Friday, February 29, 2008

Temporary move-out and alien registration card

The Morning

Well, as mentioned in my last post, I had to move out on the 29th, so I spent the evening of the 28th packing (Agata was leaving for a temple stay, so it didn't really matter to her, except for the packing bit). Anyway, liking to be prepared for things rather than deal with them helter skelter, I arranged to go see Remi in the morning beforehand. So, at 9 am, I left my apartment and went to Remi's place. He wasn't quite ready to wake up yet (he entertained some Chinese exchange student who were locked out of the dorm until 6 am) so he slept while did stuff on my laptop. Around 11:30 or so, we went to have some breakfast/lunch (some noodles in a thick soy sauce, but not a salty soy sauce, so they were quite good) and then decided to do some shopping and apply for my alien registration card. So, we headed to Juan station, took the train to Dong-Incheon, and did some shopping in the underground mall. During the shopping I received a phone call from Mr. Kim, saying that he would like to see me at 3:00. Since it was around 1:00 at the time, I asked whether 5 was alright for him, and he said that was just peachy (not in those words exactly, but you get my drift, right?).

The Afternoon

After shopping, we walked to the alien registration place, which took a good half-hour or so. Once there, we discovered their photo booth was broken, so we had to track down a photographer (the security guy already knew where one was located, so that was convenient!). So, we headed over there, I had some pictures taken, and we headed back to the alien registration place. I filled out the necessary form, took a number and when called up, presented all my stuff to the unilingual clerk. Well, after some language barrier related confusion, I pieced together that I was missing one document (the "certificate of enrollment"), so I couldn't apply for my card today. Ah well!

The Evening

Once that adventure was over, we took a taxi back to the campus (which was actually cheaper than our combined transit fare... figure that one out!) and went to see Mr. Kim. He was very sorry to tell me that the inspection was not complete and that I could not return to my apartment that night ( big deal, right?). He also made it very clear that he felt responsible for this situation as he is the one who introduced me to this real-estate agency, and he thought I should be compensated for my trouble. So he set me up in the guest house for another night (hey, not complaining) and we headed over to the real estate agency to complain. All things told, the real estate agency gave me 50,000 Won for my trouble (about 55$), so I was happy! I also told Mr. Kim about the alien registration card situation, and he said that he would take care of it. So, I got 55$, got my ARC problem solved and spent another very nice night at the guest house. How's that for a happy ending?

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