Scooter time!

From the moment we landed here, my husband wanted to buy scooters.  I have NEVER driven a scooter so I was very skeptical of having one here.  Being chauffeured around in a van, I’m able to see how everyone drives and how chaotic the roads can be.  Scooters driving in the wrong direction, drivers doing u-turns in random places, pedestrians walking wherever they want, taxis picking people up, no regards to the red lights… these are the various reasons why I wasn’t on board with the scooter idea.  We have an awesome driver!  Why mess with it?  Only one word – FREEDOM.  Well, also because our calendars are starting to get full and we need to divide S’s time.  Scooters would help out.

Now we were in the process of finding one.  Shop after shop, scooter after scooter search, we found them!  Actually, we found them on taobao (a Chinese version of eBay), but found a wholesale dealer 30 min away to try them out.  This place was shady, like we were scared we weren’t going to see our kids again shady.  The address was not the correct address first of all.  Then he tells us to come by another address and we picked this dude up.  Then he gave us directions for his shop AND we drove him there.  Yeah, it wasn’t really a shop, but a room in a run down building.  I don’t have allergies, but I was sneezing left and right, the place was filthy, dirt everywhere – gosh, wish I could tell you how bad it smelled too.  So at this point, I’m praying just to come out alive.  We walked through a hall way and he opens up a door and he’s got about 100 scooters in this small room.  All the scooters were side by side – barely any room to walk.  Really wish I had taken a picture – I think I was still in shock.  But low and behold, there were the scooters in the colors we wanted.  Score!  Our awesome driver, Sam, worked out a deal and got a LOWER price than taobao and they even gave us license plates.  They ended up delivering the scooters that afternoon in a van.

Once we got the scooters, we had to park them.  We could easily park them outside, but they are brand spanking new and there was no way I was going to park them outside – they could get stolen!  We parked them in the dungeon aka the basement of the condo.  You’ve got to bring them down a ramp and through a cement maze and try not to dent the scooter on the many pillars.  The walls were a puke green and the lights were motion censored. No doors are numbered or marked, you’ve got to have your own trail markers to get back to the same place or have a really good memory.  Thank goodness my husband has a good memory.

While the kids were in school, we drove the scooters.  Took me a week to even build up the courage to ride them.  I’ll admit, I was frightened.  No. More like scared to death. First of all, they are huge compared to the Chinese scooters they sell in Carrefour (which is like a Chinese Super Target) right next to the bikes and baby supplies.  Second, I’ve never driven one.  Third, the other people on the road are CA-RAY-ZEE and they scare me.  Guess what… I LOVED EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF DRIVING THE SCOOTERS.  After scooting around for a whole hour, we had to wrap it up since my husband had to work.  Such is life.

Now that I got over the fear of being on the scooter by myself, the next step was to bring the boys.  Took me a whole other week to build up the courage for that too.  And guess what – WE ALL LOVED IT! We are currently in the process for finding helmets for our kids. Our boys will probably be the only one with helmets and I’m ok with that. I have seriously seen several moms carrying their newborns on the back of scooters!

We are now blending in with the locals on our scooters, except that everyone points to us and says “lao wai” aka expats. Ahhhh, it’s good being in a different country.