Crazy Taxi

I think I got the craziest taxi driver ever last night, and I’ve had some crazy ones. I was in the Tin Whistle last night. A lot of the Irish in Dalian came out since there were 2 people from the Irish embassy and FÁS visiting Dalian. The Tin Whistle was very busy. Met some new Irish folks too (and I thought I'd met them all at this stage). The Guinness is getting better after some issues with the pipes and pouring technique!

Back to the taxi. There were two taxiloads of us heading home at the same time, so our boy racer decided to floor it. At the same time he slapped on some thud-thud-thud techno music at full whack! He was a head case, flying around Zhongshan roundabout at full speed. We sort of had to tell him to slow it down a bit but he didn't listen much!

He then continued to tell us how he once did 180km/h with some foreign punter on Zhongshan Road! He said he was a great driver and has been driving taxis for 8 years. He’s 30 now and I wonder will he see 35? He doesn't respond to requests of "慢一点儿师傅" (man yidianr shifu) or "a bit slower, driver" very well!!

One interesting (and maybe worrying) thing he told us is that all taxis in China can be powered on both petrol and gas (not gasoline, must be natural gas or something). He stopped to show us the big gas cylinder in the boot. Couldn’t follow all he was saying about the dual-fuel system but seemingly gas is cheaper but doesn’t pack the punch of petrol! Well, you learn something new every day. I must ask other taximen in case he was just spoofing us!