I arrived in Seoul Thursday night on a direct flight from Los Angeles. First of all, Asiana airline was great! I wish US airlines would take a lesson from Asian airlines. Another intern arrived from the States on United, and he did not have a personal entertainment system. A twelve hour flight without entertainment system - that's really unpleasant. It's also the little things that really set Asiana apart, like giving passengers slippers, or coming through with water/orange juice on a regular basis. And the food was great too, with Western and Korean options available. I opted for Korean, enjoying a beef Bibimbap for the first meal and spicy octopus for the second.
Once in Seoul airport, it was fairly straight forward to go through security/passport control. Fortunately, the intern coordinator provided detailed information on how to catch a "Limo Bus" to Seoul proper. The buses, that cost 15000 won (about $15 USD), run every 15-20 minutes. The ride was smooth, and an hour later I got off at Gangnam station, home of many large companies such as Samsung, and therefore also my home for the next 2 months.
Next morning, I had a huge Westernized breakfast at the hotel. There are only three choices, so I am fairly sure I will get sick of the food by the end of week 1. I also wish they had a Korean option - we are in Seoul after all!
After breakfast, two other interns and I set on a mission to rent mobile phones. Rental rates at the hotel seemed ridiculously high ($5 USD/day), so we wandered around Gangnam station for awhile. Despite a large number of phone stores, not a single one of them rented phones. We Googled it, and found one rental outlet in Seoul. However, we were not sure where it was, so with a lot of grumbling, we headed back to the airport. Airport has a choice of several rental providers, so rent a mobile phone as soon as you arrive in Seoul airport! We opted for S Roaming, getting a pretty old-school phone. The listed rate was 2700 won/day, but because we rented three, we got a discount to 1540 won/day (about $1.50). You can also get this discount if you pre-order online three days before arrival. Local texts cost 100 won, and local calls are 90 won/10 seconds (about 50 cents/minute). However, texting on the phone is a PAIN (think texting on Razr, but without T9). So I am considering whether paying a 5x premium for iPhone texting (50 cents/text) might be worth it.
Actually, as of earlier this year, it is possible to get a local Korean SIM card from KT (Korea Telecom) to use with a US phone. So if you have an unlocked 3G WCDMA phone (I know US T-Mobile 3G phones will work, AT&T 3G phones might work but I'm not certain if the frequencies match, Verizon and Spring almost certainly won't work, most European 3G phones should work as well), you don't have to be stuck with the old-school phones that are available for rent. The SIM card even has reasonable rates for internet usage. As far as I can tell, this is the first time any company has rented SIM cards in Korea, so probably not many people know about this option yet.
ReplyDeleteTo get a SIM card, you have to go to a "KT global store". There's one in Gangnam. Some other locations are also listed on that site (surprisingly no locations at the airport though). There is more info about the process of renting the SIM card at the KT Expat Blog, including pricing info.