My First Car

I mentioned in an earlier blog post, busing Boseong, that my days of taking the bus will soon be over, that day has finally come! Last week I bought my first car from another English teacher who lived in Boseong and is now leaving Korea. It is a 2002 Hyundai Verna with about 100,000 km or 63,000 miles. It’s got a beautiful gold paint job as you can see above, I’ve been thinking maybe I’ll get gold rims to match and put a little spoiler on the back so I can really stick out among the sea of black white and silver cars. With 9 out of 10 cars consisting of these three colors no other country has a higher proportion. I like being the 1 out of 10.

Getting my Korean license

I wasn’t getting a Korean license from scratch, instead I was exchanging my New York one. It wasn’t a difficult process once I had everything I needed in Korea, but It would have been impossible if not for my Mom and Dad. First I needed to have my license notarized and apostilled, luckily I had a spare license at home. The reason why I have it is a funny story, someone I worked with wanted it to use as a fake ID about three years ago, so I got a new one. A couple months later I received that license in the mail saying something like, “I found this on the floor at this bar in Binghamton, I thought I’d mail it back to you” I was never in Binghamton, but my friend who had it obviously lost it. He didn’t tell me and when I saw him over the summer never mentioned it (he was still under 21 and I would have given back to him), so I held on to it. Luckily I did. My mom had to get it notorized, then it had to be taken to the county clerk office to get verified. My dad then had to take it to the Secretary of State office in NYC. It was tax busy season, but he still found the time. Then they mailed it to me. Once I had it, I had to go to the DMV office for the region which is in a city called Naju; two buses, a taxi and a little over two hours to get there. Once there I asked someone for help, luckily she spoke enough English and helped me fill out the form that was only in Korean. I had to take an eye test and a 40 question written test. I imagined the written test would be logical and I’d pass it easily, however when I read the first question I was worried it wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. It asked, “how many points are deducted from your license if you’re driving a truck that is overloaded?”. I had to guess. Another question asked about what is an ambulance not allowed to do. I had to guess. On top of  some random questions, the English translations made them difficult to answer. For example, they showed a picture of a car going downhill with an intersection and stop light at the bottom, the question asked “what’s the safest way to go down the hill?” but all the answers started with a collision… a collision with the car turning left, a collision from behind while breaking at the light, etc. When I submitted the exam you receive your score instantly, I got a 69 and my heart dropped. I thought you needed a 70 to pass, but she told me I passed. I was confused but you only needed a 60. Once I passed I went back downstairs to the lady at the counter from before, gave her my stuff, waited 10 minutes and received my license!

And just like that, I now own my first car in Korean!