I had a kinda weird night yesterday. It started out in typical fashion with me playing darts at Dolce Vita. I got there around 7 and left around 10. I had 3 (or maybe 4) draft beers during that time frame and also consumed 3 slices of pizza.

I walked home to the villa and as is my habit took the stairs from the basement parking garage up to my abode. Now, I live on the second floor, which makes 3 flights of stairs. Ok, sometimes I get confused and lose count. Like last night. So, I punch in my code on the front door keypad, open the door and step inside my apartment. Only, it wasn’t MY apartment. Which dawned on me pretty quickly when I noted the tasteful furnishings and lack of clutter, not to mention a barking dog.

So, I beat a hasty retreat but was more than a little astounded that the apartment directly below mine has the exact same four digit combination that I chose for my door (and just recently changed due to my having fired my now former housekeeper). What are the odds of that happening? (meaning the same combination, not the odds of me firing the housekeeper).

Shortly thereafter I needed to run a quick errand near the Hangangjin subway station. It’s only a few blocks away and I could have easily walked, but I didn’t. You know, one of the first observations most folks make upon moving to Korea is that traffic laws are very loosely enforced. Running red lights, driving on the sidewalk, illegal parking are all par for the course. Not that I engage in such practices, but it is a common enough occurrence as to not warrant more than a shrug.

The one exception I have noticed is drunk driving enforcement. Several times I have encountered the check points where the Korean police stop you and have you blow into a breathalyzer and then proceed on your way (provided you blow negative, which of course has always been the case with me). I support such tactics because it is insane to drive while drunk. When I’m driving in this wonderful country it often seems like even the stone cold sober drivers operate their vehicles as if inebriated. Maintaining strict situational awareness and exercising maximum defensive driving techniques is mandatory when sharing the road with insane cabbies, aggressive bus drivers, fearless motor scooter operators, and a generally clueless driving population.

Anyway, last night one of these checkpoints was set up right in front of the Hangangjin subway station. Now, I KNEW I was not drunk, but I also knew that I had never had anything to drink when I previously had to do the “blow and go” routine. Although I was not overly worried, I admit I was a tad disconcerted. So, I put my window down, the police officer sticks the breath detector in my face, I blow, and it beeps. He tells me to blow again, and I get the same result. At this point, another policeman, rather burly by Korean standards, comes to the window and barks “get out of the car”. I said, do you want me to pull over to the side of the road (this is a major four lane street) and he responds by yelling “GET OUT OF THE CAR”. So, I get out of the car and he gestures for me to go over to a police car parked at the side of the street.

Ok, at this point I am no longer disconcerted, I am actually feeling a fair amount of fear regarding the possible outcome and consequences of my first encounter with Korean law enforcement. I was quite confident I was not drunk, legally or otherwise, I’m a big guy and 3 or 4 beers over a 3 or 4 hour time period is just not enough to get me there. But that damn box I blew into seemed to believe otherwise. So the cop at the side of the road asks for my drivers license and asks if I speak hangul-mal. I figured if he heard my Korean he would definitely think I was drunk, so I said “annio”. About this time the burly cop walks up (he had moved my car to the side of the road) and asks for my license, and I indicated the other cop already had it. He took it, saw it was a SOFA license, and asked if I was Army. I said civilian. He then asked the question cops the world over must ask in this situation: “how much have you been drinking?” and I gave the standard response of “two beers” (yeah, yeah, not the whole truth but I was under a lot of stress).

The first cop then starts explaining the facts of life. Well, not explaining as much as drawing me a picture. On a piece of paper he wrote .5 with an arrow pointing up and .2 with an arrow pointing down. He pointed at the up arrow and said something about license and “100 days”, which I guess meant a suspension although in the back of my mind I was wondering about Korean prison conditions. I never did grasp the significance of the .2 and down arrow. Then he set up the high tech breathalyzer with a tube to blow in. They gave me some water and indicated I should gargle, which seemed like a good idea to me too. He patiently demonstrated how I was to blow into the tube, and showed me that the breath reader was set at 00.0. So, I blew. But the cop said “not long enough”. He reset to zero and had me blow again and I got it right this time.

Then we all stood there watching my “score” get tallied. It went 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and I was about to freak out until I realized that it was the number after the decimal. Whew. Then the big numbers came up, but thankfully stopped well under that ominous “5”. 2.5 to be exact, one half of the legal limit. So, I was vindicated. Mr. Burly Cop returned my keys and said I could go.

I must admit my heart was racing and I had to smoke a couple of cigarettes before I resumed driving. You know, I was not drunk but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t stupid. Stupid for putting myself in that situation. Stupid for driving after any drinking period. Especially when I know you have to have your wits about you whenever you drive the mean streets of Seoul. Had I been in an accident I have no illusions about who the courts would deem to be at fault.

So, that was my lesson learned and my advice to you wherever you may be is: if you drink, don’t drive. Nothing good can come of it.