Taxi Ride

Please keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times. Thank you.

Fact: Korea has the highest accident ratio of any county in the world.
Korean entertainment ranges from bowling, to ice skating, to amusement parks but the most inexpensive entertainment in the city will come right to your doorstep. Taxis. For less than 5 U.S. dollars you and up to three of your friends can experience a simulated high-speed car chase down the crowded urban streets. Bounding down the two-lane streets at close to 80 KPH your driver will effortlessly make a 90-degree turn narrowly missing oncoming traffic and the chicken-delivery man as you and you friends fumble for the seat belts. For no extra charge the driver may launch you and your friends off of a rare city speed bump only to discover that the cabs suspension needs to be reworked. After blowing three consecutive red lights and experiencing gravitational pulls equal to those on Saturn you will quickly understand that there are only traffic suggestions in Korea. After five minutes you may or may not arrive at your intended destination but by all means you will have gotten your money’s worth and will be more than glad to get out of the cab. For a more heightened experience try taking a cab after 12 AM when the cab drivers assume that you have downed at least one bottle of Soju and will attempt to turn the neon city lights into an Anime nightmare. However, I must warn you that despite the added thrill, the cab driver may be a little tipsy and your safety is not guaranteed.

*Note: It is useful to know Korean when the tipsy taxi driver attempts to charge you extra for the intoxicated drive.

Stereotype: an operational point-of-view derived from a subtle truth.

Good days Bad Days

So we just completed our first indepenent travel experience in Korea. Originally our idea was to make it to Japan but after realizing that we knew absolutly nothing about Japan or the languange we decided to hold off for a better date. We decided to make use of our summer vacation and head to the city of Busan instead, thinking that the coastal atmosphere would be relaxing. It turned out to be worse than Cancun on spring break. Apparently there is only one good beach in Korea and apparently its only good in the summer and the only time the Korean have time to make a trip to the beach is during the first week of August, which happens to be the day we showed up. *FYI there are 50 million Korean in South Korea... we saw about half of them there. While the beach plan was far from relaxing it was um... ah... interesting. So was getting lost in the subway system for three hours when we first got there and so was walking past dozens of motels in the middle of the night thinking how nice it would be if we knew the Korean word for sleep. But don't get me wrong we did enjoy our time there. From the beautiful hiking in Kumjang Park to Busan Aquarium to the Beomeosa temple build 600 years after Christ, the city sites were indeed spectacular. We even found a remote temple in the mountains that was half carved out of rock. Our explorer juices are definately starting to flow... even if we have a hard time finding our way.