Have you ever wondered what the first Korean-made car was?

The Hyundai Pony was the first Korean-developed car in the world, built in 1975. Being also the first car to be exported out of Korea (to Ecuador in 1976), the Pony helped South Korea become the fifth largest producer and sixth largest exported of automobiles in the world.

The Hyundai Pony in the photo above is a second generation 2 door pick-up model built around 1980. It’s been modified to be used as a nicknack store on wheels. I took the photo above in the Gangnam district of Seoul.

Gorgeous beach in Taiwan, about 5 kilometers east of Kenting.

Kenting was definately my favorite city visited in Taiwan. The easy-going vibe everywhere, clear waters, big waves, and friendly natives, matched with lots of surfers in the area draws the obvious comparison to Hawaii. There was actually a big surf competition wile we stayed there (Pro Australian surfers and photographers with huge telephoto lenses).

Kenting is located in the southern coast of Taiwan. If you fly into Taipei, it takes about 3 and a half hours to get down to Kenting. Hour and a half by bullet train (about $40 each way) to Kaohsiung, and a 2 hour taxi ride to Kenting (about $20 per person if you share the taxi with 2 or 3 other passengers).

It is regarded as the Hawaii of China and Taiwan. In fact, we even stayed at a hotel called “Hawaii.” Everything at the hotel was Hawaii-themed with a Haiwaiian shop in the lobby of the hotel. The owner of the hotel’s name is Duggar. He was very helpful and basically gave us a whole tour of Kenting. He’s from Hawaii but has lived in Kenting for 17 years now. He’s got 4 hotels operating in Taiwan along with a few shops, all “Hawaii” branded.

The cost of our stay in the hotel was only 1,200 NT, which is about $40 USD. Cheap. Well appointed hotel room on the second floor with a balcony facing the ocean. Definately give it a look if you plan on staying in Kenting.

I was cruising by on the electric scooter when this car caught my eye. Penghu must be the name of the beach of something.

My ride in Kenting. It was twice as expensive as renting a gas-powered scooter, but it was our only option. I didn’t realize you needed what’s officially called an “international driver’s permit,” not “international driver’s license” which many mistakenly say.

So, we were limited to an electric scooter that barely got us 60 kilometers with a max speed of 30 km/hour. That’s under 15 mph. If you want to go anywhere, you need to calculate the distance to make sure you have enough juice to get back to the rental place to swap out the battery pack. We negotiated the rental fee from 500 NT (New Taiwan Dollar) for 3 hours to 500 NT for 5 hours.

To tell you the truth, it was actually quite nice. The electric motor was virtually silent and since it wasn’t gas powered (or maybe because it was just too slow), we weren’t required to wear a helmet. This was nice since it was sunny and 90 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity. If you get pulled over for not wearing a helmet, you’ll get a ticket for over $100 USD.

Cute guest houses/ hotels in front of the beach. Eunmi saw an ad for a room at the yellow house pictured, but it wasn’t within walking distance of Kenting, and there weren’t any units available with views of the ocean.

Beautiful beach in Kenting.

Lush greenery on a breezy, beautiful day in Kenting, Taiwan.

Me and Eunmi getting tanned at the beach in Kenting.

Close to sunset.

Just about sunset. Eunmi’s camera does something with the lighting to create the weird effect you see in the photo above. Notice the waves aren’t just little bumps. As the winds picked up, and with the news of the THREE typhoons coming, it was an unsettling feeling hanging out in the water.

Cute Mini copy-cat you can spot all over Taiwan. Must be a domestic car. I’ve never seen these before.

Creative second-life of a compact-car. The owner of the hotel we stayed at told us this guy with the food stand above gets lots of business every night.

Nasty. Smelled really bad too. But, had to take the picture. I was wondering why all the foods are fried. Someone told me it’s because with the hot and humid weather, the food spoils quickly.

Kaohsiung was nice. Humid. About 30 degrees Celsius, or close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Too hot when the air wasn’t moving, but with a slight breeze, the evenings especially, were perfect.

Scooters EVERYWHERE. Everyone has a scooter. Often times, a family of four with teenagers will have four scooters.

Twin towers. I don’t know what they’re called, but they’re famous and are popular with the tourists.

Walking around in a night market in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Smelled really awful (turned out the “aged tofu” was the culprit), but had a lively atmosphere.  They sold everything from weird street foods (almost all deep-fried) to nail clippers.

Eunmi and Ashley posing inside a huge tiger’s mouth. We showed up right when they were closing the interior, so I can’t tell you about what’s in there.

That’s Chris (from Ireland), Charlotte (native Taiwanese), Ashley (Korean living in Taiwan), and Eunmi (holding a Taiwan Beer).

Here are those nail clippers I was talking about. I have never seen more than 4 different types of nail clippers in one place before seeing this. Never thought I’d have a picture of nail clippers on this blog.

Some sore of addictive chew that all the taxi drivers in Taiwan keep in their mouth all day. The taxi driver that drove us the 2 hour drive from Kaohsiung to Kenting had one in his mouth at every moment. When he was taking one out of his mouth with one hand, the other had was reaching for another from his bag. His teeth were black and half-deteriorated. All of his taxi driver buddies he was waving at also had black teeth when they smiled back at him.

I have a theory: the way someone parks their car is partial evidence in how they drive. As you can see in the photo above, if my theory is correct, this driver should not be on the road. They are probably a terror on the road.

Eunmi warned me that Koreans are crazy drivers. After driving in Seoul, I’ve realized she is absolutely right. In fact, it’s a little scary at times when driving here. It’s hard to capture this on film, so you’ll have to just believe my theory in parking vs driving.

Driving in Korea is a pain. Difficulty in parking and crazy Korean drivers are just part of the story – the traffic is unbearable. The freeways were a parking lot at 7:30 pm on a Saturday night in Seoul. It took us over an hour to go 40 kilometers to “Global Gathering” near World Cup Stadium. It was no different than driving in Los Angeles on the 405 on a weekday afternoon. Seoul is similarly sized and populated as Los Angeles.

Unique to Korea, you have to leave your phone number on the dashboard of your car. Due to lack of real estate, parking is often difficult in Seoul, so you are inevitably going to block someone else in or out with your car. Everyone has their phone number on their dash out of necessity – some even have customized/fancy plaques with their number on it.

Phone number in the dash. Sounds old-school and ridiculous, but it’s effective.

This is the Daewoo I rented this weekend. I’m pretty proud of my parking job. Notice how people park both ways on each side of the street, instead of just in the direction of the traffic.  I remember getting a ticket in Minnesota for parking the wrong way, even on the correct side of the street.

Eunmi found a guy who owns a car rental company, who happened to live near my neighborhood. We met at a grocery store to sign the paperwork. He said, “Go to my house tomorrow… my father will have the keys for you. It’ll be parked in the garage below.” I asked, “What about the gas tank? Do I return it full?” He replied, “Just bring it back with a little left in the tank.” I guess this is how business is conducted in Korea sometimes. Small-neighborhood feel. Much of Seoul actually feels small-town. I kind of like it.

Decent parking job, but still needs work.

We rented a Samsung SM5 from Avis car rental in Jeju Island. Since Samsung cars are available only in Korea, I was insistent on renting the SM5.  The other vehicle in the same price range was the Hyundai Sonata (by the way, the correct pronunciation is hee-yun-day (not hun-day ). The Samsung line-up includes the SM3, the SM5, and the biggest of them all, the SM7. Correction – the correct pronunciation is hyun-day, not hee-yun-day, or hun-day (thank you Helena!).

The SM5 is actually sometimes referred to as a Renault Samsung SM5. Renault purchased 70 percent of Samsung 9 years ago. The SM5 is manufactured at a Nissan/Samsung Renault factory in Busan, South Korea.  As you you can see it looks very similar to the Nissan Altima in the US, or what is branded as a Nissan Teana elsewhere.

Pretty boring looking car, but very popular in Korea. Samsung has Hyundai beat out by just a little bit in brand power. Samsung is the richest and biggest of the chaebols (huge conglomerates like LG and Hyundai) in Korea.

The most interesting aspect of this car is the fuel it uses. It is powered by a more-efficient, cleaner burning fuel called LPG, or liquefied petroleum gas. LPG can be used for engines, cooking, and refrigeration. In Korea, all the taxis use LPG. It is considered a “dangerous good” and is highly explosive. You can tell it’s a serious tank.

Pressure monitor of the pressurized gas tank.  Looks like it’s a weapon or something.

Interior of the SM5. Although it looks pretty basic, you get a lot of luxury and gadgetry for cheap in this car. It even has heated leather seats and automatic windshield wipers. The ride is decent, although performance is a little sluggish.

My only real qualm with the vehicle was the aftermarket navigation system. Cumbersome to use, makes annoying sounds, and beeps non-stop whenever you speed – even if it’s just by 1 km/hour.

Me and Eunmi on a rental scooter in Seoul.

That’s me unleashing the power of my 2 horsepower (I’m serious) monster. The scooter I rented was a Honda Ruckus, or also called Honda Zoomer in some countries. I rented it from a place called Scooter Tazo.  It was a great deal. It cost 30,000 Korean won to rent for a day. If you want insurance, it’s another 20,000 won. Rental of 2 helmets was an additional 5,000 won.  I didn’t realize it until after returning the scooter, but you don’t even need to return the scooter with a full tank (I did anyways since I just assumed it was like renting a moving truck in the US).  And when I did, the guy there offered me a can of iced coffee. Nice people.

I ended up returning the scooter 2 days later with no damage to the vehicle or our health. I had called around to rent a scooter when I was living in California, but its not legal for some reason. The Honda Ruckus we rented is a 49 cc scooter. Any scooter that is less than 50 cc does not required a drivers license, and doesn’t even require registration in both Korea and the US.

It was so much fun. It’s a bit like the feeling of going skiing on a medium difficulty hill (blue square hill, not black diamond) since you’re completely exposed to the elements. I have wanted to ride a scooter for the longest time. My parents, especially my mom, have always said motorcycles and and scooters are a big no-no. But, I had to do it. Seoul, South Korea is probably the last place in the world to try riding a scooter for the first time. Not only that, Koreans are absolutely terrible drivers – me included (as far as observing speed limits).

Crossing the Han River in Seoul. Its a big bridge over a big river. It was a little intimidating when a huge bus drove by. I realized that we were mosquitos to the buses on the freeway. If you look towards the end of the video, I was able to get the scooter to 60 km/hour, which is about 40 mph. I was trying to see if you can ride this scooter with two people, but certain sources suggest a limit of 200 lbs.  Beyond that, sources state that you’re limited to 40 km/hr with two people, but I was always able to get it up to at least 50-55 km/hour.

Eunmi posing with her beast.

One of my new words I’ve learned in Korea is “nado,” which means “me too.” While we were on the scooter, I said “nado chuseo” which means “me too, please” to the family inside the blue van in the picture above.  Two parents and 3 kids all eating really nice-looking (a little weird looking) peaches. The mom signaled her husband to stop the van immediately as if it was an emergency and instructed one of her kids in the back to grab a peach for me. I couldn’t believe it. I was just joking around. It’s amazing how nice some people are. It’s also amazing what you can get when you just ask for it.  I ate it at home the next day.

That’s the peach the family in the blue van gave me. Definately doesn’t look like the peaches I’m used to eating. A little less sweet than American peaches, but more crispy, which is just the way I like it.

Having fun on the scooter.

Two Korean men on a pink scooter.