unearthed

I have two bank accounts in Korea. My Choheung Bank account, which I established in 2005 when I began working at Sookmyung Women's University,* has been useful as a repository for some of the odd cash I earned while in the States, after I had come home from several years in Korea. Choheung was eaten by Shinhan around 2006 or 2007, so it became my Shinhan Bank account. Unfortunately, I had established only a basic-level account with correspondingly rudimentary privileges; in 2005, this meant that I had only the most basic ATM card (and not a global one)-- not a problem while I was in Seoul, but a huge problem once I was in the States: I had no way to access whatever cash was in the account.

That there has been, for some time now, a cash reserve in my Shinhan account was something I knew. I left Korea with little in that account, but I accrued funds in 2008 (and 2009, after I'd come back from the walk) by doing odd jobs-- proofreading, mostly. The question was how much I had accrued, and I had no way to check. Unable to access my account online (I'm told that one can do this nowadays, but in 2005 I'd been told, right or wrong, that I wouldn't be able to), and stuck with a basic-level ATM card that I'd brought back with me from Korea, there was nothing I could do except mail the card back overseas and ask a friend to check my account. I came to this conclusion over a year ago, but delayed sending my banking materials until only a few weeks ago.

Two of my best buddies in Korea were available to help me out, and they offered their help at about the same time. I ended up mailing both of my bank cards and bank books to Charles, and just today he reported that I've got the lordly sum of nearly 1.7 million won, which is in the neighborhood of $1500 at the current exchange rate (roughly 1120 won to the dollar). So HELL, YES, I want that money pronto! Luckily, Charles is on the case, and will be wiring it in the next 24 hours. By early next week, then, I'll have more fundage than I've had in a while. This is great, great news.

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*I had affectionately referred to the place as "Smoo" on this blog because of its initials: SMU (Sook Myung University). Only later did I find out-- after checking SiteMeter and seeing Google searches for "hairy smoo" that led to my blog-- that "smoo" is actually dirty slang for vagina. Whoops.


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