Having parked up in one of the most historically interesting areas of South Korea, the capital of the ancient Silla kingdom, we cycled the 7km into town to do some shopping and have a look around.
As we were breakfasting in a supermarket car park, this taxi pulls up and the driver sprints into the shop. He returns with four blocks of tofu which he places in front of each wheel and a litre of soya milk which he splashes over the tyres. With all four of us staring at this bizarre activity, pastries half munched in open mouths, the guy proceeds to drive back and forth over the tofu until the stuff is splattered all over the tarmac. He jumps out to check his work and is about to get back inside and drive off before we manage to ask him what the hell he’s doing – he just looks at the sky, smiles and bows, hands together in prayer…
For us, this is very interesting, after seeing thousands of Korean devotees queuing up to bow and pray at every shrine and temple they are visiting, in, what seems to us, a mechanical fashion – we get to observe a proper bit of religion, downtown in a rush and at work.