The Kindness of Strangers

Today I went to pay my utility bills. I've never had to do this in Korea before. In my first job part of the contract was that the school paid all the utility bills. In my second job my roommate and I gave the bills and the money to the real estate man and he paid them for us. In this new job I'm on my own.

I went searching for a post office because my Korean friend had told me that if I took the bills there, with my money, they would pay for them. So off I trotted hoping to bump into a post office. After ten minutes of not bumping into one I decided that maybe it would be a good idea to ask someone where to go. So I looked up the word for post office in my dictionary and in my head I practiced a sentence that I hoped would get me the information I needed and then approached a likely looking lady on the street.

My sentence must have been ok, since she started looking on the Korean internet - the one I can't understand - via her phone - for the nearest post office. Then armed with her information I headed off to snaffle a taxi to take me on the next leg of my journey. Also managed enough understandable Korean for the taxi driver to get me where I wanted to go.

Then at the post office I discovered that that particular post office did not do the bill paying thing. It was a little one that only does the mail. But the lady took me in her own car to the closest bank and then showed me how to use the ATM to pay my bills and she made sure there was a bank assistant to continue helping me before she left and went back to her job. All I have to say is WOW, talk about going the extra mile. the Korean postal service should be proud of their staff!!!!!