Literally, Sleepless in Seattle

After over a year of being in Asia, I was finally able to visit my family and friends back in New York City. I spent 2 weeks in the states with a jam packed schedule of coffee, lunches and dinners follow by a 4 day vacation in San Diego and Las Vegas. It was fun but also tiring!

Needless to say, there wasn’t much sleep involved in my 4 days in SD and Vegas. My flight was also Monday morning 630AM back to NYC so I pretty much stayed up all night. I arrived for a final family dinner before my early 7AM flight from JFK to Seoul the next morning. I had a layover in Seattle and when I got on the Delta flight from Seattle to Seoul, something unexpected happened. I’ve had about 25+ flights in the past 3 years and this has never happened to me before.

About 4 hours into my 12 hour flight back to Seoul, the pilot said there were some sort of malfunction technical difficulty and we had to return back to Seattle. Everyone was shocked and freaking out a little bit on the plane, myself included. This 8 hour flight to nowhere was definitely not a fun experience when you’re traveling alone. To top it off, the 2nd backup plane that was supposed to arrive at 10PM to pick us up also had a malfunction which didn't help with the paranoia. Eventually, it was decided that we had to wait till 10AM the next morning for the next flight out to Seoul. They put me at a nearby airport hotel for the night and I managed to sneak in a tiny bit of rest before another early morning flight. 12 hours later, we finally landed safely in Seoul.

This pretty much summed up my sleepless week. I shall now sleep like a bear- zzz

Go Green Korea!

People often say they want to be eco-friendly but saying is one thing, doing is another. Korea, however, is pretty damn serious about recycling and sorting their trash. This definitely took me by surprise.

How did I learn? Not from a friend's advice, but through personal experience.
I stayed at hotels my first two months in Seoul so the simple task of taking out the trash never occurred to me. Now that I am living in an actual apartment building, one where the lobby guy does not speak English and refuses to try to understand me, this has now become a painful and daunting task.

A week of furniture shopping and unpacking left me with A LOT of trash and cardboard boxes. We usually leave these in the little side rooms of the floor where people generally take the trash down. Or so I thought. I did this twice in a week until one day, these signs magically appeared around the walls of the little side room next to my apartment door. I suspect that they didn't know where I'm truly from, but to ensure I get the message, the signs were in Korean, Chinese and English.

I now clearly know I've been illegally taking out the trash. They now have CCTV recording me so I should take it to the basement B2 to avoid fines. B2 has a huge garbage room where it is sorted by pure food waste, general waste, paper, plastic and cardboards. I've been told you need a special waste bag for food only, nothing waste. I have failed to secure this "bag" after a few attempts to purchase it at the local convenient stores near me. I did successfully order a food waste bin online, so I will eventually get on buying that bag.

I'm impressed Korea, go green!

Life as a WIFI Seeker

It was a regular Sunday afternoon. I was on my way to meet a friend for lunch. 

Meet at line 1, Jegi dong station, exit 2 at 2:45pm. 

Simple task. 

I arrived 5 minutes early so I just waited upstairs by the exit. 

2:50PM- Maybe she is downstairs waiting for me while I am up here, let me go down

3:00PM- Hmm, it’s been 15 minutes. However, I don’t have a working phone. I should walk around and try to find wifi, there’s usually wifi around the subway exits. Walking…nothing.

3:10PM- She is much later than usual. I wonder what happened. My stupid phone doesn’t work, what is the use of this phone if I can’t reach anyone? I should just pay the 1 hour wifi usage from SK wifi, it’s cheap enough…Proceeding to payment…

It’s been this page for a while now, why doesn't it work? They don’t even want my money? You have got to be kidding me. 

3:15PM- it’s been 30 minutes. I should probably set a limit to this waiting time. I’m getting really hungry. I think 1 hour is long enough. Oh wait, here she is! 

Times like these, I really wish I had a proper working phone where I can perhaps use it to dial and call people. The real purpose of a phone...And trust me, I've tried. However, ever since I've moved to Seoul, my phone situation have been rather difficult.

The first week is all about settling in, plus I had wifi, so I was not in a hurry to get a phone plan. I then learned you need a foreigner's ID to get a phone plan but that requires an approved Korea visa. Since I am still waiting on the visa, a temporary prepaid plan is my only option.

Attempt # 1
I ventured out on my own one afternoon to the nearby phone store Olleh to get the prepaid plan set up. After getting a ticket, waited for 45 minutes, asked for help then realized no one spoke English, I left the store phone less and frustrated. What a waste of my time!

Attempt #2
I learned my lesson with the language barrier so I took my Korean colleague with me the next day to a different phone store. The guy who was helping us initially turned out to be a trainee and our situation was way too complicated for him. After wasting 30 minutes, we had a more senior staff assist us. Everything was going well until he told us something was wrong with the phone and the SIM card is not picking up any signal. He tried changing the settings and called multiple people for help, but none of it worked. After 2 hours and 2 staffs trying to help us, we left the store phone less and frustrated yet again.

Attempt #3
I went with a different colleague this time back to the same store later that night. She had the same issue previously since her phone was from the US and it was fine after adjusting the settling. 45 minutes and 3 stores later, nothing.

Attempt #4
We received information from a friend of a friend to get a prepaid SIM at a specific store that help foreigners so perhaps this would work! Jongno 3 ga exit 15 train station, this is where the magic happened!

Long story short, the store guy planned to switch my internal hardware from a US one to a Korea one, so that it would work with the Korea SIM. This is the cheapest since I don’t want to spend a fortune on a new phone. I dropped by after work to pick up my new phone only to hear that the switch doesn't work since US and KO phones are made differently. I was seriously about to give up, but the guy handed me another smart phone with a phone case and temp SIM, with all conutacts transferred! 

This totally made my month! I Should have totally brought a lottery that night, oh wells.