Monday, November 13, 2006

Startled by efficiency

Short version:

In under 4 hours, I was able to file the police report for "losing" my wallet, get a new alien registration card, get new bank cards/activate the passbook/may be able to use my card as a debit card (WOO!), gets maps of Gwangyang (finally!), go to the hospital to get a refill of my allergy medicine and get the prescription filled.

With color and parenthetical commentary:
My co-teacher was incredibly helpful with all of this. She got the principal to let me shorten my teacher's workshop and called around to see what would need to be done. Another co-teacher drove us to the police station and to the immigration office in Jungma. At the police station, she found out that it would take far longer to get my alien card re-issued if it was "stolen" rather than "lost" and since there is no way I'm seeing it again, no way to prove it was actually stolen, and everything has been canceled, it seemed like the easiest choice. At immigration they were ready to go and all I had to do was fill out a piece of paper and give them a photo. City Hall was right next to the immigration office, and I was able to grab a couple of maps of the area (and made people very happy when I said I could read enough Korean that I didn't need one of the English maps that were in the back). We were able to walk right in at the bank, and the teller was one of the nice ladies who remember me, and said I should be able to use my cards for purchases (usually, when a foreigner opens an account they can only use the cards as ATM cards).

The hospital is what amazes me. I walked in without an appointment, waited about a minute, was able to see the doctor right away, and was out the door again with my allergy medicine prescription. Two minute wait at the pharmacy. Total time spent was less than 10 minutes. Amazing.

2 comments:

Ms Parker said...

Lucky you! I'm still waiting for my co-teacher to help me out and even had to get Brendan to e-mail her!

Think I'll tell them it's lost instead of stolen.

xoxo

Virginia

Anonymous said...

Hello,
I accidentally stumbled upon your blog when searching for general Gwangyang info. My girlfriend and I just arrived on saturday night and are both teaching at public schools in the area. we're from Canada (toronto/montreal). Haven't seen any foreigners yet. It would be cool maybe to meet up at some point. You can email us at garretkeown@gmail.com or hleen79@yahoo.ca.

Thanks,

Garret