Seoulkorea-info visa

I went into the language institute at my school to inquire about changing my 30 day visa here to a D-4 student visa as described on the website of the school. I had all the paperwork I thought I would need in the form of pictures, school admission and enrollment letters, tuition receipt and bank statement.

“Oh you have that stamp in your passport. Hmm…you’ll need to go to Japan twice and come back since you don’t have the short-term stay visa.”

What? I have to what? Leave the country, once or maybe twice in three months? I was supposed to have applied for a special tourist visa before I came? What…are you serious? What the…

This is a pretty good summary of my first 20 minutes of conversation with the administrator. My friend Craig and I both seem to have missed this whole C-3 visa application thing and came to Korea thinking the stamp we get on arrival is a standard tourist visa.

I was not happy about further complicating my already crazy travel schedule this summer and dishing out hundreds more dollars to go to Busan, hop on a boat to Fukuoka, Japan and either apply for a C-3 visa there or go to Japan twice.

This would not have been an issue if I simply used my Norwegian passport and I could always go to Japan once and come back to Korea on the Norwegian passport. Norwegians get 90 days in Korea, along with most of the developed world. Canada gets 180. Why does the US get 30? To put it simply, it is because we treat the world like shit. To be specific, we probably give Koreans 30 days so that is what they give us. Serves us right.

That’s it, I’m no longer traveling on my US passport by default when I go anywhere outside the US. Gone are the days when Imperial Citizenship provided the most convenient way to travel. For example, I have discovered that traveling as a Norwegian saves me money on visa applications to China, gets me into Chile for free (instead of $70 or something), and probably slightly lowers my chances of being shot or blown up.

When will this whole nation-state madness end? Probably not in my lifetime but we can all do our part in contributing to its peaceful and gradual destruction. For now it is mostly selfish traveling bourgeois types such as myself who complain about it on the practical side. Now let me tell you about my adventures at the Seoul Immigration Office…

So I go to the Seoul immigration office to figure out if there is any alternative to going to Japan and, say, coming back as a Norwegian. The Seoul Immigration Office is located at Omokgyo station on the purple line 5. The map provided by the immigration office is completely useless. There is a better map in this PDF. Directions: Go out exit 7 and keep walking in the direction you emerge (there is a Skylark family restaurant across the street to your left). Keep going in that direction for about 10 minutes and the large road will branch off and curve to the right and you’ll see a sign for the immigration office (150m) and as you continue to walk you’ll see an old five floor or so building off to the left as you approach the next intersection.

Outside, venders were selling world flags and international telephone cards. Inside, there was no air conditioning on…that is a really bad sign. One thing that definitely contributes to the crankiness of bureaucrats in places like immigration offices is a lack of air conditioning.

The first interesting thing I notice about the Seoul Immigration Office is that despite the fact it services mostly foreigners, there are almost no signs in any language but Korean. In fact, the guy at the information desk on the first floor speaks no English or any other of the Asian languages that I speak. For that matter, he didn’t seem to have much information either, even when I spoke in Korean. We proceeded to the 2nd floor which was helpfully marked, “Visa” on the map.

There you will find five or six windows labeled “China” and two for “Other” and you can take a ticket for your country. America is under “Other.” After waiting an hour and finally getting to speak to someone, I decided (Shock!) to be completely honest with the guy and tell the whole story. I asked if I could renew and at first he seemed to indicate that this was fine and I should go to the first floor, then he said I could only renew for 7-15 days and then he explained that I should go to Japan and apply for a C-3 visa there. What is this? Is the whole country trying to support Fukuoka tourism or the Busan ferry industry?

We were about to leave but I could have sworn that I had seen on some website that Americans could extend not just 15 days but up to 90. When I managed to annoy the information guy on the first floor enough with my bad Korean, and displayed my complete dissatisfaction that he seemed have no “information” about the visa extension process, he grumpily took me into the “Residences” office on the first floor and asked how long a tourist visa could be extend. 60 more days, for a total of 90! Excellent, I made up with the nice “information” guy, thanked him, and let him return to his chatting with the janitor.

Then I took a ticket for “Applications” and waited another 2 hours in this second waiting room for my turn to come, again a hot room without air conditioning. They had two TVs in the room and I managed to finish all my remaining Korean homework and watch more American pro-wrestling than I have ever watched in one sitting. The rest was easy, I simply handed in an application, 30,000 won in “revenue stamps” (purchased in the basement at a candy stand), and showed the officer my airplane ticket to leave the country in August and all was well…the passport was stamped and processed within 20 minutes of handing in the application.

So the lessons learned and recorded here should future Seoul National University Korean language students stumble upon this posting: 1) If you have a choice, don’t be American. 2) You need to apply for a special visa before going to Korea if you want to stay more than 30 days as an American, it is called C-3, and has apparently a fast 24 hour turnaround at Korean embassies. 3) If you don’t and come to Korea anyways, you can extend your visa by an additional 60 days from the original 30 if you pay 30,000 and are willing to brave the immigration office.

Travel Seoul Korea