Korean Bank Account / Won Rate

So who would have thought it took 4 hours to open an account at Woori Bank. We liked their baseball team, so why wouldn't be like the bank?
But when there's a language barrier, you have a hard time getting an account open. Koreans don't like to speak English, because it really embarrasses them and they always feel like they doubt their skills. So if a Korean speaks English to you and they don't seem comfortable, they're outside their comfort zone, so you have to be nice. They worry you'll think less of them since they struggle with English. And it is a hard language for them to learn since it's completely illogical. We had help getting things done, but now I have 2 accounts- one that works like a checking account and I can use the ATMs for, and another one that's based on stocks for the interest rate. That's right, in Asia banks own stock- so their economy can tank really fast, but they usually have the government step in a lot faster than ours. But you can also make a ton of money when you allow your banks to own stock.

So they don't send you a monthly statement at these banks. You have passport-sized books that you feed into the ATM and it'll print your amount. At least the website and ATMs are in English, so that's nice. But you have to ask the ATM how much you have in your account and if it's outside of certain hours they charge you 1000 won! And I have this thing that has random numbers on it so I can check my amounts online, but it changes the numbers all the time. It's a pretty cool security feature for that. No one can hack your account that doesn't have the device.

The Won Rate is around 1500 to the dollar again. That's bad for their economy, so we have to do our part by buying more stuff. We got another pan for the tabletop stove and made beef bulgogi tonight and it turned out awesome. I think the Korean cuisine is not a bad way to go. So I'll have to change a few bucks over to won and put it all in my new bank account.

We love our new jackets we got at Osan. I think they look really good. I need to get Julie a helmet that has dragons on it like mine. But I'm also going to get a half helmet like hers- but it won't be pink.