Advice on Tourist Visas in South Korea

Here's the question:

I will be finishing my current contract with a university at the end of August. I have an E1 visa until August 25. I am wondering if there will be any problem with me leaving Korea for a week or so and then come back on a tourist visa for the fall semester. I realize Americans have a 3 month tourist visa, so I would have to take a weekend trip to Japan or something to have it "reset." My plan is to take some online classes and maybe do some "part time work" and then go back on the job market for spring semester. My boyfriend and I have our own apartment, so housing is not a problem. I'm just curious if you know of any complications that can arise as a result of staying in Korea on a tourist visa for an extended period of time.

If I understand this correctly, you'll be finishing your E1 on the 25th and be leaving the country within the time allotted by Immigration only to return a week later on a tourist visa. So, if you were to return in early September on a tourist visa, you would be given 90 days in the country. That would give you until the end of November to depart once again. At that point, you could leave the country for a few days again and then come back on a fresh tourist visa until you find another gig and therefore visa sponsor.

I don't see any problem with this except for the fact that tourist visas are issued only with proof of through travel or a departing ticket. In most cases, you will not be issued a tourist visa without your departing ticket. That's easy to get around though. All you need to do is buy a refundable ticket to show to immigration. Once you're through customs and legally back in the country on a tourist visa, all you'll need to do is cancel the ticket and you're gold. There shouldn't be any problems if you follow those simple steps.

Luggage Weight Limitations for your Flight to South Korea

Here's the question:

ive just got a job in a public school in seoul in korea, im due to travel on the 23rd of august from the UK. i was wondering what the weight restrictions for luggage are?, your help would be greatly appreciated.

This question gets asked all the time on my Facebook group and no one really ever gets a solid answer. Why not? Well, weight restrictions typically depend on the airline. Some are more lenient than others. I would recommend contacting your airline and asking them. You should also consider that limitations and restrictions change so often that it would not be wise of me to offer advice. Typically, they will allow for a little more weight if you let them know you're going to be abroad for a year. There's a helpful website called "Luggage Guide" that gets updated semi-regularly and has a lot of good links, so drop by there and see what they think.

Rather than worrying about how much you can pack and whether you can push the limits, I would suggest packing as light as possible. Skimp on a few things. Many people get stressed about packing and try to cram everything in when they first come to Korea. This is not necessary. Take a look at my "What to Pack" post and start crossing some stuff off the list. You'll be happy that you did. Remember, South Korea is not a summer camp where you must rely on the canteen for supplies, much of what you need is here.
And if you did forget a thing or two, well you can always ask your parents to send you a package from home or you can ask me where to find it and I'll try my best to help out.

If anybody has any questions, just send me an email at asktheexpat@yahoo.com or leave a comment.

Ticket Reimbursement and Air Travel to South Korea

Here's the question:

I am coming to South Korea to teach English in August with CDI. I have to purchase my plane ticket, and I was wondering if you knew what the best airlines were. My third party recruiter, Aclipse, offers a travel agent, but I'm concerned this might be a scam. Also, CDI says that they will reimburse me for the ticket or only for 1,000,000 won expense (why?). If you have any info on this, I'd appreciate it. There appears to be little info on the net, sadly, about the flights and reimbursements. Current information, at least. Thanks again. I love the site, keep up the great work :-)

Mathew

Thanks for the kind words.

Purchasing tickets beforehand is always a little unnerving for new teachers. When I was doing my pre-Korea research years ago, I stumbled across many schools that required self-purchasing, but I decided that stay away from them. It just didn't seem worth the risk at that point and still, I would suggest that teachers insist that the school take care of flight arrangements. I know that this might not be possible as some schools have well-established rules. CDI is one of those schools, yet I would not be concerned about reimbursement from them. Chung Dahm Institute is a reputable school so -assuming you have talked to a couple current AND FORMER CDI teachers- I'd say that you should have very little to worry about on that front.

The choice of airlines depends largely on you. Since it's still May, I would spend some serious time scouring the web looking for the cheapest flight. The reason CDI caps your ticket price is to prevent you from taking the best of the best or "accidentally" adding any extra or extended stops along the way. I would double check with your school about the 1,000,000 won though. For a long time, the exchange rate was hovering around 1 USD: 1,000 won (which is probably where they got the 1,000,000 won limit from), but these days currencies and exchange rates can fluctuate drastically. Today, 1,000,000 won will only trade for 789 dollars. Depending where you're flying from, that might not even be enough to cover the flight, so see if you can get them to put a 1,000 DOLLAR limit on there rather than a won limit. I say that with no idea of whether they will accept it or not, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

I guess I should also mention that Korea is having a minor spat with teachers and swine flu and CDI in particular has closed down for a few days because of that "fear". It should be all cleared up by the time you arrive unless, of course, it turns into a hip summer protest like last years beef protests. I wouldn't worry about that though. If you're swine-free then you'll be fine.

For now, think about getting the dollar/won thing straightened out and maybe even send a current teacher an email and see what they think. Either way, suggesting an airline wouldn't help at this point. Deals change all the time. I'd start fishing around for cheap flights now since you have so much time before headind this way.

If anybody has any questions, just send me an email at asktheexpat@yahoo.com or leave a comment.