Discover Korea

Paying with credit card issued at home

푸른곰 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:48:21 +0000

Credit card and bank ATM card is now widely spread as global payment method. Traveller’s Cash has been almost replaced by those plastic one with its convenience and safety. I’ve told you about little detail about ATM card, and now I’m going to tell you about the another one.

Using credit card is very easy, as do in your home. Just show your credit card, then swipe, sign to printed slip.

Most merchant doesn’t affiliate with credit company directly rather they do with agent who collect money from different bank, so entire credit card transaction should be linked even they haven’t affiliated. Visa or MasterCard would be safest choice as anywhere in the world but another cards could work.

Korean government has forced most merchant whether small or large to accept credit card. So you can easily expect paying with credit card in almost every transaction(except extremely small restaurant or shop, local market or kiosk). You can check the logo around the door with Visa or MasterCard, or local credit card company. If any one of them is exist, you can use your credit card. I haven’t found MasterCard logo for no reasons, but It couldn’t mean you can’t use MasterCard.

But some small business or merchants are hesitate to take it, especially when the amount is small, since credit card company hold their money for few days and remit money after deduct some charges to merchant. However, if restaurants which costs more than 5000 won per meal, or buying goods or using services which amount is over 10,000 won. Most business should kindly accept it. If you using multinational, or nationwide store or merchant, you can pay just everything which over 1,000 won without any worries.

Little glitch is most Korean store give you thermal printed receipt which printed with Korean only recently(some merchant like Starbucks or McDonald’s have English translation within). Just check biggest or bold figures, which means Grand Total and Sign it. In Korea, every tax is inclusive in displayed price. Therefore no more cost added in grand total. Except luxurious hotel or club where charges 10% service charge which charge you instead receive tip over the subtotal. Please note that luxurious hotel or high end restaurant often display price in menu except VAT and service charge, then add it to total price when you pay.

Yet another changes had been made is electronic sign pad. Many merchant is now display grand total at their terminal’s display or display of the signpad. So you can check how much you are going to pay. After swipe credit card, sign at touchpad when you asked for.

Most business swipe your card, but due to it’s vulnerability to duplicate, government is ask merchant to switch their machine with IC card capable to implement mandatory use of IC chip. and make every newly issued credit card to embrace IC chips. Different with Some european country or Japan, currently Korea doesn’t ask cardholder to input PIN.

Visa’s payWave or MasterCard’s PayPass is now starts to use, but still limited use.

Unlike credit card, debit card isn’t readily available. There’s no PIN pad at all in most stores. So it’s usual to think you almost cannot use debit card. Check card with Visa or MasterCard is treated credit card as your home, check it is applicable to international use.

Using Internet

푸른곰 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:59:26 +0000

If you decided to move in Korea, and your rental contract doesn’t include internet access, you should apply for it by yourself, and it is exceptionally difficult to do that because lack of English spoken staff. If your Korean is fluent enough, you can do it yourself, you need Foreigner Registration Card and its number and bank account or credit card to apply. I strongly recommend you to make do chore by hired company or go safe with check internet connection is included. You decided to yourself, It costs you about 35,000 won(30US$/month) without any yearly basis contract. Korea doesn’t hold data limit, which means you can unlimited 7×24 connection without data transfer limits and extra cost. You may pay additional charges for leasing modem. If you have ever tried setup the internet in your country, You should astonished by it’s speed. If you call for setup at morning, you can login to your facebook or email in the evening, or sometime, even you may connected before sunset. Only problem is Language.

If you travel to Korea, so you’re connected virtually everywhere. Your lodging may offer free computer use for their guest, or have a broadband connection ports in the guestroom(Ethernet;RJ45). Many newly furbished accomodation incorporate WLAN Access in the lobby or guestroom. Most of them are complimentary for guest, but some luxurious hotel charges daily or hourly basis charge. Modem(RJ11) jack are very rare and its differnent in shape which used in Japan or United States and there’s almost no dialup nodes exist.

Wireless network is fairly common. It is used in many stores, public venues, enterprises and schools, however, it seems private use, they haven’t opened to public. Most of them are kept secured with encryption and authentication. Public hotspot is rare, virtually limited to public area of luxurious hotel or number of small business. Even Starbucks offer paid service in South Korea. Some universities/colleges ask for login with student ID number or faculty ID number to use the internet or even ask for paid service. If you want to use seriously in public location, I recommend you try KT’s NESPOT(English) service which is only service offer public hotspot with monthly, weekly, daily or hourly basis plan.

If you wish to use internet more than 1 PC or laptop, you may install wireless/wired router by yourself. Most internet provider provides rate plans for multiple PC in household and they install appropriate device for you, but its expensive though they don’t force you to pay for that even it is written in contracts to user shall not held subnetwork without additional contract. Conclusion is do it yourself or check your friends or companies somebody who shop and install cables and put a power plug to outlet.

Korea boast great infrastructure itself, its not myth, inside Korea, you may experience a download speed exceed 6000KB/per second rarely. Problem is poor bandwidth to abroad. It is well known to Korean itself because connection speed is dropped when you access foreign sites.

Korean government doesn’t censor internet sites or block search result or site access generally. However, some foreign website rated pornography, or related to gamble, or number of North Korean related sites are blocked. Most Korean websites are require you to input Korean Social Security Number or Foreigner Registration Card number to join or see adult rated content. For your information, age limit for alcohol and adult rated content is 19(Starts from first day of year when nineteenth birthday included), and Legal majority is from 20(after twentieth birthday). Voting is allowed over 19(after nineteenth birthday.

PRINT when you trouble

푸른곰 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:06:08 +0000

When you need to ask vacancy, and price for room or buy ticket for somewhere. You need to tell with Korean as possible. You can try your mother tongue, especially English, but it could be obstacle. Problem is most Korean can’t understand what you say well. Most Korean those gave birth before 80′s aren’t studied English with audio material. At these time, audio material is very rare, so many Korean who need to understand what English speaker says usually studied by listening English broadcast which produced U.S. Armed Forces near they live. After few decades, most students are learn with quality audio material which produced domestic with foreigner from English speaking countries or even there are plentiful of imported one from English speaking countries directly. However still most Korean have problem to answer your question freely. They aren’t trained or practiced enough to communicate with English speaker. From the middle of last decades, every primary(or elementary) school students are learn English at the school and in addition, most students are learning English in costly private institute, but average English skills are still relatively low.

So, There is tip for you. Even most of them are not utillized, but most Korean learnt average 1500~2000 words to graduate high school, and almost 90% of young Korean match this criteria. These problem is usually reflects their lack of speaking/listening skills, so If you ask help sincerly, try print your problem or question, inquiries on paper with simple sentence or combination of common words, then ask them to write it down or answer it. Most Korean doesn’t recognize cursive handwriting of English speaker very well.

For instance if you want to buy bus ticket for Pohang from Busan, you may give it a try pass a memo like,

ONE TICKET
BUSAN → POHANG
HOW MUCH?

then pass the pen to person to ask to write, after that, you pay the ticket, everything is done!

ps. This tip usually used to communicate between Chinese character countries, especially China, Korea and Japan. They had different language but same ideography character, so they can communicate much better when they haven’t learnt the other’s language. And passing memo with simple English to ask is widely used trick used Korean when travelling Europe, especially when asking time or prices and buying train ticket ticket which need complicate procedure.

Planned to live in Korea? Try the e-dictionary

푸른곰 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 11:09:36 +0000

If you planned to live in Korea and still prefer your mother-tongue, you may need assist in various situation. Then I suggest you to try an electronic dictionary. It is very interesting electronic gadget which exists only in limited countries. It is palmtop-sized portable device enclosures displays and qwerty keypad to looking definition of word. It is originally developed and intended to use for Korean who learning foreign language, but as another bilingual dictionary does, it is useful for foreigner. It operates with alkaline batteries, put power on then choosing English-Korean dictionary, then type term what you want to say, press the enter button. Then show result display who you want to ask for. Continue to type another word and repeat. You may put the ‘toilet’ and show the result screen rather than trying to describe toilet. It priced from 50,000 won(approx. 33USD) to 300,000 won(200 USD) with multimedia playing capabilities and large color display. You’ll be find good enough for looking up English-Korean or maybe Japanese or Chinese dictionary with 70,000 won(45 USD) or so.

It could be little helpful when you simply ‘lost’. this little gizmo won’t replace interpreter or Korean friend speaks English well or lessen the needs of learning Korean yourself, but it could be very useful to response in simple everyday life encounters, and also it had Korean-English Dictionary, so that you get familliar with Korean characters and keyboard layout(it is same with PC keyboards layout), it could be great help when you learning what strange Korean word means or helping reading a map or directions.

Using ATM cards from your country

푸른곰 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:27:58 +0000

As most countries nowadays, ATM is ubiquitous in Korea. Most commercial banks in Korea reduce their workforces and cost by reducing their teller and replace with ATM. You can found every bank branch embrace few ATM machines. You may found it in the middle of the street or inside subway station or convenience store, either.

Ironically, however, it isn’t easy to tell they accepts foreign cards. I had a research about whether bank ATMs are compartible with International ATM cards, but it comes to fruitless. If I had one from another countries I could try, but I’m not. Therefore I can’t assure that. In my research, Last trails about compatibilities with foreign cards are stopped in ’02 when just before 2002 FIFA World Cup held in Korea and Japan. This article say that the government ask retail bank to install International ATM in major tourist location. I’ll ask bank and update about their readiness as soon as possible. Please note most ATM supports English, Japanese, and Chinese translations.

In contrast, ATMs which isn’t installed by bank(ie. in convenience store, street, subway station) are comparably easy to disguise, because most machine have logo of International ATM networks like Cirrus or Plus. So try these one whether you’re not sure. In Korea, there has not been reported fake ATM which steal encoded information in your card, and since most machines are installed in manned stores, busy streets or crowded venue, it is relatively safe to use in everytime, only need minimum care just as your home.

You can’t try cashback from merchant. Note that using debit card isn’t commonplace.