January 2006: Taxis

On every subway platform is this great map of Seoul. It's a normal, geographic map of the city, not an information-designed dream of how it works, like most subway maps. It's also really useful for understanding quick taxi routes, or at least the most likely taxi routes you're likely to experience from one place to the next. Which is really what I wanted to know after moving across town.

Before, I had the quickest path down to a science from wherever I was likely to be taking a taxi home from. Hit the Gangbyeon expressway, cross the Han river at Hangang bridge, through the Sang-do tunnel, over the Bongcheon mountain and down into Seouldaeri.

That ride, which I know well, often begins on the main road past Hongdae University's main gate. Down at the end, past all the restaurants that have long since closed, is a broad avenue that hits the number six subway line at Seongsu. From there, past closed shops and under sodium streetlamps, the streets are empty and the traffic uniformly pours south onto the freeway. The Gangbyeon runs along the north side of the Han river and the lights from Yeouido reflect on the still surface. It whips around, reorienting south-southeast, each turnoff looping onto a bridge. The Hangang bridge has blue neon lights rimming the steelwork that arches up and over the road, so that the 63 building and the distance does strange perspective tricks on your eyes as you cross. It looks near, then far, then you're in the tunnel.

Once, a long time ago, I was trying to describe something that I liked about Seoul and the lights on the river came up. Much later, the girl I described that to; watching the lights slip past on the water, mentioned that she'd come to like that, too since I mentioned it.

Moving to a totally unfamiliar place also meant that for a while I had no idea where or how the taxi driver was taking me home. I had to relearn the routes, watch where we hit main arteries and where we crossed through quiet neighborhoods.




The other night, sharing a cab back from Hongdae with Tom, our taxi driver took the quicker but far less obvious road that split off, u-turned, then drove around a block to reorient and caught an unaccesable road to whip back up towards Yonsei University. That was, as far as I can remember, the second time in about a billion rides that I've ever seen anyone do that. And it's fast. After dropping Tom off, the ride to my side of town is about 30 minutes. It's usually easier to plug into the iPod, or message random people, or fall asleep than to actually engage in the ride. Usually, it's just the frustration that both the driver and I experience when I try to speak Korean that allows a sleep-inducing silence to fill the cab, quickly.

We took the Nambu expressway up from Seodaemun, which as far as I can tell, cuts about 10 driving minutes off the trip from Yonsei, but doesn't allay the cost of the trip in any significant way. It's got a much better view of the city, though. We passed over the north-western side of downtown Seoul, over hillsides with terraced apartments glittering in the foggy, chill of deep winter. Through some tunnel I have yet to locate on the map in the subway, and out past Dobong mountain, into the upthrust of Seoul that extends far, far past where I live, up to Camp Stanley and-- unchecked-- would keep going into North Korea were it left to its own sprawling devices.

Then, through the Mias: Mia junction and onto Mia T-junction. The area is an infamous red-light district, recently cleaned-up... I guess. After the Korean government's crack-down on prostitution, it just became a little more often patrolled and a little more regulated. The night clubs, business clubs and massage parlors are all still there with rapidly blinking signs and music blaring out into the street. The girls-provided kareoke rooms and red-signed whiskey parlors (short-hand for 'hand-job') are doing brisk business. "What's the English word for 'straight, please?'" my taxi driver asks, as we pass by a few drunk businessmen stumbling out of a club leaning on each other for support, the neon reflections dizzying off miniscule snowflakes that are sparkling and melting all around.