New Books! Yippee!

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The books for Level 2 might actually reach on Monday, which is earlier than expected. I am always amazed by the efficiency of Korean online shops. I bought almost everything online when I was staying there, sofa bed, desk, dining table, printer, ink cartridges, shampoo, TV, handphone etc. The only thing I have not bought online before is food. The first time I shopped online, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a payment confirmation via SMS within 5 minutes of me sending the money. It's a big online shopping mall. How did they know I have paid them? Now, that's world-class technology!

The book I got for Level 2 is Easy Korean for Foreigners. The cheapest including overseas delivery was on Yes24.com. I had never bought stuff there, so I had to do a 회원가입. Luckily, this site was quite foreigner-friendly and allowed foreigners to sign-up, because my expired 외국인등록증, ie Alien Registration Card, probably wouldn't work. It's strange that they call us alien in English, because in Korean, it's not 외계인등록증...

Signing up was an easy hurdle, paying up was a lot trickier. I could have paid online banking via Hana Bank . But somehow their updated MS-supprted active-X thingie couldn't work on my PC. :(

Then I could have paid by foreign credit card, but there would be extra charges and somehow it didn't work for my Citibank card.

So, I had to ask a friend who had a Singapore and Korea bank account to help me pay for it. Things were so much easier when I was in Korea.

And maybe next time, I will talk about their truly "world-class" public bus system.