We had a break in our monsoon season so I went on a bike ride yesterday with my friend Travis. I needed a leisurely ride to get a little exercise and out of my house. We went along the Han river which is a huge river that divides the city. Think the Willamette's Esplanade along the Columbia . It super nice, minus all the other people who enjoy the same thing but as the sunsets, it's cool to ride with all the city's lights. Around 8:45pm, Travis wanted to stop for water where I told him I'd probably head back shortly since I had to work the next morning. Instead of just turning around, we decided to ride to a bridge that we could cross and do a big loop. Upon our route back, we found our path flooded by the river. Sweet. With me being in the lead at this time, I, of course, decided to go through it... I mean why not, other people were! Everything was fine, the water only came up to the bottom of my pedals so the feet only got a little wet but no big deal. The water made it a little tough to pedal but it was manageable. Then, all of the sudden it dropped 4 inches. Now, the shoes are definitely wet! I start to get a little worried I'm not going to make it and that I'll have to walk through it as a failure. Nope! Not this time...duuhhn-dunn-nanahhh!!! As I said in my head when I made all the way through with water draining out of my shoes! Then, as I'm laughing and apoligizing to Travis about making the decision to ride through it, I about run over a big ol' fish that had clearly been there for a while.... I decided to apoligize to him too! After our little obstacle, we continued our ride, soon after Travis's bike starts making a noise and he's like "Shit! I think I got a frog stuck in my tire!" Me, super confused and laughing, being the good friend that I am, finally stop to see what he's talking about. Apparently a frog was in the path and jumped just as he was going by, creating it to get stuck between his tire, the brakes, and all that mess of things there. I just stood there with a queazy look on my face as he's carefully trying to un-wedge it. After a bit, it makes a leap for it and jumps, wobbly off the road. I don't know if it was a good thing it was still alive or not, but it was. At that point I told Travis, I was glad that happened to him and not me! And then again....We were off!
Travis was in the lead the whole time, except the part when I took us through the water. Weird, right?! He was on a mission, pedaling way faster then I wanted to, but I could keep up so I was just following his lead. There was some sort of Y in the road and Travis follow the way that looked like it stayed straight. After a few minutes and a few unfamiliar sites, I made the conclusion, we weren't on the Han any longer. Instead of going back to the Y, I decided to take a short cut that I thought would have met up with the Han sooner or later....I mean come on, we didn't ride THAT far. We precede to ride on the path and at one point I again, was in the lead. The path had become a bit narrow and there was a lady in front of me. I noticed some barriers ahead(I'm assuming to keep the cars off) and I didn't feel like getting cut off by the lady and crashing, especially since there was a family sitting right by it so, I left some space and went through the barriers after she did her thing. As, I'm riding I hear people make the -the really BIG deep breath in and Oh!!! (I don't really know how to describe it) and then a loud crash. I look back and it's Travis on the ground. He hit the barrier and flipped over his handle bars! I tried sooooo hard to keep a straight face!!! ...but I couldn't help it and laughed silently. I finally pulled myself together and got the nerve to ask, what happened?!! I think, it was still a bit too soon....Sorry Travis. :( After a while I again told him that I again, was glad that happened to him and not me! I don't think he appreciated that too much.
After more riding we never found the Han. We kept riding in the directions that we thought my lead us there. After asking 4 different people, all which told us different ways. I decided I was over it and it was time to find a subway station. The first one we found was Sindap, so we followed road signs to get there. We never found it.... but it did bring us to another station where we luckily caught the last train. It wasn't our line so we had to transfer. I finally got back to my house at 1am, 4 hours later... exhausted.
I don't think Travis will ride bikes with me again.
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| Not a good picture, and not a picture from this night but it's a picture of the Han from the bike path. |
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