This weekend I decided to go for a bicycle ride along the river with my son. Next to our house there are too many mountains so we went to a place toward the East side of Seoul that lets us use bicycles for free.
This is one of the last places in Korea that gives bikes for free. They are in good condition and we are allowed to use the bikes for three hours.
We left at 9am so we thought we would have a wonderful day ahead of us.
Go East
We decided to head east to get out of the city quick and we were surprised by how much ground we covered so fast. We felt like Olympic cyclists. Very few people passed us and the trail was pretty empty all morning.
Everything was great. It was a sunny day, but most of the sun was still low in the morning. Soon we found ourselves outside the city at a beautiful cafe. We stopped to have a bulgogi panini and some drinks.
This was some of the best father and son bonding times we had ever had. My son opened up and talked about middle school. He liked being outside in the open air with farms and forests around him. There were still a few apartment buildings in the distance, but the area near the cafe was rural.
He shared his dream of owning his own farm. He talked about having a big dog and some chickens. It sounds like a good idea, but I know his mom will never move. I told him that after he finishes school he can have his own place in the country. He laughed and said again how much he hates school.
I asked him why he hated school and he said because teachers can't spell his name. Most Korean kids have just three syllables but he has five syllables for his name. I told him that's kind of a dumb reason to hate school. He said that it's boring and his teacher can't stand it when he comes two minutes late. I guess his teacher isn't fashionable.
We were feeling even better after getting refreshed at the coffee shop. We were excited to ride back to the bike rental place and expected the ride back to be even easier that the ride up.
Head Wind
As you can guess, we were badly mistaken. The ride back was against the wind. We had to ride west directly into a dusty wind. I had wished we had brought masks and googles and padded pants. The seat began to hurt.
The whole way back we were fighting the wind. When large groups passed I tried to draft their back tire, but then my son couldn't draft me. He had a hard time sticking to my tire to block the wind and fell behind even more.
He is still in middle school and has large legs but not the kind of legs he needed to break the wind on that bike. He just learned to get out of his seat and ride. Now he was face to face with a strong wind that just got stronger.
Beating the wind was a lot of suffering. He kept asking me to stop and pull over and rest. We did that a couple times, but still there was nothing we could do about the wind that was just getting stronger.
Not only did we have the wind to contend with, but we also had a new factor of afternoon sun. The three hours already passed and the afternoon sun was beating on us. We put on sunscreen at 9am, but we didn't have any more. Now we were unprotected under the midday sun.
We had drinks at the coffee shop but we still felt dizzy and dehydrated. I gave my son what was left in the water bottle that we had refilled at the coffee shop.
We were almost one hour late when we returned the bicycles. We had no idea what we looked like. We had no idea that we smelled and had burnt skin. We just smiled and said,
"I didn't know it was going to take this long to come back from the countryside."
The manager smiled and said,
"No problem. Take your time and come again next week."
I don't know if I will be able to come back. That sunburn really stings.
If we do go again I will wear long sleeves and we will ride far east until we can find a train back to Seoul. I am not riding against that headwind again.
This post is for the weekend engagement topic 159 by @galenkp. All photos are my own including the goofy stick drawings. As you can guess all the writing here is also my own @mineopoly. I really need to do some push ups.
What a nice experience. Cycling together is good for bonding indeed since you have the time to talk.
Be carefully with riding in the sun. And always try to ride the first half with headwind ;)
Thanks for aharing your cycling story.
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Wow, that's cool that you are getting a cycling community together here on Hive.
I'm trying to.
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I hope you had a great weekend and get some rest !LUV
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What an adventure! Sorry for the nasty sun burn, hope you guys already learn from this and be prepared again next week.
Korean names are similar in structure to the Chinese names. I once let a friend interpret my Chinese name in Korean, it came up as Kyung Woo and I actually kinda like it. Perhaps, give your son a Korean name? And start to own it?
Nowadays Korean kids change their name from what is their legal name. They tell me, call me _ _ _ but honestly my kid has a cool name. It's just that his homeroom teach just happens to be very old fashion. We are the first family registered with my last name. We are the only family registered with my last name. We are trying to break up the homogeneous nature of this country. It's a little painful but most teachers learn to read his name. The alphabet is scientifically phonetic. If they can't read it at first they can with a little practice. They are just making fun of him bc he is white.
Sigh 😞 discrimination again
It's a small price to pay to make this place a little more integrated^^
Oh I KNEW your figures would be awesome. I want to try again 🤣
Man that headwind! Killer. That sunburn looks nasty. Aspirin and Aloe vera! We usually get burnt only a couple of times in our lifetime and after that we learn 🤣 Sounds like it couldn't be avoided
Sounds like your son doesn't feel seen at school. That sucks. A different experience would likely have him enjoy it more. It's hard being a Dad and worrying they are okay.
I liked your figures. It reminded me of classic computer sketches. I usually avoided the sun and forgot about the pain of sunburns I had when I was ten years old. We both got burned. His skin was a lot more resilient than mine.
I'm glad for the challenge this weekend because it's the first time I drew anything since I tried out the AI drawings. I was glad to see others with their stick figures and got a few laughs. We are going to beat AI because AI can't fake imperfection.
We are awesome!!
My son is special. His brother loved the school and sometimes visits to make sure everything is OK. The younger brother just has a difficult time with things. I was at the doctor with my older son. He is bigger than me and the nurse thought he was a foreigner because he was white. It was the first time he came to that doctor. He gave her the correct information to register but she kept trying to register him as a foreigner. He told her three times that he is not a foreigner and three times she asked him to show him his green card. He said, "I was born in Seoul! I am a Korean citizen!" She said, "Show me your green card. These numbers are not working out. How do you spell your name?" She gave the numbers to her supervisor who gave the numbers to her supervisor who gave the numbers to the head of inputting numbers for patients. He said, "Nothing wrong here." And then my son's name was up on the waiting list. The girl who took his numbers in the beginning was very embarrassed that she assumed the boy was a foreigner even though he told her three times that he wasn't.
People get nervous and have assumptions in their head that because someone looks like this that they should act like this, but nothing really works like that. When people ask me a question and I answer they have a hard time to listen because they are expecting me to speak English. My Korean is fine, but because I have blue eyes they are trying to listen to an English word and can't hear what I say. My son has the same problem. He looks just like me, but a little more tan and not sun burnt. Maybe inside Korea is still the Hermit country.
Personally I respond to discrimination by waiting for the truth to reveal itself. I could make a fuss and insist on my own way and call people out, but I am no match for the world's greatest teacher, the truth. When it dawns on them they are just "taught".