Year One - Getting Wired

Hi guys

Life is So different than back home. Not just because I am in another country but because the population of the city is so much larger.

The city really doesn't start coming alive until the afternoon. Most businesses seem to open around 1-2 PM. The bars don't close until the last customer leaves. Whether that is at midnight or 4am, or 7am. :)

Food and drink is VERY inexpensive. Especially if you eat local.

Except for the main streets which are 4 lane or more, most streets would be considered 1 way in Canada and the US because of how people park.The only problem is that people still use them BOTH ways. It can lead to some nasty honking matches. ;) People tend to park wherever they can as well. Which can lead to some interesting parking patterns.

I will try and write something more up when I have the time

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The way this letter was sent is more interesting than the letter itself to me. I sent it from my own ISP in Korea. When I finally moved into my long term apartment I got it installed. They were called the day before I moved in and the guy was there to install it at noon the next day.

Back home this process would have taken at LEAST a week. Or longer. Or wouldn't happen.

When I made the switch to a cable modem, or thought I was, it was SO frustrating. First I had to call MT&T and when you finally get a real person to talk to ask IF my area had high speed internet yet. The woman said yes. Sweet, I had expected no. So I made an appointment for someone to come by and hook me up. It would be THREE WEEKS before they could come. The

wait would be worth it I thought.

Two weeks goes by painfully slow on a 2500 BAUD dial up modem. Yes I said two weeks not

three. In the morning a week before my appointment date the phone rang. It was mT&T calling

to tell me that I was NOT in their area for high speed internet yet. It took them 2 bloody weeks to figure that out. What a bunch of morons. I vented, but not too explosively. I didn't know if it was the same person who told me I was in theh area.

A week goes by. An MT&T truck pulls into our yard. The guy says he is here to hook up the cable modem. What the fuck? I told him about my phone call the week before. He didn't know anything about it and had a work report saying to come and install it.

Great! I can get it. The person who called me screwed up. He gets everything hooked up but the modem won't work. He calls the office to find out that ... HIGH SPEED INTERNET IS NOT AVAILABLE IN MY AREA! What a bunch of fucking morons.

After telling them off I decided I would not get it through them when it was available.

Unfortunately I had to swallow my pride when it was made available in my area 3 months later. There was no other provider available. I had to start the whole process over again. It still took three weeks.

It was SO much easier getting internet hooked up in Korea in 2001 than in Canada. It seems to be even easier now. I will miss that when I go back to Canada.