Driving

Hooray, hooray! Our van has arrived and is in our possession with Korean plates and everything. Andrew spent all of yesterday with one of his employees taking care of everything. First, he had to get some car insurance, then off to Pyeongtaek's DMV for temporary plates. They came back to Humphrey's for car tag and then headed up to Seoul and another base where the car was, caravan back to the DMV to switch temporary plates for actual plates. They were back to the office by 5pm. There is no way Andrew would have been able to accomplish all this in one day by himself. It really does help to have Korean nationals as employees.

And since our van arrived that meant I could no longer put off taking the written driving test. I don't know what I am afraid of. Oh yes I do...driving...in Korea. Let's just say they don't follow the rules that I was just tested on. They park pretty much any where, change lanes abruptly, merge in with out stopping. My favorite is that the children are taught to hold up there hand in a stopping motion and cars will stop. The test was easy if you read the manual. Most things are the same, a lot of the signs are similar. I think what I was most afraid of was being turned away*.
Besides the written test, there was a reflex part to test how quick you can put on the brake, eye check and 2 videos.I should be able to go tomorrow and pick up my license.


*You see, when you arrive there is a newcomers orientation that is mandatory to take before getting your license. Andrew and I went together but my name was not put on the list. So many things here are done by sponsorship (there are several different definitions for this but in our case it means Andrew is our sponsor because he is the employee) and so we didn't think my name needed to be put on the list. I didn't want to have to take the orientation again because it is boring and 90% of the information given does not pertain to civilians. Anyways, Andrew worked his magic and I was able to take the test