Phone Chargers and Other Things to Like About Korea

Recently I downloaded Go-Stop (a traditional Korean card game, played almost exclusively by men, Yahoo!'s version is here) to my phone. (There is one called Sexy-Go-Stop too, for those who are into Anime.) Well, I've been playing it (the clean version) so much that my battery dies sometimes when I'm out (is this an addiction?). The last time was out at the movie theatre (the MMC in Dongdaemoon is open 24 hours, if anyone is looking for a flick at 3AM). A friend of mine said they have chargers at convenience stores (I also remember them at some restaurants too). Then we found that they had them at the theatre, too. The young kids there knew how to hook up the battery...they were really helpful, actually. Koreans are so nice sometimes. Here's a pic of what to look for if you're in Korea and your phone goes dead.


You stick your battery in here for about 5-10 minutes and it's powered up (but the charge wears down more quickly, I think).

More things I like in Korea: delivery services. I ordered a few books from Seoul Selection (a great foreign bookstore that has an interesting newsletter that's worth subscribing to--it's free). Anyways I ordered online at 3:00PM. The order showed up at my door at 9:30 the next morning. This would not happen in Canada unless you paid extra for delivery, and even then it'd maybe be 2 nights as I ordered late in the day. Korea, though has a ubiquitous number of quick service delivery services (as they're called). This means it takes about 1-2 hours for a package to get across town because a motorbike courier takes it rather than taking it in a van to a sorting station then another van for delivery. (It's similar to the bike couriers that we have in the West, but no one bikes on the roads here.)

I also like the way Korea updates things. The pics below show one example. In the old days there was a rarefied breed of warrior who guarded the main palaces and nobles, today there is another (decidedly more leggy) version. (Um, this is a joke, for those who believe everything they read.)


Changing of the Guard and Twirling of the Rifles.