Home at last

Home at last Home at last...a reflection piece on that soon, but first some stuff pre-"home at last"

I am currently 90% packed. I have a few things I could be doing, but am wondering which of those things are worth doing. I am at capacity of caring beyond this moment. I am dreading the bus ride followed by a flight a flight and a flight. According to my itinerary I will arrive in St Louis a mere 7 hours after my initial flight or 13 hours from the time I leave my apartment here in Gwang-Ju. However, 17:30 in St. Louis on a Thursday night is 8:30 Friday morning to me currently thus giving me closer to 26 hours of travel time…UHG!

I am rather happy with being finished packing before I have to actually leave the apartment and should I become ambitious in the next few hours I can go to a coffee shop or some other place and post or wait until I go to the airport. We will see what happens…

In the mean time I have composed a couple of “top numbers” for you to enjoy. They are like top ten’s, but most categories do not have ten items…

Top Cabbies:
1. By far my favorite cabbie this year and it will be VERY hard to ever beat him out is the Cabbie from Insadong to Iteawon in Seoul who played and sang us (Brooke and Sarah in the back seat and I in the passenger) 50 music and tried to say I was like Rita Hayworth. This is the same guy who asked me to marry him and for a kiss and almost got into an accident looking in the rearview mirror at Brooke and Sarah naming them various stars and having to show us his “best driver award.” What tops the cake is that as he dropped us off at our destination he kept staring at us and then we heard that sound of car on car. He drove away still looking at us into a car that was pulling around him. It was both drivers faults for the accident, but I still feel a little sorry for “Elvis.”

2. Number 2 is harder to place. It is actually a tossup between this one and the number three guy… Running late to work on a slightly chilly morning meant catching a cab with Lindsay also running late that morning. As we climb in our driver puts away a piece of paper only to pull it out again seconds later at the stop light and play us a song with it. He continues to serenade us all the way to school. He even tried to show us how he was able to play said paper flute and when he actually had to drive he decided that a traditional Korean folk-song would wake us up. The best part is I was able to get video of this one!

3. As I said this one and number two are a bit of a tossup due to personalities of the drivers. The Kia Tigers had just won the Korean Championships a few weeks before and so baseball was on everyone’s minds. When my cabbie asked where I was from (America) he started to talk in Konglish (half English half Korean) about his favorite major league team the LA Dodgers. He was able to half discuss all kinds of stats and players in detail and even was asking me about my favorites and then MLB vs. Korean baseball. Unfortunately for him the short rainy distance was too short so he circled around and around my neighborhood for an extra 20 minutes and only charged me basic fare (so it was going to cost me 3,000 won until he started driving around and it was up to 10,000 won but he only charged me 2,200 won total (think of 1,500 won as 1 USD)).

4. Sometimes I wonder how often people might repeat cabbies. I think I have a couple of times, but am unsure due to language barrier. On the way to work one rainy morning I happened to have a cabbie who spoke English well and who was very fun to talk with and then a few weeks later I rode with him again…It is kinds weird to have him remember me and our conversation, but still has me thinking about what stories cabbies could be giving people…

5. One night we were trying to coral ‘Naje to get him home from downtown. ‘Naje wanted to smoke int eh cab and asked the driver if he could. It is rare that a cabbie will say yes, but this one did. For the rest of the ride Naje and him smoked and sang Korean pop songs with the windows rolled down and the volume up.
6. Some of the cabbies are just interesting. Some will try to tell you their story. Many have said English is hard, but they try to learn it. One guy really stuck out to me. He is a cab driver and his wife is a nurse and he sends his son and will send his daughter to English academy to be able to get further in the world through English speaking.

7. This one was very recent: we are cruising along and the driver starts to laugh says “Pongu” heeheehee and then I smell something…and then it happens again. The driver says “Pongu” (fart) and starts to laugh for the three more minutes I have to ride with him…

8. The cabbie that Brandon was able to direct to Hooker street so that those of us in the backseat could “proposition” the girls with whistles and cat calls…
Honorable mentions: All the cabbies who didn’t mess around and got me to my destination quickly and safely with very little trouble understanding me or listening to directions and didn’t try to swindle me…