True Life: I Survived Being Kidnapped By A Nice Man

Today I seriously got kidnapped by a taxi driver.

Long story short: I'm waiting for the bus outside of my school, normal. It's a beautiful day, and I don't mind waiting outside. A taxi drives by, I bow lightly, like I do to everyone else that drives by.
Two minutes later, the same taxi (which had turned around) pulls up to me and says some things in Korean, including some "Konglish," "Jinju? OK! I go there!" I reply (in Korean) that I don't understand Korean, only English. He laughs, gets out of the taxi, and walks around and opens the door for me. I say, "no sir, I'm waiting for the bus, it's ok, I don't need a ride" as best as I can, but he keeps insisting on me getting in his car! At this point, he even grabs my hand and pulls me over to the car, and says, "No money! Ok!"

I know most of you will be saying, "WTF were you thinking," but despite not being able to speak to my taxi driver, I thought, "hey, what could go wrong? I'll give it a whirl." (*Once before, while in Andong, a complete stranger gave all five of my friends and I a free 20 minute lift to the festival. He just had some time to kill and wanted to practice his English I think. He was really nice! So I had that in mind this afternoon.)

I get in and immediately felt uneasy. First things first, he had a TV on the dashboard (no joke) that was playing some kind concert of this weird old Hawaiian man. Secondly, he did not stop talking/gesturing to me in Korean. I was getting nervous. I think I understand him ask what neighborhood I live in in Jinju, so I say, "Chilam-dong." He seems to understand this, and though it seems he is asking me a lot more questions, we drive on toward the city. Here's the third strike. We come up on the highway, where my bus usually turns to take me home. There is a big sign there with an arrow that says "Jinju" in English, and another that says "Sacheon." Guess which one he turned toward? Sacheon. Haha. I begin to panic and once we got to a road that had some houses on it, I said, "Ok! Thank you!!" So he pulled over, and I am totally lost, and still about 25 minutes from home.

So, I called my friend Eoin and I was like.... "Help! What do I do?!" Thankfully, he gave me the sound advice to find a place of business, call my co-teacher, and have her talk to the owners to see where I was. So, I did. She talked to them and came to get me.

.......And then she told me, she knows the cab driver. He is the father of one of my first grade boys. He had come back to the school, and when she left to come get me, he told her what happened. Apparently, he was just trying to thank me for doing such a good job teaching his kid, and wanted to give me a ride back to Jinju for free.

Haha. Home safe!
I'm a dummy!