'Twas a cold and icy Saturday afternoon in the little hamlet of Suwon City in South Korea. Two young *cough* ladies, we'll call them Arizona and Missouri, had a craving for some Indian food, so they decided to meet at Ayesha by the train station for lunch. After some good food and general hanging out, they decided to leave and go back to their own neighborhood across town.
They left the restaurant and went in search of a taxi to dash them away back home. Now, they could've crossed the street, but Missouri was wearing YakTrax on her shoes so she wouldn't bust her ass on the snow/ice and wasn't up to climbing the stairs and crossing the road to catch a taxi that would've been more convenient. So, she made things more difficult and took her friend around the corner to catch a taxi without having to climb stairs.
They catch a taxi with minimal effort and no ass-busting on the ice, amazingly, since both of them are like a newborn Bambi on ice: one is from the desert and the other can barely walk on dry ground let alone ice. So, they get in the taxi and Arizona tells the driver, "Kyunghee-De kajuseyo." The driver says, "Gyonggi-de?" Arizona replies, "Aneeyo, Kyunghee-de." The driver shakes his head and says, "Gyonggi-de," and starts driving. Arizona and Missouri then both yell to the driver, "No! No 'Gyonggi-de', 'Kyunghee-de'!" The drive seems to understand and nods. Ok, good. Then the driver turns where he probably shouldn't turn. Arizona starts to get a bit worried, but Missouri used to live near the direction they are heading and tells Arizona that sometimes the taxi drivers will turn there and go around the major intersection to avoid traffic jams. But then, where the driver should turn right to head back to the main road, he keeps going straight. Arizona then pulls out her phone and has the driver pull over so she can show him the name of the place in Korean. This takes 4 attempts since he keeps touching the damn screen and flipping the page instead of just reading it. They even tell him "Yeongtong Gu" several times so he'll know for sure which area of Suwon to go to.
Finally! It seems they might finally have gotten through to the old man (and he was old). They continue on their merry way, but where the driver should have turned to go around the fortress to head to the right part of town, he turns the other way. Arizona and Missouri begin to get very angry when they arrive at the entrance to Gyonggi-de. Arizona then yells very angrily at the driver, "NO! NOT GYONGGI_DE!!! KYUNGHEE DE!! KYUNGHEE DE!! YEONGTONG!!" The driver turns around and starts to head in what seems to be the right direction. Now, if you're familiar with Korean body language and could see the driver, which Missouri could, you would see the driver doing the little head tilt/shake and muttering to himself that means he thinks the passengers don't know where they want to go and are stupid foreigners. Meanwhile, the passengers just want to strangle him.
Finally, the angry taxi ride ends at Arizona's apartment by Kyunghee-de - the driver took the ladies directly to the right place once he got his head out of his ass - and Missouri and Arizona have a much needed drink.
Moral of the story: Some people are just fucking assholes and think foreigners in Korea are stupid and don't know anything - even where the hell they want to go in a taxi when they show the address IN KOREAN. Asshole.
That is really awful. I hope it’s just a language barrier misunderstanding, and that’s the first and last horrid taxi experience you had. Hopefully this bad impression won't make you generalize about their taxi drivers as a whole. After all, there will always be an unlikely taxi driver wherever you are in this world.
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