Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Good News, Bad News, Annoying

We finally went down to the cell phone store to look into getting a cell phone for Haley. Since I already have a plan, and Haley is under 13, they have a special deal. For only 10,000 ₩ a month (less than $10), Haley would get unlimited incoming calls, 300 minutes to call me, and 66 minutes to call anyone else (her friends). When the minutes are gone, they're gone, so she can't rack up a big phone bill. Crazy awesome, right?! That's the good news. The bad news is that in order to get the family plan, we have to prove that we're family. Having the same last name and looking alike isn't enough (there are only a few family names in Korea, and all waygookin look alike), nor are my guardianship papers. So we have to go to the immigration office and get the official Certificate of Family. Which will probably be a good thing to have, but I wish I'd heard about it earlier (this summer, for example, when I had to be at the immigration office anyhow). The Immigration Office, being a government office, is only open from 9am to 4pm. Nor are they open on holidays. So Haley's cell phone will have to wait until spring break, which is only 2 weeks off. The annoying? That would be the explicit, non-refundable foreigner fee we have to pay to get a cell phone. The idea is that they pool those fees to pay the cell phone bills of those foreigners who skip out on their bills. One the one hand, I guess it makes sense... On the other hand, it's pretty prejudiced :( Still, even with the fee, it's a better deal than I've ever heard of for a kid's cell phone :)

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