Korea-bound

This will be my second visit to Seoul, South Korea. I was here back in 1996 working for a different company but doing essentially the same thing, teaching software engineers how to not screw up.

I will again take one of the bus services from the Incheon International airport into the city, about 40 miles but hope for better luck.

On that first visit, we landed on a dark, rainy night and somewhere on some wet and slippery street, the bus’ rear brakes locked and we skidded into the curb. After traveling for 20+ hours, I was in no condition to do anything more than wait and hope somebody figured out something sometime soon.

The bus driver left his seat and went out in the rain to investigate. After a couple of minutes, we could hear someone banging loudly underneath the bus.

Shortly thereafter, the driver came back and asked the passengers, in Korean of course, something as he walked up the aisle. A woman got up, took down a suitcase from the overhead storage, opened it and took out a blouse hanging on a wire coat hanger. Removing the blouse, she handed the hanger to the driver who promptly left the bus, back into the rain.

Again, there was banging, some creaking of metal and the occasional explosion of angry Korean from under the bus.

When the driver returned, his white shirt was soaking wet and had several large black swatches.

He climbed into the driver’s seat and, after a hesitant start forward and once-only gentle test of the brakes, off we went in the jury-rig repaired bus on that dark, rainy night.

My hotel was the first official stop.

I didn’t wait to see if they got out of the parking lot.