Getting a Korean Driver's License and scooter plates

Getting a driver's license in Korea is pretty easy but it is a unique experience. First of all I am lucky that my school is very helpful. (and insistent that you get a license,which is partially why there so helpful)One of our administrators drove me to the capital of our province, Daegu, to get my driver's license. It is only about 25 minutes away and easily accessible by train for me, but since I had no idea where to go once I got there the ride that Jay gave me was greatly appreciated.

I feel it needs to be mentioned that I am the only foreigner in Gumi that I know of who has a scooter and is legitimately licensed, registered and insured. Most teachers don't have any sort of license let alone registration or insurance.You really don't need it unless you happen to get in an accident or pulled over by the police(which is very,very rare). Even if you do get pulled over they would most likely just let you go instead of dealing with you. It is possible to get a ticket for not having a license or even have your scooter impounded, but I have never heard of either happening. However, my Hog Won (private school) is particular about following the rules which is good since most Hog Won's just break laws and have no regard for their teachers rights. My school is the exception.

The first thing I did was buy my scooter from a legitimate source, a bike shop. There I obtained my title for the bike. Then I got insurance for about $170 for the year, this includes theft and accident coverage.(my scooter is worth about $900 but foreigners are targets for theft so I felt this was a good deal) The next step was to take the title and insurance paper's to the local Hyonggok City Office and register my scooter. This costs about $30 for the fees and taxes(thats sales tax and all cost's,pretty cheap by US standards). At this point my scooter was legitimate I had a license plate and theft and accident coverage.

The last step is to get my Korean Driver's License. I have a valid Ohio License, so I took that to the Daegu City Hall, paid about $40 (stamp fees,test fees,license fees) and got my license. You have to fill out everything in triplicate and its all in Korean but luckily my friend knows a lot of Korean so he helped me. You also have a quick physical exam and eye test.Then you take a 20 question computer exam on Korean driving laws. This was difficult considering there is no material in English to study from. The test is also in broken British English, I managed to get a 65% and passed, I don't know what the minimum required score is to pass but I think it might be 65%. Regardless I passed. Then they took my Ohio License and gave me a Korean one, it's valid for 10 years. I am suppossed to return it when I leave and get my Ohio license back but since my Ohio one expires in February and I will already have a new Ohio license when I leave. I am going to keep my Korean License as a souvenir of my journey.

Koreans are very kind, Baby Hens are common and Scooters are fun!

I met some really nice Koreans this week. Over the weekend I went to the Waegook Cook and I met two Korean women who I talked with for over 3 hours, they were very helpful and taught me a lot about Korean culture and language. That same night I also talked with another group of 4 Koreans, two couples, they also were very friendly and helped me to better understand their culture and they wanted to know about American culture too. It seems that most Koreans I meet will go out of their way to help you and love to discuss Korean ideology and they want to know about American Ideology as well. However, the best example of Korean kindness I have seen so far happened to me at the ATM. I put my card in and instead of getting the usual menu that has a prompt for English I just got a screen entirely in Korean and I could not get my card back. I still have no idea what the screen said but I asked the lady next to me if she spoke English(she didn't)but when she saw my screen she stopped what she was doing and called the bank and had them send a tech guy their to retrieve my card. She waited with me for 15 minutes for him to arrive. Then she explained what had happened and then waited another 10 minutes why he got my card back for me. Then she got her money out said goodbye and was on her way like it wasn't even an inconvenience for her. I was blown away by how helpful she was.

I also have to tell a story about teaching this week. One of my youngest students a girl about 9 or 10 years old came to class with a baby hen in her backpack. At first I didn't know what was going on, all the kids were very excited and I kept hearing a chirping noise but I just figured it was coming from outside. Then I realized it was coming from the classroom and I put it all together. The students kept saying "Pia Pia" which means baby hen in Korean, but I had no idea what it meant at the time. The girl had bought it on the street for 50 cents before class, I had no idea what to do so I grabbed a Korean teacher and she seemed un-phased by it. She took the bird to the office but it in a box and told the girl to get it after class. Then she went back to teaching like it was a regular occurrence. I can only assume that this has happened before because none of the Koreans seem to think twice about it. All of the Western Teachers were very surprised by the reaction of the usually strict
Korean teachers. We were also surprised that they sell animals on the street to children like this.When in Rome...

Lastly I bought a motor scooter this week, its 100cc and seats 2. It's red and has 3000 miles. It cost me $700 and another $100 for insurance for the year. Scooters are very popular in my town with western teachers and Koreans. It has been a lot of fun driving it around. I have already taken it to the top of our mountain road on Gumo San and to all my favorite local hot spots. Its nice to be more mobile.

Luxuries of Korean Life and Bars

This week I hired a maid to clean my place. For twenty dollars a week she cleans my apartment and does all my laundry. In the U.S. I could never have afforded this Luxury. We had another holiday this week on Wednesday, it was Korea's Memorial Day. On Tuesday Night the entire staff of my school went out to eat, apparently this is something that we do every month or two. We went to a very nice restaurant near downtown across the street from the cities park. I had the best shrimp fried rice I have ever eaten, of course it was called something else, but that is what I associated it with. The hardest thing to get used to for me when eating out in Korea is that they share everything, everyone eats off of everyone else's plates and there are many side dishes that people just eat from. They even share big bowls of soup, they all just dip their spoons in and eat. The soup is just too much for me, I can handle the side dishes but hands of my en tree and I don't share soup! They did have dark beer at this restaurant, which is a huge plus as its difficult to get here. After the restaurant we went to the Waegook Cook Bar, Waegook is the Korean word for foreigner, so the bar is called the Foreigner Bar, it has a western menu and a better selection of drinks than Korean bars(called hofs). The owner is a South African man named Derrick, he married a Korean woman and now lives in Gumi. Here is a link to the Waegook's website, it has their menu and more. www.waegookcook.com After the Waegook we went to the Nori Bong (Karaoke Bar) that is conveniently located below the Waegook. At the Nori Bong the Korean teachers sang a bunch of Korean Songs then a few of the other western teachers came down and we started singing american songs. At the end of the night I had managed to lose my voice again but I had it back the next day.

The Week I lost my voice

Let me start by saying that teaching is difficult if you cant speak. If their are any mute teachers reading this blog, I take my hat off to you, its not easy. The week started off well, but then on Wednesday I started to feel sick, by the end of the day my voice was vary horse and I was congested and feeling a bit feverish. When I woke on Thursday morning I could not speak at all and I mean at all. I couldnt even make a sound. This obviously presented me with a few problems for teaching that day, in the States I simply would have called in sick and been done with it, but In Korea you only get 3 sick days per year, they require a doctors a note and since I am knew I didn't want to call in anyway. So I went to work and was amazed at how compassionate all my students were to my illness, they were on their best behavior and they all seemed genuinely concerned for my well being. So I used a lot of the tapes that accompany our books, handed out a few crossword puzzles and had the students do some book work and I made it threw the day without incident. On Friday morning when I woke up my voice was still horse but I had it back again and I was able to go back to business as usual. On a separate note I watched several Cleveland Cavaliers playoff games this week, we are currently up 3-2 in a best of seven game series against the Detroit Pistons, GO CAVS!!!!!!!!!!!!. I am able to watch TV from the States via a device called a slingbox, it is hooked up to my TiVo back in Cleveland and it streams(plays video for the computer illiterate)live TV and all my recored shows directly to my computer in Korea. I can watch all the same TV I did in the states, its wonderful. However even if I didn't have a slingbox I would be able to see the s as they played them live and during prime time on cable here in Korea. They love basketball and have had most of the playoff games on cable here this year. They also show a few regular season games per week I am told. Its a very small world! The last thing I will talk about is trash. Its different than in Cleveland. In Korea you have to separate your trash. They sell prepaid bags for your Food and non recyclable waste, which you are legally required to separate.The fine is steep if you are caught putting trash out incorrectly, several hundred dollars for repeat offenders. They also require you to separate your recyclables into bags(any plastic bags will do, you don't have to buy these), you have to separate Plastic,Paper, Glass and Metal. So basically under my sink I have 6 different trash bags, two of which cost me money and there not cheap, its like $1 a bag. I of course am happy about this as I recycled back in Cleveland and I am happy they don't add food waste to their trash dumps, this is a much better system than in Ohio. Its more like California's or so I'm told as I have never lived their. In Lakewood the city where I lived in Cleveland you had to use blue bags for recycling but you could buy them or just use blue grocery bags and you didn't have to sort it, the city took care of that.