Ahn Sung-woo, operator of Daejeon’s Bread Taxi tourism service, poses in front of his vehicle in Daejeon, May 6. Korea Times photo by Ryu Hyo-jin
“The taxi is booked through the end of the year. For the bus, you can reserve through the travel site.”
These were Ahn Sung-woo’s words, said from behind the wheel of his “Bread Taxi,” answering call after call from customers hoping to book his bakery tour in Daejeon.
The phone has barely stopped ringing since the 64-year-old driver started Bread Taxi, a service that takes passengers to bakeries around Daejeon, and went viral on social media. His taxi has become almost as familiar as Sungsimdang, Daejeon’s famed bakery.
At Daejeon Station on May 6, Ahn handed “bakery pilgrimage” certificates to passengers who had completed the bakery tour, his playful name for the route he takes through various Daejeon bakeries. The passengers beamed as they received the certificates and posed for photos.
To keep up with surging demand, Ahn began operating a Bread Bus in May. Even after passengers left, reservation calls and text messages arrived every few minutes.
When asked how his life changed since the Bread Taxi took off, he said, “These days are the happiest.”
Ahn’s route to the Bread Taxi was far from smooth. He endured business failure and a life-threatening illness, with doctors once telling him he might have only years to live.
Ahn majored in civil engineering at university, but a chance decision changed his trajectory. After a friend told him there were many female students in a liberal arts class called Electronic Data Processing Systems, he enrolled and became fascinated by computers.
After completing his military service, Ahn joined Hyundai Engineering & Construction and worked on field design changes at Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant, now known as Hanbit Nuclear Power Plant, in South Jeolla Province. There, he watched employees from Bechtel and Westinghouse, U.S. companies in charge of nuclear plant design and supervision, use computers to finish calculations far faster than Korean workers around them.
Source: Korea Times News
