Korean Driving

Back at home in the States, people often complain about how people drive... it is almost a bodily function at this point -- if you ask someone how their day went you here, "well I went to work, and did this and that, and oh by the way I got stuck behind the worst driver ever". The other common thing is to blame an entire state for how they drive. Such things as, "New Yorkers can't drive" "people from Los Angeles are always in traffic" and then you get the "Massholes". I have not seen anything quite as unique as when I got to Korea.

In Korea, people will park ANYWHERE!!! If you're walking down the street, its not uncommon to see people just pull up on the sidewalk and park their car there. I saw a guy back all the way down a major street, in the "bike lane" and then pull onto a curb just to park there. People will park in the middle of an intersection or at the very least just stop randomly in the middle and choose not to move. Last night, on our way back from Pizza School, we saw this guy who was parked more than halfway in front of a side street, and he seemed to have no intention of moving. I have also seen people just back out into the major streets of traffic without looking.

The one other thing that is different, and the only place I have seen it done is in Atlantic City, is the streets are set up to only go in one direction. There are certain, designated places to make left turns on, and there are areas where you can make u-turns in order to go in the opposite direction.

My last little piece to my driving talk was actually a funny story. Amber and I were going to immigration for fingerprints, and we got into the cab to head to the office. When we got into the car, I noticed that the cab's gas light was on, and assumed that we would run out of gas before making it to immigration. Turns out we didn't run out of gas because the car was actually outfitted with natural gas or some other type of fuel and so the gaslight meant nothing... I didn't find that part out until days later, and spent the whole cab ride thinking... "if we run out of gas, do we have to pay for this ride"?