But I’m exaggerating of course. Plus, I was accompanied by my trusted Indian friend, Alwin the brave, who has had the questionable pleasure of riding these rigid beasts prior to that day. So, with an astute confidence, and after a phone call to one of his Korean friends just to make sure we are not making a horrible mistake, we got on one of the buses, numbered 1,4,4 and who knows how many more digits.
It looks pretty much as I expected it would be, considering its outer shell... the correct word I’m searching for is `crap`, but as I was about to elaborate my dissatisfaction to my Indian colleague, I was astonished to discover that the T-Money magnetic card reader is placed on the bus... yes yes, I’ll explain what it is:
The T-Money magnetic card is a simple yet sophisticated way of combining subway, bus and taxi fares all into one card, with a discount of course. Moreover, you can shop with it at various places. All you have to do is to charge some money into it every time, and it does the rest... you don't even have to get it out of the wallet, since the magnetic field is strong enough to sense it inside it. Think of it as a credit card without the insurance, because if you lose your T-Money card, you’re pretty much screwed. Later on I discovered that the T-Money card is used only in the big cities, such as Pusan, but not in the country side.
The charge doesn’t cost anything (except for the money you desire to charge), and you only have to pay a small fee for buying the card itself. Other than that, it’s free… I still don’t get how people are making money here… why so many things are for free in this country?!?!
Anyway, as we rode on towards our destination, my ears were bewildered to hear an installed GPS guided voice system which alerts every time the bus is approaching a stop.
Now, consider all this technology. And still, the buses look like a fleet of shipwrecks. I guess once again I’d been taught that things are not as they seem.
...still, they look like crap.
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