Taxis

I figure it's time I explain the business with taxis.

FIRST they are insanely cheap.  Like the base fare is 2,200 (roughly $2USD) and that goes for at least the first few minutes of your trip.  A ten minute ride usually costs under 5,000.  When I moved it was about a half hour to forty-five minute rid...and it cost less than 20,000...pretty sure it was around 15,000.  It's been too long, I don't remember.

SECOND they are bat shit crazy.
Like completely insane, especially late at night.
So the subways shut down at midnight, considering the bars and clubs are open until 5AM, that's pretty early for them to stop running.  So if you stay out late and don't want to catch the first train in the morning you're going to need a taxi.  Now they have an overnight surcharge...of about $.40.  Yeah, that's like forty cents...(not EXACTLY sure but it's definitely measured in pennies not dollars.) w/e.  Anyway it's late and you've gotta take a cab or pass out on the streets till 5, so you wave one down (either a regular wave or usually Koreans will do the 'limp wrist' wave, palm down and wave them over).  You climb in and give your destination.  If you speak no Korean and never memorized your address then you can ask them to call the translation services so you don't end up in the wrong place.

Now the reason I'm specifically saying overnight is because this is when the real insanity happens.

Last weekend it was raining and our driver was doing like 80MPH...then 90MPH in the tunnels...I couldn't believe how fast he was going and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it.  And for some reason my friends still laugh at me for buckling up in these death traps...

THIRD...well this kinda goes under the insane column if you ask me...
They watch tv while they're driving.
EVERY SINGLE ONE has a tv mounted in it somewhere, about the size of an ereader, and they watch the news, dramas, anything.  While they're driving.  And let's go back to the second point of them being bat shit crazy.  Yeah it's pretty damned scary.  To be fair some will use the tv as a GPS but for the most part they know they city and really don't need it...so why not use it for something like, oh I don't know, catching up on your favorite show while driving around passengers?

Dumbasses.

I'm sure I could find plenty more to say about them but these are the important things.  Cheap, insane, stupid.

If you haven't figured it out yet, they totally think they rule the roads here...and considering they pass cops no problem, they kinda do.