Today I went to get my D-4 visa, the visa that lets me stay in Korea until I basically finish my language education. It wasn’t so easy to get it and there’s a lot of bull shit information on the internet (especially on the websites of the Universities, where they basically tell you you need a Korean sponsor to get this visa… ‘forgetting’ to mention you can just as easily get your visa by simply showing them a bank statement of over 3 million won. I don’t know why anyone would prefer to get a Korean sponsor as opposed to simply getting a bank statement, unless they are racially Korean and have relatives in the country. Which, of course, seem to be the very people these language courses are aimed at. Sigh. Forever swimming against the stream). Well, since the information online is rather, ahem, weird, I’ll tell you how to get a cute and shiny D-4 visa, step-by-step, the easiest way if you happen to be one of those people who don’t have a convenient Korean uncle or aunt around somewhere.

 The first thing you’ll want to do when you arrive in Korea is get a phone and a room. Both of which is pretty easy – most Koreans will be willing to register a phone for you and there are always lots of free hasukjip rooms around Universities. It will probably take you no more than 5 days to acquire both. In the meantime, stay at lovely Golden Pond guesthouse (very nice atmosphere, nice owner) or, if you must, any other youth hostel. You need an address and a phone number to set up a bank account and a bank account to get your D-4 visa, so when room and phone is cleared, proceed to get the bank account.

As mentioned before, getting a bank account in Korea is not hard at all. All I showed the lady at Woori Bank was my passport and I had an open and working account within the next 15 minutes. Once you have your account set up and running, arrange for at least 3 million to arrive on it and you’re ready to take the next step.

Admission to a language program is not that difficult, especially not to Sogang – they’ll admit you immediately without even screening your papers (a little unprofessional, I must say – but as long as the quality of education is as good as I’ve been hearing, I won’t be complaining). You’re then supposed to pay your tuition fees immediately and sent to the basement where there’s a Shinhan Bank. They accept cash and money orders – despite the fact that they live in perhaps the most technologically advanced country in the whole damn world, for some reason they still don’t accept credit cards. I guess making it convenient for the language student would be just too much to ask for. Moving on…

Once you’ve paid, you get your letter of admission, and we’re getting to the meat of it, finally! Now you have all the essentials you need for the visa, the only thing now missing is 2 photos, which can be taken in pretty much every subway station and 3×4 in size or something close should be fine.

NOTE: If you are American, you must have a C-3 visa in order to get a D-4! EU citizens and citizens from most other advanced countries, though, don’t need to look into any visa prior to coming to Korea and can convert their non-visa status to D-4. Why is Korea so much harder on Americans than on any other nations? Probably because the US has one of the strictest immigration policies, making it much harder for Koreans to move to the US than to the EU or Canada. Tit for tat, I guess.

Now take:

 - your passport

- your bank statement proving you have access to at least 3 million won

- your admission letter from your University

- your photos

and head to Omokgyo station, line number 5, exit 7. Taking the taxi to the office costs 1900 won. You can walk, too: straight ahead, and then follow the street branching off to the right. The office is about 1 kilometer away from the subway station.

 Once there, walk to the information desk right in front of you and say you’re here for a visa. You’ll be given an application form to fill out. With that, walk into the room on your right and fill it out there. It’s a big room where many people, most of whom Chinese, who will all be waiting patiently for the immigration officers to spare a moment. Get a number (in Korea, you are assigned numbers, and when it’s your turn, your number is called) and wait. Possibly, you’ll be waiting for a while.

Then, at long last, when your numbers rolls off of the mellifluous lips of your immigration officer, massaging your auditory channel in its sheer canorousness (or something like that), the time has come for you to confront your officer and present your documents to the eye of the law. Don’t worry, it will be over soon. Show all of the documents listed above to the officer, pay 60,000 won and you are told to pick up your D-4 visa 10 days later. Oh, and your passport is held until then, so I hope you made some copies of it.

 Hope someone will find it useful – I sure would have liked someone to write down a step-by-step guide like that when I was still at home, worrying everything would go all right. *sigh* Anyways, Korea is not nearly as hard to live in as you might think – IF you do your planning ahead of time.

I took the time and liberty to compile a list of my good as well as my bad impressions about this country. Keep in mind that these are all my personal impressions and opinions. I am very curious myself how much my impressions will change troughout the course of my stay here.

Good things about Korea

- Korea is very safe. You don’t have to worry very much about things getting stolen here. People are mostly honest here.

- Korea is extremely convenient, the most convenient country I’ve ever been to. Want to watch a movie? Want to eat live octopus? Maybe you want to go to a bar and meet people? Wherever you are, all of these things are only a short walk away, and for those midnight cravings, you can rest assured that a 24h convenient store is pretty much guaranteed to be right in front of your door.

- Korean people are very good-looking and walking through the streets is very pleasing to the eye.

- Korean restaurants and food culture is great – even in case you are not so fond of the spiciness of Korean cuisine, the cheap prices of food in Korea will sway you. You can have a decent meal at a restaurant in Korea for as little as $3, and included in that price is as much free water as you can drink.

- Even though Korea is a hardcore capitalist country, people give you freebies surprisingly often. When I bought a laptop, I got speakers and a mouse as free ’service’ and many public buildings offer free water (hot and cold). When ordering food, speaking a little bit of Korean very often results in you getting free extras with your meal.

- People here are generally curious about foreigners. Though there is substantial racism here (as mentioned in the negative things list), most Koreans are paradoxically also absolutely intrigued with foreigners. It’s not hard to meet people interested in talking to you, especially college-age people. People are also often very nice to you – I’ve gotten free rides on motorcycles for having a pleasant chat on the subway etc.

- Subway. Right. Korea has quite possibly the best public transport system in the world. The subway is absolutely fantastic and so is the bus system.

- Shopping can be done cheaply and in typical Asian fashion in Korea.

- Koreans are absolutely technophile! I list this as a good thing since I expect that most people reading an internet message board will be, as well, at least to some degree. You can use a computer practically everywhere and on the subway, you will see plenty of Koreans watching movies on their cell phones.

- Koreans are perhaps the most ambitious and hard-working people I ever knew.

- Korean nightlife is great.

Now, on to…

Bad Things About Korea

- Korea is sexist. Very sexist. But it doesn’t just hurt the women. There is huge pressure on the women to be feminine and equally as much pressure on the men to be masculine and of course, the compulsory military service for males doesn’t really help matters. There are countless social problems caused by this strict separation of the sexes.

- Korea is too hot and humid in summer and too cold in winter.

- Korea is an extremely superficial country. In Korea, being ugly is the equivalent to being shunned all your life and young people can spend hours discussing only a love interest’s beauty. Being ugly in Korea is tough, for both sexes, but moreso for women and this explains why in Korea there are so many ads for diet programs, why there is so much plastic surgery and why many surveys have shown that Korean women are the ones to be most concerned with their looks out of all women in the world. Korean people are so obsessed with other people’s beauty that in most cases, conversation just isn’t going to happen if they find a prospective conversation partner to be physically unattractive. Which leads me to…

- Korean people don’t make good boyfriends or girlfriends on average, unless you are completely obsessed with them like me. Not only will their family make it difficult and will you have a tough time overcoming the language barrier, but the superficial culture they grew up in has caused most of them to be quite dull and uninteresting. They are a lot of fun to be around with, and they certainly are pretty/handsome, but dating them takes a lot of work and dedication.

- Korean people have this national disease of illusions of grandeur. They tend to not want to realize that, overall, the rest of the world, except for a few dedicated individuals, doesn’t really care about their country, might not even know where it is located and, worse still, might initially compare Korea’s economic power and standards of health to that of.. say, Cambodia. Koreans like to believe they are great people (maybe the greatest of all) and thus have a hard time coming to terms with the reality of their global insignificance. The Korean nationalism stems from a complex mix of feelings of superiority and inferiority compared to other nations.

- Koreans are rather xenophobic, especially if you are Chinese, Western Asian, South Eastern Asian or of African descent. A little bit less so if you are Japanese (though it largely depends on the people you meet, but in general, Koreans respect the Japanese more because of their power and wealth) or white (because Koreans equate whiteness with America, and America with money. And Koreans like money). There are plenty of Koreans who are not racist, though, and in everyday life, you will very rarely be the victim of outright racism directed at you, especially if you are a woman as most negativity is directed at male foreigners.

- Koreans are obsessed with money.

Overall, though, I love living here. What I love most is the lifestyle I am having here and despite the numerous problems of Korea, this lifestyle is enough to make me feel (mostly) happy with my life here.