arrived in korea!

It's 8pm. I just arrived at my dorm. I am freaking tired because I have not slept for the past 20+ hours. I am really excited and I will update as soon as I can.

Korea visa experience...

.. is the most tedious visa-application process I have been through! You'd
think I am getting really bored to start writing about such stuff. I am
surprised too. BUT NO~~ NO!

Well I am going to study away in Korea, so naturally, I need to get a Korean
student visa. To apply for a student visa, I need to prepare a few documents:
my passport, bank statements, Olin's proof that I am a current student and
KAIST acceptance letter.

So i brought everything (or so I thought) and left for the embassy. After an
hour of traveling and another hour of standing in the line, I realized that I
didn't bring my passport. Now that is very much my own fault. I left it in
another bag after going to Batan. First trip, foiled.

The next day, I made my second trip. This time, I made sure I brought my
passport. After another 2 hours, I got to the counter and presented my
documents. However, the guy took a look at it and told me that the bank
statement will not suffice. I brought a bank receipt stating that
there is X amount of money in the account, enough to pay for my Korea expenses.
But according to the officer (implicitly), I might have borrowed the money for
the day, put it there, so I may be a hobo with not a cent of possession.
Apparently, I need to bring the transaction history of a bank account for the
past 3 months, on an original bank-issued paper. Now this is starting to make
no sense, because my dad (who is paying) banks entirely online. He doesn't have
any old-fashioned-paper-record-accountbook-crap.

I do not get it. The US embassy accepted the same account printout fine 3
years ago. They issued me a 4 year visa to study in Olin without any qualms
about my financial status. Now, half the country uses online banking and Korea
embassy wants a 3 month bank-printed record. Just Great.

After much last minuted, bank-running troubles. I have the bank
statement(s). If you think this is ridiculous, read on!

So today, I made my third trip. Now, I brought my passport, I got the
correct, 3 months worth of bank statements. I got the rest of the documents and
I thought everything would be fine. But NO! Guess what the guy told me?! He
says my birth cert is invalid/unacceptable. The ORIGINAL, signed, stamped,
dated document is unacceptable. The only difference between my birth
certificate and the next one is that mine is issued in China. It even has a
page of translations in English. But the guy only recognize a Singapore birth
certificate so he wants me to present him with a Singapore birth
certificate!

I have a China-issued birth certificate due to the very blatant reason that
I was born in China. I was born in China, hence I have a China-issued birth
cert! What an amazing relevation! I tried multiple times to explain the fact to
the guy and he seemed insistent on getting me to get a Singapore-issued birth
certificate. (according to him, I can go to the high court?!?! and prove I am
my parents' child??!?!, and get something issued.)

I think I would have to give up on my trip to Korea altogether, if his
supervisor had not walked out at that point. I gave up on the visa guy and went
to talk to the supervisor instead. Within a minute, the supervisor accepted my
visa documents. What a crazy day.

there and back

Been back for a while. It is time to write things down.

My parents decided that I need to get a break from holing up. So we planed a short weekend trip to Batam, Indonesia. Batam is a small(?) island (twice the size of Singapore) 45min boat-ride away from Singapore. It is real easy to visit.

3rd-World Village

I was expecting a beach stay with lots of sunlight and lazing around. There was definitely lots of sunlight, but I did not get much of lazing around. We shopped for the most part and there was some (< 1hr total) of sightseeing.

I did not take this photo, but the whole place looks more or less like this. Our hotel building was one of the few large buildings on the island. It might be the tallest too.

From our hotel window. We do look like the tallest building around.

Lots of squatters like this one around. The local government generally lets them be(I suppose the government has to pay for their relocation otherwise) unless the land is taken back for development. The squatter inhabitants do not pay land tax but they have to find their own utilities source. Hence, we saw quite a lot of squatters around drains and rivers.

This is a miniature replica of a traditional Indonesian building. But I didn't get to see any house like this one on my entire trip.

Language

The most curious part of my trip was communicating with the locals. Indonesians speak Indonesian language, which, truthfully speaking, is a Malay dialect. Sad to say, after living in Singapore for over 10 years, I really only know 'Selamat Datang', which is some sort of hello. (Hence the tour group.) During most of the trip, we didn't need to talk because there was a tour guide. However on the last day, the tour arranged a 'free and easy' time in a shopping mall. Oops.

(In a restaurant)

Us:         Which dish is that? (points to drawing)
Waiter:  ???
Us:         Does anyone here speaks English?
Waiter:  ???
Us:         English?
Waiter:  ?? ... (shakes head)!
Us:         >_<!!!!
              This. (points) Which. (opens palm, shakes) Menu. (shakes menu, flips around, points around to everything) which? (flips hand)

(mime show goes on for a while, we managed to order some sort of noodles ahaha~~)

Us:        我的妈呀！好麻烦！ (omg! So troubleome!)


Waiter: 可以说中文(can speak chinese!)
Us:        arhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

This is the first person I have come across that speaks Chinese as the preferred foreign language, over English <3. It was real surprising. I also noticed random things have chinese characters on them. Like this one:

(It says No Arson despite the picture.)