Happy Children's Day!!

Holy moly its May! Yesterday was a good day... May the 4th be with you! Hehe love it.

Anyway - it's been awhile since my last post - life has been crazy as some of you probably know. Will have to post about that sometime!

For now I thought I'd write a quick update, to satisfy my ever growing band of readers - a grand total of 12 I believe. Eat that Kanye West's Twitter!

Today is a public holiday in Korea, Childrens Day. Naturally, you're probably wondering what it's about and maybe thinking, gauging from the title perhaps, that the purpose of this post is that I will explain it's significance and that you will come away from reading this post feeling like you have gained some cultural insight you didn't have before. Well - I don't have a bloody clue what it's about! Celebrating children I suppose? It would be un-Australian of me to question a public holiday - hell it's a national institution in Australia! So I say "Happy Children's Day!" while I kick it at home. Win.

I've had a few people ask me what I do in my spare time in Korea, seeing as I seemingly have no friends and no life aside from work. It may seem that way, and it is true that my social life has dropped a few notches since moving here, but for some reason I always seem to be busy. I play soccer twice a week -didn't take me long to find some people to play and it never usually does! - and I play squash once a week. On top of that I have a massive back log of books, video games, TV shows and movies to go through, so that keeps me occupied whenever I have free time. I have also been studying the Korean language - I will make a few comments on this in a future post.

I also recently bought myself a bicycle, which I got from a local store down the street for a reasonable price - they threw in all the added accessories for free which was a nice touch... the only problem being that they left out one of the most crucial accessories... a kickstand! Akh! Need to visit them again sometime soon before my two wheeled vehicle decides to give in to gravitational forces when I take my eyes off of it. 

So today, on my day off, I predictably did all of the above... watched a movie, played some video games, studied some Korean and went for a ride on my bicycle - which was the most exciting part!

Bicycles are amazing. I haven't owned a bike in a long time, but as they say, you never forget how to ride a bike and boy have I missed it. I'm not saying they're awesome because of the exercise factor, how they help with keeping carbon emissions down when people ride them to work rather than driving... these are great side benefits but, no, I think they are amazing because they are awesome exploration tools. Walking/running is great for exercise and exploration but you're limited by distance and traffic, to some extent, to getting much further than within a few kilometres of home (unless you're more dedicated than I - most people are) and driving lacks the fresh air aspect and you tend to glaze over as you drive by all the intricacies of the neighbourhood - but a bicycle is a perfect balance. You get the exercise, fresh air and you can travel an appreciable distance, all while taking in your surroundings - this has been extremely useful having just moved to a new home in a new country, where everything is different and I have no knowledge of the local scenery, shops and attractions. I used to enjoy riding as a child for similar reasons - even though I grew up in the area and knew it well, there were always new places to discover - those "black spots" you just never drove past because you didn't have any friends there or whatever - and now I feel just like a big kid (well, I pretty much am a big kid) - riding up and down hills, taking random back streets, and pelting down the bike paths along the river. I even managed to find the Ulsan Grand Park today - the weather was brilliant so everyone was out with their kids, playing football, basketball, walking with their families... and many others were also riding bicycles! Ah, they all stole my idea, I had it first! haha. Such a nice spot and no doubt I'll go riding out there again.

Ergo, I believe the best way to explore a new place is on two wheels and I look forward exploring more of Ulsan and other parts of Korea by a similar method.... however I may be tempted by four wheeled ATV's!! hmmm (thats another story....)

Until next time (hopefully sooner rather than later) - annyonghigaseyo!