Waited for Fay Mah at the front gate of Ewha Women`s University (what a gorgeous campus, fun fact: its an all girls university but male exchange students are allowed to attend) .
Walked to T Phone (mobile company) to find a deal.
Waited at T Phone for Fay Mah to discuss details & plan for our phone.
Walked to the Woori Bank to open an account in order to have direct phone billing.
Waited a long time for the employee to open an account for us to put our money in.
Walked back to T Phone and gave them the account number.
Waited some more for them to process everything.
Walked back to Woori Bank to give them our new contact number from our newly bought cell phone + plan.
Walked back to T Phone where our phones were charging and being set up with the network.
What a day. It was filled with walking and waiting from Edae Station, where the T Phone company was and Ahyeon Station, where the closest Woori Bank was, which was approximately a 10-12min walk back and forth and we went from the latter and former four times. I can`t believe we actually spent at least five hours in this area trying to get these two things done. When we headed towards Ahyeon Station, there was multiple blocks selling wedding dress and related merchandise. Apparently its deliberately place near Ewha Women`s Uni as once this pool of females graduate, it will be a convenient next step for them as their next phase in life is just around the corner-literally.

FY(grateful)I, have a Korean with you when you open a phone and bank account, the people working at the phone and bank barely know any English and it`ll be difficult to communicate on your own. Lets start with the phone process. Well, I already knew we needed a bank account and Korean address to get a phone, but I didn`t expect it to be this tedious, and apparently your drivers`license doesn`t count as a second piece of ID, so in the end, we couldn`t get the bill to directly take money out of our bank account. So until we get our Alien Foreigner card from Seoul Immigration Office, we will have to go to the phone company to pay our bill. Luckily, aside from the immeasurably long wait, we locked down a pretty good deal. Ann and I both got a second hand LG smart phone for $50 and we pay $34 each month for 150 minutes and 200 texts. After that it would be 1.8cents for 10sec of calling and 2cents per text. It was way better than the deals and plans we looked at the day before, and it feels so good to be connecting with the world and having access to WiFi almost everywhere you go in Korea.

Now for the bank account process, this was a much more simpler process than the phone plan despite the amount of paper work I had to sign and waiting around I had to do. Basically, the account is free and you get a bankbook and debit card with it. The bank machines have an English language option so this made life easier and we had a withdrawal and spending limit of $1000US per month as this was a student account, but not like I have that much to spend anyways. Otherwise, I am so happy I got these two tasks done as tedious as it was.

Props to Fay Mah for helping us translate so much and bringing us to a delicious little place for some udon and pork chop rice bowls.
Tonight`s dinner consisted of fried chicken from the Chicken Bus restaurant right around the corner of our hostel. The Australian girls actually got take out and brought it back to the hostel. They were generous enough to share dinner with us Canadians as we chit chat about ourselves and girl talk in general. One of them was an exchange student to Yonsei as well, so we decided to all head out for the big move tomorrow. Afterwards, Ann and I strolled Sinchon to look for dessert to get rid of the after taste of chicken in our mouths. We saw a lot of different cultural food places and made sure to mentally note them so we could come back when we craved certain foods. Korea also has a lot of cafes everywhere, some small ones with just desserts, others a couple of floors high and opened for 24hours. We saw the best and most high class looking three storeys high Starbucks ever, and it has an elevator too. We ended up settling for a cup size patbingsu at Cafe Iceberry. I had a milk flavor ice cream with ice, red bean, strawberry and this yellow chewy jelly.


I`m more than ready to move in tomorrow even though I`m despising the amount of luggage I have to maneuver. It`s definitely going to be a gong show, yet at the same time I`m very excited to just settle down and not have to move all my stuff for a long long time.

Hopefully it will be better than I anticipate for.

P.S. following up on my last post, apparently the hot water teapot on the table was actually for you to pour into your stone pot after you have scooped out as much rice as you can; it`s for you to literally make a burned rice tea with the remaining rice sticking to the stone pot-learn something new everyday (thanks Vernon!)