Entering SmartLand

As some of you may know, I did not have the first world luxury of a phone for the first month of living here. This is because once you arrive you have to register yourself as a legal foreign resident and one of the snags is that the wait time to receive your critical Alien Registration Card (or ARC) takes about a month. This time may vary, depending on when you arrive in country, but the beginning of March is problematic because it is the start of the academic school year (similar to September in the States).

The one immigration office in Busan that services all foreign residents in the area had to process about 100+ new EPIK public school teachers, all new foreign exchange students, other foreign teachers, workers and renewals of ARC cards of less recent residents. So the fact that it took a month get a card was not a shock to me and I was prepared for it. However, that did not make it any less comfortable. Getting together with friends entailed frantic Facebook messages, agreed upon times and the mutual agreement that if anyone didn't make it there within a 10-30minute window, were going to be left behind. I'm sure all of those reading this who lived the majority of their lives without cellphones (I'm ignoring the smartphone generation who are probably horrified that I lived without a smartphone for 5 minutes let alone over a month) are probably laughing. It's fair, I would be too. In fact, it's what made the first month that much more entertaining.

Oftentimes in the morning I would awkwardly stand by the Paris Baguette (a popular bakery chain) and steal their wifi to send myself pictures from my now mostly useless iphone (although it is a nice ipod now). There is no wifi in my apartment (I will be getting myself a router with my next paycheck) so I felt pretty grounded, but oddly liberated from all aspects of social media.

Well, being that I was fairly off the grid for a month, the need for a fancy smart phone grew stronger as pay day and ARC card date approached. It all happened so fast, but I finally entered SmartLand!!

Random snacks that kept appearing the longer we sat there. Oh and my phone!

Another foreign friend and I headed to a store with a newly made Korean friend. We spent almost two hours in the store with three friendly store clerks, trying to figure out how to set up accounts for us. We just sat there and obediently handed our ids, bankbooks and deposit money to them and ate random snacks as they all figured out the details of our smartphone fates. In the end we both decided on the Samsung Galaxy S4, which has just been surpassed by the S5 which is already out in the States.

Now I finally feel like I can fit in with the locals! Well as much as possible anyways. People openly carry their giant phones in their hands while walking on the streets, on the bus, subway, grocery store, anywhere. Pretty much if you have a hand, you have your phone in it. Even the ancient Ajjumas (the old women who look so small and frail that they could blow over at any moment but who will elbow you into submission in the fight to get on the subway) will whip out their smartphone with more deftness than my younger cousins back home.

The thing around his neck that looks like a camera? Phone. Old lady? On her phone. Old man? On his phone.  

Here it is not rude to sit at a table and text, cruise the web, watch tv shows or play candy crush. Ok that game is played too much here, really. These phones are pretty much pocket sized computers, they seem to be much better quality than the ones that are available in the US (or maybe it's just the fact that EVERYONE has a recently produced smartphone). My phone battery does not last long, but I am making up for lost time and social media-ying to my hearts content. I can also text/call anyone from the US for free using KakaoTalk, so feel free to send me a message and I will add you as a contact! You can download it on your ipad, iphone or any other smartphone.

Now it is official, I am living in SmartLand.

Go ahead, pick any giant phone you want.