Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Eedoryeong]

What's the situation with taxis these days in Seoul? I'm thinking of coming in for the weekend and I keep hearing reports from fellow teachers in Seoul about how they won't pick up westerners. Does this accurately describe the experience for most of you or are they just exceptions, or perhaps just times of day or just the Itaewon/Hongdae crowd?

Should I make my plans around not expecting to get a cab?

[Poemer]

I have never had a cab (that I know of) not stop and pick me up because I am foreign. The problem is that cabbies in Seoul have an extremely annoying and, I assume, illegal habit of refusing to take fares if it isn't going to make them a lot of money. Especially late at night in the bar districts, the cabs are all looking for big fares and they don't want to drive anyplace that is too close. That is the problem I have run into. Of course, it is their job to take people wherever they need to go. If you run into trouble, take down the drivers name and cab number and call the cab company to complain. Just the threat of this will sometimes get things moving. Another tactic that works is to just get in the cab and refuse to get out until he takes you where you are going, but some people have trouble being that confrontational.

[pkang0202]

There are a ton of taxis. IF one guy won't pick you up, then another guy will.

Regardless, taxis won't take anyone a short distance after 12am. If you only gotta go 5-10 minutes from where you are, you just better walk.

[bassexpander]

Sometimes it's difficult to get a cab near Hyewha. The cabbies want to pick up the young, sexy things, and not the pudgy waygook male.

My wife and I have a system where we don't stand next to each other, and she stands out front to hail a cab. She gets them more easily, and the hilarious thing is that 1 in about 10 cabbies looks somewhat upset that I jumped in after her -- as if he'd been had or something.

[afsjesse]

3 Friends and I went to Seoul a few months ago and tried to get a cab outside of Seoul Station. There was a guy parked out front and we talked to him and he just told us to go away... in other words because we were foreign. Atleast that's the impression I was left with. Other than that, no problems with cabs in Busan, which is where I used to live.

[mnhnhyouh]

[Bibbitybop]

On Friday and Saturday nights, around midnight, you can NOT get a taxi in the City Hall and Gwanhwamun areas. There are none empty.

[MissSeoul]

[maeil]

In Hongdae on Friday or Saturday nights I often have trouble getting taxis to stop for me. There was one time where seven or eight empty taxis must have driven by before one finally stopped, and I huffily got in and asked him why taxis don't like to stop for foreigners in that area. He understood the frustration and even admitted to me that he didn't like to pick up foreigners sometimes because he couldn't understand what they were saying and it was difficult for him to take them where they wanted to go. I started to calm down and asked if it was because he thought that a lot of foreigners drank too much and he said no, Korean people drink just as much. He just felt uncomfortable because he didn't speak English, or he felt like he couldn't often understand foreigners' accents when they spoke Korean.

He was a nice guy, even a little apologetic for the whole situation. When he dropped me off in Haebangchon he asked me if I went to Hongdae often and I told him that I usually went once or twice a month. He then gave me his cell phone number and told me that I could call him if I ever had trouble getting a taxi from Hongdae, and that he could usually be there within half an hour of the call.

Anyway, that's a nice little anecdote that I thought I'd share.

[SHANE02]

Never had a problem. Korean taxis are great.

[Faunaki]

I take a taxi twice a day, there are no problems but when I first came to Seoul, I couldn't get one because I didn't know how to go about it.

You gotta be aggressive about it. Stand on the road (if possible), not the sidewalk and watch like a hawk for a taxi, as soon as you see one with a red light in the front mirror, stand even farther out onto the road and wave your hand really impatiently. When it signals to you, walk towards it (to fend off other people), and the second it stops, jump in, say your directions adding a bali ga (hurry up already).

It works like a charm everytime. Oh but if it's raining, it'll be hard, so keep that in mind.

[endo]

[mnhnhyouh]

I can mostly make myself understood by drivers, except for one place, 발산. When I lived in Mok Dong the taxi drivers would never undersand me!

I would tell them, in Korean, go straight, at deungchon dong sam geoli, turn left.

Ahhhh, 발산, they would say.

At the end, I would churn out a memorized sentence,

Please stop in front of the next pedestrian crossing.

They would understand that no problems.

But no matter how many ways I said 발산 they never understood.

h

[Otus]

Miss Seoul wrote: