I was living in Mokpo, S. Korea, teaching English. I was going downtown to meet a friend to discuss travel plans to China. I got into a taxi to go downtown and the driver inexplicably stopped at a pharmacy and told me to wait. I did wait--about 5 minutes before I decided I was running too late for this kind of nonsense and got out and started walking. While I was walking down the street, another taxi beeped to see if I needed a ride and I got in. The driver was a young guy who said, "oh! a foreigner!" in Korean and proceeded to tell me that he was a law student on school vacation and wanted to learn English. I had heard this sort of thing from taxi drivers several times before, so I brushed off his comment.
He asked me for a phone number so we could meet sometime to practice English and I told him that I didn't have a phone. "No cell phone?" No. "No home phone?" No. He gave me his cell phone number and I accepted. We chatted and had good conversation for a while (it was a bit of a trip from my school to the downtown area). When we had almost arrived downtown, a cell phone began ringing. It was mine (Honestly, who tells a taxi driver their cell phone number?!) After figuring out that I had lied he was really hurt and kept saying, "I'm not a bad guy!" When we arrived downtown I hurriedly got out of the taxi after saying a friendly goodbye. He looked really bewildered and like his feelings were hurt.
An hour later while talking to my friend at a cafe, I was telling her about the (cute) taxi driver and secretly considering calling him. I realized at that point that I had never paid him his cab fare! That clinched it and I knew that I had to call him. That was Valentine's Day, 2001. Our first date was February 16, 2001. We were married on Valentine's Day, 2004.
