean couples in matching outfits, which happens a lot, and play the 'is that his or her bag' game. Ace times. When Ruby turned up we headed off to the park with both her and Sun, her Korean friend, and after 15 mins of 'are we nearly there yet?' I presented the girls with their first view of the park, which is a haven in the middle of the busy metropolis that is Suwon. In the park there is a huge lake, basketball courts, grass, a large clock, everything you want in a park really. Lovely.
We settled in to picnic times and with the arrival of Lisa cracked out the gimbap (both circular and triangular varieties), crisps, dips, popcorn, fruit, you name it sister. A couple of cheeky bottles of soju were added too, however, as I've decided to give my liver a break for the week, I kindly declined Cerberus' piss. A lovely time was had by all and we were thinking of heading back into Suwon, but there was one thing that I had to do. RIDE THE YELLOW BIKES!!!!!!!!
The yellow bikes are two bikes, welded together, with space for another person in the middle and a canopy over the top. Generally they are ridden by families with small children or friends wanting to exercise together, not 2 drunk Westerners, a me and 2 wasted Koreans. We hired one yellow bike and two singles and set off. I kept my position on the yellow bike for most of the time, only stopping on the single for a few minutes, though it was worth it as I've missed bike riding - the wind in your hair, the noise of tyres, just being alone - however there's a lot to be said for multiple persons when careening about. We flew around the park, scattering kids, youths and hajemars in our wake, yelling 'Pang, PANG!' (which is like beep beep in Korean) and apologising as we rode past. All was good, we'd navigated small and large paths for at least, oooh five minutes, before we got to the hill. The hill. Oh the hill. A sharp oren chuk and a Korean shrieking, (Sun, who was terrified) got us halfway up, until, alas, the leg muscles ran out of steam. We stayed in one position for what felt like an hour until slowly, slowly, we started to crawl backwards, picking up steam and heading towards the lake! Luckily there was a fence in the way, but it was a close shave. We were stuck in hysterics for about an hour before we finally pushed our way, with the bike, back to Amy and Lisa, who were rolling. Fun times. Still, we got the hang of it in the end, after being pushed up the next hill by about a million Koreans.
Ah, happy Children's day!!!!
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