Buses indeed ...

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday was Human Rights Day and it was a good day for us - we went to the beach at the Strand and, for once, the water in Melkbaai was not icy :-).

There is a great movement towards human rights globally and rightly so. This drive should be balanced by human responsibility which, in my opinion, is sadly lacking more and more.

I promised you three short tales about bus travel in three very different locations: two in South Africa and one in South Korea.

#Durban, South Africa.

At the time (1985) I worked in Smith Street and lived in Greenwood Park. The cheapest ride early in the morning was on buses coming from Avoca and Newlands East down North Coast Road (today it is Chris Hani Road) which turns into Umgeni Road after crossing the Umgeni river in an inbound direction .

The thing with these buses, were that they played mostly Indian pop music at volumes that should have come with a health warning! It was thumping inside and coupled to Durban's high humidity and temperature in summer made for a pretty uncomfortable 20 minute ride. But they super cheap!!!

I'm not sure if, with the influx of minibus taxis, these buses still run today but, I would recommend it to any tourist simply for the experience!! One of those bucket list items :-)

#SouthKorea

My other bus ride in 2009 was from #Incheon Airport to Daejeon, South Korea, for a conference.

Apart from the normal technology wow, I was intrigued by the following things during and after the trip.

Firstly, it was most enlightening to notice how cleverly the land use was organised, especially around the urban areas. Having been employed in property acquisitions, consolidation and land use control in KwaZulu Natal in a previous life, I would recommend that our town planning decision-makers take the trip to South Korea to study how they do it and how to make such systems work and ensure their continuity.  

The second thing I found fascinating was the number of South Korean cars, trucks and buses I saw on the road. If I counted correctly nearly 95% of the vehicles were of South Korean manufacture. This amount of customer loyalty is amazing no matter where on the globe one goes. I presume the other place I've been that approximated that figure was #Germany. Using local consumers as one's basic economic support structure can only be good for businesses and a manufacturing economy in general. Good for Korean restaurants too, as per the next video ...which I hope will play properly when posted ?!

Thirdly, walking around the  science park in Daejeon, I was struck by how many primary school kids were accompanied by adults. The adults were clearly well-informed themselves and were constantly and actively engaging the kids in explanations and demonstrations. As far as I could ascertain from my Korean colleagues most of these groups were NOT on formal school outings but were led by volunteers parents from the surrounding areas. This type of interaction can only be good for one's society and I wish we can do the same here in our beautiful country.

Fighting the Korean juggernaut!

The final thing that stood out for me were the television shows aired on their buses and taxis. I once checked for myself when I got to my hotel room and the program I just saw in the taxi was actually live!!!!!

A view over the Daejeon science park

Imagine the power of technology to foster cohesion in such a community! Wow!

Me in traditional Korean marriage garb 

#MyCiti, Cape Town, South Africa
Finally I got on a #MyCiti bus in Cape Town a few months ago. The bus ran from #CapeTown station to Cape Town International.

My experience was largely positive in two significant ways: 1) human support and interaction and, 2) timeliness.

On this one occasion, the Metrorail train got me from #Stellenbosch to Cape Town bang on time!! Now this, for regular Metrorail travelers, is something of a miracle !!!

I then proceeded to buy a ticket at the MyCiti Civic Centre depot. It was here where I learnt that I need to buy a card first before I can buy a ticket. I was a once-off customer and this step left me wondering whether the service was essentially tourist-friendly. What was friendly was a fellow traveler who offered to lend me her daughter's card for the trip which, was an uncalled for, but very welcome intervention. As I sat down, waiting for the bus, I was immediately engaged by another fellow traveler in conversation. It was an amazingly #chill discussion of travel around the world and I was blown away by the willingness to engage between people who were total strangers a few moments before.

Cape Town and to some extent other South African cities have this quality in abundance, something one would not easily find in European cities. It makes us stand out!!

The MyCity bus was also sweetly on time and I made my flight that morning with ease :-)
  
Although nothing funny happened on route, these bus trips exemplified new experiences for me.

I trust you enjoyed them with me.

I do not plan to post tomorrow as it is the seventh day and I plan to rest as required by the #Bible :-)

#감사합니다, dankie, danke, enkosi, thank you!

Until next time!