a bike with a basket.

i have a bike!!!!!! it was unwanted, lonely, and emotionally scarred by its difficult past of rejection, and i have given it a home. yesturday, we took a nice long walk and got to know each other, and then i took her into the bike shop and gave her a new back tire, a re-energizing squirt of oil here and there, and a little lovin in the wash-off-the-years-of-dirt-and-grime-from-not- being-used sort of way and she was good as new. the best part? my new best friend has a child seat in the back that i like to call a basket. she took a HUGE package of toilet paper home yesturday that just would not have made it without the basket. she's not
exactly a speedy and smooth ride, but she's a ride and she's trying the best she can. and i love her.

i'm getting really good and using the internet when everything is in korean. even as i write this blog, everything other than the actually words i'm typing is in korean. i have to guess which box says "post blog" when i'm done. or which box says "edit" or which box says "save" or where it says "cancel." my goal this week is to learn to read korean. i don't think it's very hard.

tonight i went to get some fruits and vegetables at the little market in my courtyard and they were having some sort of sale on peaches i think and there were about 8 korean men trying to get me to sample one bite of peach after the other. they were quite literally shoving fruit down my throat. i felt bad for all the other korean shoppers wanting to try peaches while i was on peach sample #7. they probably thought i was brittany spears since my hair is blonde. a fat brittany spears. i'm not being self-depricating, but everyone here thinks us foreign women are fat. the parents will even make comments like "you're not as fat as when you first came i don't think..." or "why are you eating? didn't you just eat?" not exactly a subtle way of saying YOU'RE FAT!!! LOOK AT US KOREANS! YOU ARE TWICE OUR SIZE!" but they all still think i'm a movie star because i'm blonde. so i can deal with the fat comments.

these pictures are from my bike ride through lake park tonight. it's a big lake just a mile or so away from me with a lot of beautiful scenery, wide open spaces of grass, trees, paths, asian tower thingies like this one to your left. it was a nice night to be out.