Taxi Roulette

From midnight to three in the morning, the one place in Seoul you never want to be catching a taxi from is Kangnam. The worse stretch of road runs parallel to the Giordano Store where traffic always crawls. To snag a taxi here you're supposed to shout out your destination while the taxi driver processes the total profit he'll make. Then this man and it's always a man, except on a Sunday afternoon's when a compassionate girlfriend or wife takes a shift, will either stop for you or continue trolling the street for the highest bid.

Last night I was home with a tummy ache but Saejin and his friends were living it up in Kangnam. He said he'd be home early but I doubted those slurred words each time I talked to him. To get around the taxi situation he and his friends pulled an old favorite of mine; they jumped into the taxi before the driver could say anything.

A second trick Gray and I once drunkenly pulled was to pick the farthest suburb on route to the place we wanted to go. So to get to nearby Itaewon we called out Uijeongbu which neighbours North Korea. Once in our cab and safely across the bridge Gray's alcohol "wanted out". Let me tell you, Gray knows how to play ill and he convinced the horrified driver to end this trip short. So we hopped out where every second car was an empty taxi and safely made it to Itaewon. The taxi driver won't complain if your acting is good because there's nothing worse than a night of puke soaked floor mats. It's a cheap trick to get where you want but the odds of picking up a taxi in Kangnam favour the man so I say, cheat if you must.