Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Today I am thankful for.....


Travelling Taxi drivers.

This morning I decided to sleep a bit later than usual as I went to bed really late last night. It was lovely ....but then I had to rush to get ready for school. Thank goodness I took a shower and washed my hair last night, so I basically just had to brush my teeth, get dressed and go! Unfortunately my usual bus ride would've taken too long so I had to take a taxi. Although I love taxi rides, I don't make a habit of using them due to the fact that I regard them as an unnecessary expense. Also, its a bit hard to communicate to the taxi drivers at times, seeing that their English aren't that good and explaining a destination, when I cant speak Korean either, can be a bit frustrating to us both. This morning, however, I had no choice - if I didn't want to be late, a taxi was the answer!!!

Huge was my surprise when my taxi driver spoke in fluent English to me. Without any hassle I could explain to him exactly where I wanted to go. And then the sweet man, who's name I cant pronounce nor spell, started a conversation with me. He asked me where I came from, and when I told him, he shared with me that he's been to my home country about 40 years ago. This is very uncommon because Koreans don't tend to go to South-Africa all that often. It turned out that he worked on a cargo ship for 6 years and basically travelled all around the world, up- and offloading fruit. And what's even more amazing is that he spend two full days in my beloved Cape-Town. Immediately we had a connection - we shared a love for SA. We chatted away until we reached our destination and sadly, I had to get out of the taxi. But when we said our goodbye's I was left with a strange sense of awe - how wonderful that in a city with millions of people and thousands of taxi drivers, I was destined to get in to the one driven by probably the only taxi driver in Korea that has been to South-Africa.
My dearest taxi driver isn't the only one that will be travelling. I just booked my trip to China today and in a months time, Ill be spending a week in lovely China land, walking on the great wall, sipping green tea in a tea ceremony and visiting oriental palaces and gardens. Which brings me to my second source of thankful joy - China travels.

(image: http://www.yellowcabsofsavannah.com/)

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