Amanda Takes Off...

For all of my ranting about Korean banking...Samsung and the poor girl at KTF have come through.

Foreigners in Korea can't, generally speaking, get credit cards. Or, they can get credit cards with a slew of weird requirements, like one year left of a professor gig but they need to already be three months into the contract...contracts are almost certainly 1 year contracts, making that an impossible requirement to fill, especially since (if you're working legally) you get your visa before you start working. Another requirement is to put down 1.1 million won as a down payment/hold to get a 1 million won limit credit card.

Yet a Korean credit card or a deposit is needed to get a normal cell phone. Because foreigners can't be trusted with a foreign credit card and a cell phone. I don't know, maybe we'll figure out a way to use our foreign credit cards and Korean handphones to block the proper fermenting of kimchi or something. (Apparently things are sometimes easier depending on where you try to get the handphone from.)

Well, Good Man found out that foreigners who work for public schools can get Samsung credit cards and I got one. I asked for a Visa, they gave me AmEx, but whatever. The limit is 1.5 million won, which is enough to get a plane ticket nearly anywhere and certainly more than enough to get a cell phone.

The first time I used my Samsung credit card was at a bakery. The woman looked at me and said, "Is this a Samsung card?"

"Yes."

She looked at her coworker, held up the card and said, "Is this a Samsung card?"

Her coworker said "Yes."

She said, "Foreigners can use Samsung cards?"

She said it to her coworker, but I said, "Yes." Then she studied my name really, really closely. I don't think my name was studied that closely even when I was 18 years old and had my first credit card, a TJX Visa with a limit of $250. (I worked at Marshall's during the time, which was owned by TJMaxx.)

Today was a loooong day. I have a prepaid phone though KTF. Problem is that it's very expensive. My school also gives me a phone. Problem there is that the phone is super-duper old and I really don't want my school to have access to my phone records. Also, if I switch jobs, it means one more phone number.

Well, I couldn't keep my old phone number (which means changing all of my business cards by hand cause I sure as heck am not ordering new ones), and I had to get a new phone (it's a little too big for my liking), but I finally for a normal plan.

It took more than two hours. Apparently the problem was that my foreigner's number (like an SSN, the national ID number) was already associated with an account under 아만다 or Amanda S or 아만다 쇼 or 쇼 아만다 or who knows what.

While we were waiting forever I starting drumming on Good Man's leg. "심심하니까, 이렇께 해...." Because I am bored, I am doing this...

Handphone service in Korea is a little different than it is (or was when I left) in the States. You pay only for outgoing time and messages. I ended up getting the plan that allows for 1200 SMS messages a month. I know this sounds excessive (though not as excessive as the man who got fired for sending 38,000 messages in a month), but I've already sent and received more than 250 in the first ten days of the month. I had no idea I texted so much. (Then I realized that you only pay for outgoing, so next month I'll change to the 600 free SMS messages plan.) I pay 18 won per 10 seconds of talk time, too.

I was freaking out over the new keypad. I have memorized the Hangul texting system, but it turns out that my last two phones have been Samsung phones and Samsung has some patent on their alphabet order. Since my new phone isn't Samsung, I have to memorize a new system. No more 012-00125-612 for 아만다. Now it's 03-795-49.

Also, I don't think this phone has a Kor-Eng/Eng-Kor dictionary. Damn.

After we finally got a phone, we had some dinner and ice cream. We brought ice cream to the employees at the phone shop (the guy didn't really help us, but I wasn't going to bring ice cream to one and not the other) because they don't get paid well and they didn't just throw up their hands and say "you're a foreigner, go away." I am sure this is because I was there was a Korean, but I really don't care.

Then we watched some musicians from the Andes do a free concert and some middle school girl did an "Ask a Foreigner" interview with me. I made Good man ask her who had assigned it. Turns out it was a Korean teacher. Evil assignment.

By the end of the day, Good Man looked like he just wanted to take a nap.

Long-Suffering Good Man Just Wants a Nap