Bless the intelligent folks who are working on Babel Fish. On Wednesday I went walking around the city trying to find a cell phone store where the clerk spoke some English. The first challenge was finding a store that actually could do a KTF contract for me (stores that did LG were every place). The second challenge was communicating with said clerks.

I finally found a store that could do what I needed them to do. Given the insane number of cell phone stores on the main road, it took me a surprisingly long time to find one.  And happily it’s about a two minute walk from my apartment.

We got most of the contract figured out with a lot of pointing and pantomime. Even if I had brought along my “Korean in Plain English” book, it wouldn’t have done a whole lot of good in this situation.

After being stuck for 10 minutes I wrote down Babel Fish’s web address and pointed to the computer. We got on Internet Explorer and with the help of Babel Fish, we were done in five minutes.

I also needed a charger for my phone.  I was surprised that the battery was still almost fully charged after sitting in my closet in Ohio for nearly a year.  So I opened up the little charging dock on my phone and said “chu-say-yo” (please give me).  The clerk (wonderful woman she was), hands me a box.  I open my wallet.  She says “No.  Service.”.

I’ll explain service better in the future, but essentially, she gave me the charger for my phone absolutely free.

Koreans are some of the most generous people I’ve ever met.