A Noisy Ride

After our meeting with Elaina’s foster mom, we grabbed a bite to eat and caught a cab back to the hotel.  (I’ll just use as much idiomatic English as I can, because I can.  I’ve been speaking English to Korean speakers all week.)  On the cab ride back to our hotel, Elaina was chatting up a storm.  She talked about how delicious dinner was.  She pointed out stores that sold hanboks and wedding dresses (there’s a street that has tons of these stores).  She pointed out funny signs and speculated about what those stores might sell, and she did a fair bit of backseat driving—pointing out red lights and green lights to the cab driver, instructing him on when to stop and go, and commenting on bumps and sharp turns.

Then, there was the issue of the missing seat belt buckle. South Korea isn’t super into seatbelts. We’ve had no car seats during our stay, and while we wore seatbelts, the drivers never did. In this particular cab, though, the seatbelt buckles weren’t there or weren’t reachable in the back seat. This turned Elaina into Rain Man, commenting every few minutes:

“I don’t have a seat belt buckle. I don’t like it when my seat belt doesn’t have a buckle. We always wear our seat belts. He’s not wearing his seat belt. That’s up to him, but we’re wearing ours. But mine doesn’t have a buckle. I don’t like it when my seat belt doesn’t have a buckle…."

And so on. Fortunately, I don’t think the driver spoke much English. She seemed to have made an impression, though, because he made a point of saying goodbye to her, though he hadn’t said a thing during the ride.