The Bicycle Difference

Recently, Kris and I made the decision to invest in a pair of bicycles. I was highly skeptical of the idea at first. I never thought that having a bike was necessary, and I didn’t think that it would make that much of a difference in travel time and the accessibility of the whole of Wonju. I thought it didn’t make financial sense. I thought it would be unsafe. I am happy to say that I was utterly wrong on all of those fronts, and our bikes are two of the best purchases we’ve made in our brief time in Wonju.

I was no stranger to using a bike as a form of transport. I had done so at university, to save money on petrol and car maintenance. I remember biking to university being a stressful experience, always worried about whether I would get hit by a car, or miss my first class because of bad robot (traffic light for non-South Africans) timings. These slightly negative experiences seem to have put me against getting a bike in Korea, simply because I didn’t want to add mild unpleasantness to my pre-work time, as there would be mild unpleasantness in excess once I got there.

On top of this, a bike was most definitely not necessary in Dongtan, the town that Kris and I lived in last year. It was the perfect size and distance from major cities to not need a bike. Dongtan itself was small enough that you could walk almost everywhere within half an hour, so faster transportation was unnecessary. Dongtan was also, I reckoned, too far from the closest major city to plausibly bike there. As such, we never truly considered getting a bike in Dongtan.

Wonju, however, is a moderately bigger city. While it is possible to walk everywhere in a day, it is far less of a practical option. One of my contracts that I was due to start shortly after we bought our bikes required me to be at an office 7 kilometers away from my house by 07h45. Sure, I could get up early and jog there. But I would rather not. Even the school I work for most often is a 40-minute walk from my house. I spent the first three months of our time in Wonju catching up on the superb Freakonomics Radio podcast, with the distance floating by.

I also felt that a bike was an unnecessary expense. Spending the equivalent of R2000 (US$160ish) on a mode of transportation that I seemingly didn’t need was, in my mind, wasteful. It was only once we purchased the bikes and started using them regularly did I see how wrong this perception was.

Despite my misgivings, Kris convinced me that bikes would be useful in Wonju. So, I caved and we bought them. From the next day, my eyes were opened as to how foolish I had been in not buying a bike earlier. My travel time to work went from 40 minutes to 15. The office trip turned from a R190 (US$15) round-trip taxi into a 30-minute bike commute. Best of all, Wonju is designed with bikes in mind. There are wide bike lanes on almost every road, so there is no need to risk your life by cycling on the actual street. The most dangerous obstacles are children that stop suddenly to pick up leaves, and old ladies who somehow take up the entire sidewalk.

Overall, I am thoroughly enjoying riding through Wonju. It is a safe, quick, relatively cheap form of transport that is perfect for a city of Wonju’s size. We have explored more of the city on our bikes than we would have if we had continued to take taxis everywhere. The rides are good exercise for our lazy bodies. Finally, it is a way for Kris and I to spend more time together, laughing at the things we see on our rides. Let us just hope that we don’t get stranded by a flat tyre any time soon.

One Month in Wonju: Achievements and Goals

Kris and I have now spent one entire month living in the lovely, pokey town of Wonju. In our time here, we’ve done a bunch of stuff that I am proud of. On the other side of the coin, there are a whole lot of things that I would like to get done in the remainder of our time here, however long or short that may be. Here are five goals that I feel are most necessary to aim for in the coming months, and five achievements that Kris and I have made, in no particular order.

Goals

1.) I need to be far more pro-active in the mornings. Now that I have a more flexible job (see the achievements below), I need to make more effective use of my time. Whilst playing games is great and all, I need to start doing it on stream and creating content.

2.) I want to be able to play one more point of Ultimate Frisbee between each rest point. Currently I feel that my fitness levels are limiting my play, and I am sick and tired of feeling this way.

.3.) I should probably wear pants more around the house in the mornings.

4.) I want to find at least one paying Esports writing job, be it a once-off article or a recurring contract, in the next 4 months. Gotta start somewhere.

5.) I want to keep enjoying life as much as I have in the last month!

Achievements

1.) Kris and I (almost entirely Kris) organised an Ultimate Frisbee team in Wonju, and successfully got most of the team to our first week of games.

2.) Kris and I both managed to renew our ARCs, so we can legally stay in Korea for another year. The details may be written in permanent marker, but apparently they’re legit!

3.) I managed to secure myself a great, flexible part-time job. It gives me time to write, and lessens my time with kindergarten children. My sanity is closer to normal levels than it was last year.

4.) Kris and I have extensively cut down on the amount of cold drink (soda for my American readers) that we drink. It was largely an unconscious decision, as buying soda just never settled into our Wonju shopping routine. However, when we noticed this, we decided that this is a good thing and haven’t bought cold drink for our house since. We might have a can or two when out and about though, but nowhere near the three 1.5-litre bottles that we were drinking every week.

5.) I have begun writing for GosuGamers.net with regularity again. During the move, I wasn’t able to write a piece for them for weeks. Now, I’ve done two this week already. I want to write more in order to get more exposure, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Overall, it’s been a stellar month. Whether it’s because we’re not nearly as overwhelmed by the newness that governed our teaching experiences last year, whether we’re part of a better community, or maybe because we’re honestly just enjoying ourselves more readily, Kris and I have had a good time of it in our first month in Wonju. Here’s to many more!

Wonderful Weekend in Wonju

Most weekends, Kris and I are too lazy to go anywhere. The times when we have enough motivation to get out of our pyjamas and leave the house, we tend to do something that we could never have done in our home country of South Africa. This weekend, we managed to accomplish three very worthwhile activities: see the city that we will be moving to when our current contract is completed, ski, and eat waffles in the company of raccoons. Needless to say, it was a good weekend.

For a few weeks now, one of our fellow teachers and Frisbee companions has been planning to visit Phoenix Park, one of the major skiing parks in Korea. We told him we would go, jumping at the chance to experience skiing. Getting up before the sun on Saturday morning was hard. But we managed to do it.

After about two hours of travelling, we met our friend at the Wonju bus station. We picked up some kimbap (it looks similar to sushi, but is warm and quite delicious), and drove to Phoenix Park. Upon arrival, we parked, payed the significant entrance fee, and sorted out our rental clothing for the day. Decked out in mismatching clothes and boots that seem unnecessarily clunky, holding pointy sticks and long pieces of plastic that apparently help you glide on snow, I felt ridiculous but excited to try and ski.

Our friend warned us that skiing is learned by falling down multiple times. I certainly proved that adage correct. In the 8 or so hours we spent at Phoenix Park, I fell on my face, hips, arms, buttocks, and shoulders. The number of times I hit the powdery dirt was likely in triple digits. But I enjoyed almost every minute of it. Within moments of my first run on the slope, I experienced the first instance of the lowest point of skiing, in my opinion: losing your skis.

Losing your skis when you fall down is the epitome of sadness. Skis are designed to fall off of your foot with sufficient force, in order to avoid twisting your ankle. However, when it does so, you have to trudge uphill and attempt the ‘putting on the ski again’ ritual. When I first tried, I spent ten minutes looking at the skis, shoving my foot in the slot where they went in the first time, shoving it in harder, kicking the ski in frustration, swearing, and looking at the skis once more. I was ready to get out an ancient bone knife and slit my wrist in a blood ritual to allow the ski demons to open forth their plastic home. Luckily for myself and the onlookers on the slope, I was soon met with my first of many ski patrol staff, intent on helping me master the art of gracefully falling down a mountain covered in snow. This very polite Korean gentleman informed me that the blood ritual was not necessary. All I needed to do was push down the button right behind where your foot goes, and clip your foot in again. I felt more than a little unintelligent. But then I got up, skied for about 5.7 seconds, fell down again, and forgot all about my previous predicament.

We spent more time than I had expected at the park – we enjoyed it enormously. Whilst I was learning the intricacies of falling over, getting up, and re-applying one’s skis, our friend and Kristen were elegantly making their way down the slope. After our day of fun, we returned our gear and then returned to our friend’s home. His very kind Korean mother attempted to feed us, we said goodnight, and fell asleep.

This morning, we woke far later than expected. Our muscles ached from the exertion of the skiing, but we were excited to see more of Wonju, the city that we will soon be calling home. It looks very nice. Far bigger than Dongtan, far older, and with a prominent feature that Dongtan is lacking: a cafe’ where you can drink coffee in the company of raccoons.

I know what you’re thinking: raccoons are dirty scavengers that roam the earth with the sole aim of raiding dustbins (trash cans to my American readers) for their goodness. These raccoons convinced me otherwise.

Look at that thing. All it is is a big ball of fluffiness and curiosity. We were warned that we should close our bags in the cafe’, as the raccoons would raid them and eat whatever they found. With that warning successfully heeded, we had a wonderful time with them. I feel that the raccoon cafe’ will become a regular haunt of ours in Wonju. They’re so cute and fluffy!

After our time with the raccoons, we went to a PC room and played Dota for several hours. We won, we lost, we shouted, we had fun. All in all, we became very excited for our move to Wonju. It will be good to already have a group of friends in a city before moving there. The fact that two of our better friends in Korea live there is even better.

We had an exquisite time in Wonju. Whether we were skiing (or as close as I could come to skiing) down the slopes of Phoenix Park, marvelling at the cuteness of raccoons, or playing the game that we love with people that we love playing it with, we are both very glad that we decided to leave Kichu and Catsby to guard the apartment whilst we frolicked in central Korea. We have six weeks left in our current contract before we can call Wonju our home. After this weekend, we are even more eager for the time to pass.