Banana's in Korea: Cruisin' Around Olympic Park

After a morning coffee and Baileys and delicious breakfast burrito we headed out to Olympic Park for the day. The weather was wonderful and perhaps one of the nicest days Seoul has seen in quite some time. The sun was shining, there was little to no wind and the temperature was decent. However, just to be safe I felt the need to stop and buy a toque. In the store we could only resist so long before we had to try on some animal hats. You better believe that before I come home I'll be buying one of these and wearing it at inappropriate times.

Once I had purchased a respectable toque and Krista got a blinged out star hat, we set off. As we approached I could barely contain my excitement, I wasn't going to have to take pictures merely driving by on the bus... I was actually going to Olympic Park! This place has been one of my number one destinations to go since before I even arrived in South Korea. After going there is no doubt in my mind that I'll go a few more times before my year in Korea is up. So after taking a short bus ride, and an even shorter walk we arrived at Olympic Park.

The plan was to rent a multi-seater bike and cruise around the park for a bit. At first we were given a three seater bike that had a plastic cover on it. We tried it out and it didn't like it for a bunch of reasons: we were too squished to enjoy ourselves, only two of us were pedaling and the plastic was not only annoying but hot. Before going back to exchange for a 4 seater we decided to go up to the GS25 drive through to get some coffees. Unfortunately there was a ice cream container out front so I had to get off the bike to actually order.

In order to get a four-seater bike with no plastic they actually had to go take one out of the shed for us. Just white people causing a scene again, no big deal. This bike was WAY better though. We all had the option to pedal, although there was still only one driver (even though there was two wheels). We were driving around on the snow in many parts so it was a little difficult but fun none the less. I'm actually surprised that my legs are not sore today at all... although maybe it's a sneak attack and they'll be sore tomorrow.

There were times that I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. At one point, when I was driving, we went down this hill and had to go between two cones and there was as small child on a bike stopped to the right... I knew that we weren't going to hit him (although I wasn't so sure we wouldn't tip over because there was a hill of snow on the other side) but Jon and Krista weren't so sure. I also refused to touch the brake because I felt that we had worked hard enough to get up the hill, we should enjoy the ride down... right?

We also stalked Green Day who is playing today at Olympic Park. We found where they were playing and Krista tried her hardest to get us to try and break in to the building, convinced they were in there doing a sound check. The closest we got was taking our bike up the ramp right next to the door to "check out the seating map". Immediately a security guard showed up, peering at us making sure there was no funny business going on. I think it would have been awesome to see Green Day cruising around on bikes like ours.. we could have raced them.

At one point we were going up the hill of death and kept spinning out because of the ice. Jon, being a stubborn boy, was sure we could make it up. We moved maybe a foot a minute. Finally we started moving as Jon began shouting how we were persevering and that we would probably end up on a poster one day... then we turned around and saw that Krista had been pushing. Damnit! All of the Koreans who had been walking by were laughing, and I'm sure most of them were judging Jon for not being the one out pushing.

Overall the ride around was fantastic and enjoyable. I can't wait to go back in the spring and fall and do it all again. Perhaps we can round up enough people to have two cars and we can have races! Or do some off-roading... How many people can say that they got kicked out of Olympic Park? Maybe I should put that on my list of things to do before I leave.

So that was my weekend, I'll leave you with some random shots of the park...