On Korea's Conveniences

Every time anyone asks me how I find South Korea, I would always say that living here is the conveniently rushed kind. And almost next to that, so as to emphasize more on the convenience (and avoid the pitfalls of the “rushed”), I would tell them how the country's efficient subway system has helped me a great deal with my existence here. Anyone should see me how I tell it to people, because almost always after I say that, they would ask me back if there actually exists a railway system in my own country. I sound that amazed (or rather foolishly primeval eh? Bwahaha). I think I have written a post about Korea's subway system before.

Now where I find another convenience here in South Korea is in its internet service. It will probably be the second best thing that I will miss most about the country next to the subway train-- especially now that I have finally given in to the services of Torrent (Woot!). I just thought that I can rake in as much movies as I want at effin’ faster speeds here. I got overly scared before, given the virus concerns that came along with Torrent's use, but recalling how one movie download back home would take 2-3 hours, there’s no way that I would not like how South Korea can do it in just 30 minutes!

94.3% of South Korea's households have broadband access (2008 OECD data), and they pay an average monthly subscription of 37USD. It is pretty low compared to the average rates in OECD countries. Monthly household utilities are way inexpensive in South Korea (I mean come on, the country's even in the news right now for nuclear power potential), that work colleagues can always ask me to turn back on what I would switch off. Yeah, that was one funny encounter that I had in the office. I switched off the lights in the room where we just conducted a seminar, yet my senior asked me to undo it and told me not to worry because “utilities are cheap” in South Korea. If my mom were here, he would have scolded that guy for not conserving energy!

And that was plain first world attitude killing on a third world's little effort in helping our planet! Haha.