No more Taxi rip offs

The Seoul city government is offering a cash reward of 500,000 won ($A450) to anyone informing the authorities about taxi drivers who rip off foreign tourists.City officials said on Thursday that the move was an attempt to curb a practise that was “still rampant” despite previous crackdown efforts.

Government official Kim Su-Jeong said that foreigners ripped off by taxi drivers could claim the reward themselves by dialling an English-language hotline and reporting the driver.

Seoul has around 400 specialised cabs, known as “international taxis,” which are equipped with interpretation services and whose drivers can speak English and Japanese.

This must be the best idea ever! I hope all cities around the world could introduce a similar system.

World’s best-selling liquor is

The world’s best-selling liquor is not Smirnoff-Vodka, it is not Jack Daniels or even the Swedish favorite Absolut Vodka. In fact the world’s best selling liquor is Jinro soju from Korea.

The Millionaires’ Club, an England-based catalog that ranks brands, liquors and spirits, pinpointed Korea’s Jinro soju as the world’s best-selling brand of liquor, based on data collected in 2011.

The rankings are based on yearly aggregate sales in units of nine-liter cases. In order to even make it on to the list, brands need to sell at least 1 million cases a year.

Some 61.38 million cases of Jinro soju were sold last year, easily making it the world’s most heavily consumed brand of liquor. Runner up was Smirnoff-Vodka with with 24.70 million cases sold. Further down the list of 180 brands, Bacardi rum (No. 5) sold 19.56 million cases, Jack Daniel’s whiskey (No. 19) sold 10.58 million cases and Jim Beam whiskey-bourbon sold 5.86 million cases (No. 37).

Let’s go to Korea

Global arrivals to Korea hit the 9.8 million mark, a growth of 11.3% over the previous year. This year’s inbound global figures are likely to top 11 million.

Korea and its visitors are still enjoying the designation of 2010-2012 as ‘Visit Korea Year’ and has some notable events to look forward to in the coming months, such as 2012 World Expo Yeosu and another exciting F1 Grand Prix. Korea’s ten UNESCO World Cultural Heritage listed sites have impacted on increasing visitor numbers to Korea, as will Jeju Island’s recent success to become one of the ‘New 7 Wonders’ of the natural world.