Assorted Korean Observations

All right, I’m stranded in Narita waiting for a massively delayed flight so I’m going to take this chance to jot down some random thoughts that didn’t make it into my Korean posts:

• Korean donuts are not the shape you think they are! (Spoiler: they are shaped like a long braid. They are also not glazed. But they do call them donuts!)
• A lot of coffee shops give out beepers, you know, those hockey puck-like items that vibrate when your table is ready? But they give them out for every order, so I would often go into a cafe, order a tea, the barista would give me a beeper, then pour water and a tea bag into a cup and go beep me mere seconds after I’d sat down. I could just wait!
• Related to the point above, it’s shocking just how tech-reliant everyday activities are in Korea. For example, a lot of restaurants have an iPad outside for people to sign onto a waiting list, requiring a Korean phone number. Others make you place your order at a machine by the entrance, or via iPads on every table. Sometimes these gadgets can be useful but most of the time they felt more inconvenient to me than the lo-fi version. Not speaking Korean pretty much disqualified me from going into many iPad restaurants…
• Elevators in Korea do not close unless you press the Close Doors button!
• A lot of restaurants have “self-serve” stations where you can pour yourself some water, or even get yourself some more kimchi or even rice. I hate that in so many European restaurants they give you a death glare if you dare order tap water.
• The subway announcements play a jingle when a train is coming: in Seoul it was a triumphant parade trumpet march kind of thing. In Busan, appropriately maritime, it was a booming boat horn that made me jump every time.
• My Korean convenience store ranking: CU > GS25 > emart24 > 7-11. The CUs were bigger, had pleasant purple branding, and a good selection of stuff. The 7-11s I saw were almost universally tiny and looked rundown, unlike in Japan or Thailand.
• Tax refunds are not really worth it! I did it in two purchases and I got a refund of at most 7%. I guess it’s better than nothing, and scanning your passport and receipts at the tax refund kiosk at the airport takes one minute, but unless you’re buying something expensive like a luxury item or a smartphone it’s not gonna save you more than like €5.
• In preparation for this trip, I learned to read Korean. It is not strictly necessary, because almost every sign also displays Latin characters, but it came in handy soooo many times that I recommend you at least spend a couple of afternoons learning the handful of characters that make up the Korean alphabet. For the subways it’s fine, but in buses sometimes the signs were only in Korean or only some stops would show up in English.
• And lastly, a very good piece of advice that I was given prior to my trip: don’t assume that the place you’re looking for is on the ground floor! Many restaurants are on second or third floors of tall buildings and you’ll need to look for their side entrance!