Benefits of the Bicycle

If you’re like me and you have played Pokemon Blue for Game Boy, then you know hos satisfying it is once you obtain the bicycle.  In my opinion, the primary flaw in that game is that your character moves too slowly, making it a chore to visit all of the towns to capture wild “animals” and to pit them against each other using moves like “Razor Leaf” and “Double Slap”.  Getting the bike doubles your movement speed so that you can trap and enslave all 151 Pokemon in half the time!  But instead of continuing with this geekiest PETA ad ever, I’ll segue into this post about what buying a real bike in Changwon has meant for me.  Farther and faster, man.  I’ve taken this thing all over the place.  Grocery store?  No problem.  Running late for work?  I’ll still get there early!  Nothing happening on a weeknight?  The International Pub is just a five-minute bike ride away!  And a 15-minute bike walk back home.  I got a girl’s number and she told me about Korean lessons at ChangwonCollege (two birds with one stone?).  Today, I found Changwon College on the bike and I was able to quickly ride through and about to learn where the student union, cafeteria and education buildings are.  Who knows what the bike will do for me next?

I want to get away from the bars a little but I’m so reliant on them because they are the only places to meet my foreigner friends.  It’s nice to now walk into the bar and actually know several people in there; I no longer need my hand held, but I still don’t have a phone so it’s impossible to coordinate with them outside of the place.  This weekend was major, though, because it was the bar owner’s birthday on Friday and his bar’s 5thanniversary Saturday.  Plus, I stayed out with Pieter and Monica until 5am on Thursday — WTF?!?  I just saw a woman wearing a t-shirt reading “Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus”, but the print was like the Helvetica on the New York subway system.  There’s no way that was an official shirt.  Trust me, it was strange.  Anyway…I think getting the phone and getting to see folks like, during the daytime, combined with an ever-increasing familiarity with the city will make me less reliant on O’Brien’s and the IP and will make the experience even more full.