Korean Consulate in Chicago

Remember in my last post how I described my plan for the next two weeks? Yeah, totally isn't happening like that. Let me fill you in on all the events that have taken place in the last week.

Last Tuesday morning (March 20th), I had to be up at 4:45 am. Totally not my usual routine. I was a little afraid that I would over-sleep my alarm or fall asleep driving to where I needed to be. My fear was needless because when I did my morning check of the world (email, facebook, yahoo!, and the New York Times) I saw that I had an email from South Korea with my interview number - definitely a whole week earlier than was expected. The adrenaline kept me awake and I began freaking out.

I called the Korean consulate in Chicago later that morning to receive a time and date for my required interview. It was really odd to call a number and immediately get the menu recording (you know, the whole "Thank you for calling ____. If you know your party's extension, you may dial it at any time. Please press '1' for Korean and please press '2' for English" routine) in which I did not understand anything except "Please press '2' for English." My first thought was, "I had better get used to not understanding much" and my second thought was, "People really shouldn't complain about offering a Spanish selection...it's tough when you don't understand." I think I'm of the opinion that if you are going to complain about all the Spanish in the USA - on the telephone menus, in Walmart or other stores, in government offices, or on signs downtown - then you had better know first-hand what it is like to not understand the dominant language before you start whining and complaining.

Back to the main subject though...

The kind Korean lady on the phone told me that the Chicago office does not hold interviews anymore. (Is this new policy nation-wide?) I asked her what I needed to bring with me to the consulate and I was informed that I should bring my passport, one passport-sized photo, the visa application formed - filled out, signed, and with the interview number written in the proper location on top, and the $45 application fee. I didn't have a specific date I needed to be there and could drop off the forms at my convenience. I was busy taking care of my (pretty hilarious) little cousins Tuesday and Wednesday (along with the beginnings of organizing my messy, messy room) and I had to work the majority of the day on Thursday, so I was not able to get downtown until Friday.

On Friday morning I caught one of the last rush-hour trains downtown, exited the station and saw the POURING rain, decided NOT to walk 1.5 miles without an umbrella, and figured that the water taxi ($3 from Madison to Michigan) was significantly cheaper than a regular taxi. It had finished raining by the time the water taxi docked and I made my way to the Korean consulate in the NBC tower. The consulate is on the 27th floor and so one must use the second bay of elevators. I still can't figure out how to call the elevator because the sole button I saw to push read "push only in case of an emergency." If that had been written in Korean I would have summoned the fire department and been really confused when they and not the elevator showed up. Moral of this story? I really need to be literate over there. But I digress...

An elevator eventually came (despite my doubts) and I zoomed up to the 27th floor. I by-passed the main doors and followed the sign that said "Visa and passport to the right." Inside was a small room, plain and mostly undecorated, with so many signs written in Korean. A few of the signs had an English translation underneath and I was grateful; though I did sound out the Korean letters above the "Visa" translation and found out that particular word is a cognate. I waited in the "visa" line behind a guy. There was no one at our window and he was just standing there impatiently, holding his THICK stack of papers. I became nervous because I just had my one piece of paper (the visa application form) and my passport, money, and photo. A lady arrived and sat down behind our window after about ten minutes or so of waiting. She began submitting his visa application (apparently he was representing two people who could not be there in person), but couldn't complete the application because he was missing a signature and the job contract. He left and it was my turn. I approached the lady and handed her all my stuff. She asked me to make a copy of the front page of my passport at the copy machine in the corner of the room. When she typed in the interview number (the one I had carefully written at the top of my visa application form) a screen popped up and all my information came up in Korean along with one of my previously-submitted pictures. She then completed any blank fields and told me I could pick up my passport the 29th of March, anytime after 3 pm.

It did rain the rest of the day and I was quite soaked when I arrived home from the city. I heard it rains a lot in South Korea so I am currently debating if I want to bring my lovely Target rain boots (that only cost $7) instead of donating them. I am currently procrastinating organizing, cleaning, and packing. I don't have a plane ticket yet, though I am expecting to fly out sometime around the 2nd or so. I will arrive during the school's spring break and I am VERY grateful that I'll have a few days to settle in and adjust to the time change before beginning to teach. I did look up flights on Kayak.com and all the flights leave in the early morning (6-8 am with a few at 9 or 10). I think I prefer flights to Europe - those leave in the afternoon so I can sleep in before a long trans-Atlantic flight. Who gets any rest on airplanes anyways? We'll see how this trans-Pacific flight goes. I think I'll fly through San Francisco; it should be 18+ hours of travel time in air time and a short layover. I hope I get an aisle or a window seat though...