Sasha A. Rae - South Korea Travel Story
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Title: Sasha A. Rae
Website: http://sasharae.blogspot.com
Kamikaze Cab Drivers and Others of Their Ilk The average cab ride in Korea can be a life threatening experience. It starts with the arrival of the cab, screeching to a halt mere centimeters from your toes. One little swerve to the right and your feet would’ve been toast. After you negotiate where you want to go – a mighty feat in itself, your appointed guide lays on the gas and peels rubber down the street. Traffic be damned! He has his marching orders and he’s honor bound to fulfill them. Weaving in and out of traffic, bobbing back and forth, he darts from lane to lane, inspiring fear and outrage in all who behold him. With a maniacal laugh and some serious horn-blowing, he proceeds to maneuver within a hair’s breadth of other cars and occasionally hits a median here, a curb there. Every once in a while, he slams on the brakes, sending you right into the seatback in front of you … because it’s not like you have access to anything resembling a seatbelt. What you do have is either a Korean soap opera playing on the monitor placed at head level on the seat in front of you or some extreme Korean pop music pumped up to the highest volume, probably to divert your attention from the increasingly aggressive honking from the cars around you. What you don’t have … but really need at this point … is some valium, something that you may easily find at a local pharmacist. Why not? They seem to have everything else over the counter here. By the time you reach your destination, you’re also suffering from nausea and heart palpitations that started about three blocks into your ride. And yet your crazy-ass cab driver isn’t the only one who flouts standard rules of the road. You can’t forget the motorbikes. Motorbikes on a Mission These guys come in all shapes and sizes. Pony-tailed or crew cut, goggled or naked-faced, rarely helmeted, these riders are generally oblivious to cars and pedestrians alike. This bi-wheeled man can go anywhere he wants. On the street, on the highway, sure. But sidewalks and pedestrian walkways are equally viable. Up the center line in the middle of rush hour traffic, no problem. If you dare to step or drive in his way, you are greeted with the dirtiest look you have ever seen, some violent hand waving and the ubiquitous horn blowing before he zooms off, leaving you in a leaded-gas-laden cloud of smoke that renders you breathless for at least 30 seconds before you can get any oxygen into your lungs. And bicyclists aren’t much better, minus the asthma-inducing air pollution. Ninja on a Bike These masked-marauders come replete with ski mask, spandex and only sometimes a helmet. They view pedestrians as obstacles to be conquered, cars as death threats (rightly so!) and every space on and off the road as a bike path made solely for them. Of course, they are taking their lives into their own hands by even venturing to ride on the clogged motorways that define Korean cities. If the cars don’t kill them, surely the excessively high particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and a bunch of other nasties in the air here will. Hence, the ski masks. But I seriously doubt a little piece of cotton fabric will block out the most odious of pollutants here. And Daejeon is purportedly one of the cleaner cities in Korea. I guess everything is relative. All of this leads to the question of how best to travel around Korean cities. Perhaps the city bus is a good choice. Bus on a Roll Buses are among the largest of the vehicles on the road here and, therefore, are the kings. If they want to move into a lane and you’re in a smaller vehicle, you better move on out of the way before they crush you. They are a prime example of how size really does matter … at least on the road. Yet the bus’s main function doesn’t seem to be transporting people from point A to point B. The goal seems to be entertaining the bus driver. He delights in making you chase after him from the bus depot, where you thought he was supposed to stop. Instead, he stops about 100 meters ahead of you. So you race to the bus door, arms akimbo, 1000 won clutched in your hand. When you arrive, he glowers at you and yells at you to get on. Before you have time to catch your breathe – what, with all that particulate matter clogging the airways in your lungs – he slams the door on your heels and blazes down the road.
Meanwhile, you and the old lady who dove in after you are floating airborne towards the back of the bus. As you lurch to an empty seat, if there is one, the bus driver switches gears and slams on the brakes, tossing a nearby teenager onto the floor next to where you’re now standing. As he lies there sprawled on his hands and knees, earbuds flapping around his ears, the old lady elbows him out of the way and takes over his seat, where she sits glaring at him as if he were to blame for the driver’s sorry skills. So maybe the bus isn’t a good choice after all. I suppose you could always take the subway – the last bastion of public transportation in Daejeon, but then you might have to face the subway arrest. Subway on Guard It starts with the subway entrance or exit gates, gates designed to slam shut at the most inconvenient moments and to send previously stationary subway guards running en masse towards you. You imagine this is what criminals feel like when the police come after them. Only you didn’t do anything illegal. The machine just didn’t like your token for some reason. Nevertheless, it’s a total adrenalin boost and prepares you for the actual ride, which features jostling crowds, unblinking stares at you (you are exotic here), and an old Korean dude learning against your shoulder and barking things at you in Korean. Maybe the subway is out. That leaves hoofing it on foot. Not unheard of and sometimes pleasurable on a moderate evening in the brief two weeks of fall Korea offers each year. The only thing you have to avoid while strolling around is pretty much everything mentioned above plus the millions of pedestrians who pepper the urban landscape in any Korean city. All in all, the transportation options aren’t great. The good news is that you don’t care any more. After a few months of navigating the roads here, your adrenal glands have hardened into rocks and are no longer emitting stress signals to your body, your reflexes have improved so much that dodging away from moving objects of any kind is second nature, and your lingering fear of death has disappeared. Not bad qualities to have when you face your own extinction on a daily basis. © 2008. Sasha A. Rae. All Rights Reserved.
Website: http://sasharae.blogspot.com
Kamikaze Cab Drivers and Others of Their Ilk The average cab ride in Korea can be a life threatening experience. It starts with the arrival of the cab, screeching to a halt mere centimeters from your toes. One little swerve to the right and your feet would’ve been toast. After you negotiate where you want to go – a mighty feat in itself, your appointed guide lays on the gas and peels rubber down the street. Traffic be damned! He has his marching orders and he’s honor bound to fulfill them. Weaving in and out of traffic, bobbing back and forth, he darts from lane to lane, inspiring fear and outrage in all who behold him. With a maniacal laugh and some serious horn-blowing, he proceeds to maneuver within a hair’s breadth of other cars and occasionally hits a median here, a curb there. Every once in a while, he slams on the brakes, sending you right into the seatback in front of you … because it’s not like you have access to anything resembling a seatbelt. What you do have is either a Korean soap opera playing on the monitor placed at head level on the seat in front of you or some extreme Korean pop music pumped up to the highest volume, probably to divert your attention from the increasingly aggressive honking from the cars around you. What you don’t have … but really need at this point … is some valium, something that you may easily find at a local pharmacist. Why not? They seem to have everything else over the counter here. By the time you reach your destination, you’re also suffering from nausea and heart palpitations that started about three blocks into your ride. And yet your crazy-ass cab driver isn’t the only one who flouts standard rules of the road. You can’t forget the motorbikes. Motorbikes on a Mission These guys come in all shapes and sizes. Pony-tailed or crew cut, goggled or naked-faced, rarely helmeted, these riders are generally oblivious to cars and pedestrians alike. This bi-wheeled man can go anywhere he wants. On the street, on the highway, sure. But sidewalks and pedestrian walkways are equally viable. Up the center line in the middle of rush hour traffic, no problem. If you dare to step or drive in his way, you are greeted with the dirtiest look you have ever seen, some violent hand waving and the ubiquitous horn blowing before he zooms off, leaving you in a leaded-gas-laden cloud of smoke that renders you breathless for at least 30 seconds before you can get any oxygen into your lungs. And bicyclists aren’t much better, minus the asthma-inducing air pollution. Ninja on a Bike These masked-marauders come replete with ski mask, spandex and only sometimes a helmet. They view pedestrians as obstacles to be conquered, cars as death threats (rightly so!) and every space on and off the road as a bike path made solely for them. Of course, they are taking their lives into their own hands by even venturing to ride on the clogged motorways that define Korean cities. If the cars don’t kill them, surely the excessively high particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and a bunch of other nasties in the air here will. Hence, the ski masks. But I seriously doubt a little piece of cotton fabric will block out the most odious of pollutants here. And Daejeon is purportedly one of the cleaner cities in Korea. I guess everything is relative. All of this leads to the question of how best to travel around Korean cities. Perhaps the city bus is a good choice. Bus on a Roll Buses are among the largest of the vehicles on the road here and, therefore, are the kings. If they want to move into a lane and you’re in a smaller vehicle, you better move on out of the way before they crush you. They are a prime example of how size really does matter … at least on the road. Yet the bus’s main function doesn’t seem to be transporting people from point A to point B. The goal seems to be entertaining the bus driver. He delights in making you chase after him from the bus depot, where you thought he was supposed to stop. Instead, he stops about 100 meters ahead of you. So you race to the bus door, arms akimbo, 1000 won clutched in your hand. When you arrive, he glowers at you and yells at you to get on. Before you have time to catch your breathe – what, with all that particulate matter clogging the airways in your lungs – he slams the door on your heels and blazes down the road.
Meanwhile, you and the old lady who dove in after you are floating airborne towards the back of the bus. As you lurch to an empty seat, if there is one, the bus driver switches gears and slams on the brakes, tossing a nearby teenager onto the floor next to where you’re now standing. As he lies there sprawled on his hands and knees, earbuds flapping around his ears, the old lady elbows him out of the way and takes over his seat, where she sits glaring at him as if he were to blame for the driver’s sorry skills. So maybe the bus isn’t a good choice after all. I suppose you could always take the subway – the last bastion of public transportation in Daejeon, but then you might have to face the subway arrest. Subway on Guard It starts with the subway entrance or exit gates, gates designed to slam shut at the most inconvenient moments and to send previously stationary subway guards running en masse towards you. You imagine this is what criminals feel like when the police come after them. Only you didn’t do anything illegal. The machine just didn’t like your token for some reason. Nevertheless, it’s a total adrenalin boost and prepares you for the actual ride, which features jostling crowds, unblinking stares at you (you are exotic here), and an old Korean dude learning against your shoulder and barking things at you in Korean. Maybe the subway is out. That leaves hoofing it on foot. Not unheard of and sometimes pleasurable on a moderate evening in the brief two weeks of fall Korea offers each year. The only thing you have to avoid while strolling around is pretty much everything mentioned above plus the millions of pedestrians who pepper the urban landscape in any Korean city. All in all, the transportation options aren’t great. The good news is that you don’t care any more. After a few months of navigating the roads here, your adrenal glands have hardened into rocks and are no longer emitting stress signals to your body, your reflexes have improved so much that dodging away from moving objects of any kind is second nature, and your lingering fear of death has disappeared. Not bad qualities to have when you face your own extinction on a daily basis. © 2008. Sasha A. Rae. All Rights Reserved.
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