Korean Job Discussion Forums

inthewild · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Location: Korea

I want to take a vacation in between jobs. So do I have to do a visa run to Japan, then reenter? With a tourist visa? Then I have to do another run for a work visa when I'm hired at a new school?

hellofaniceguy · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Location: On your computer screen!

If you don't have a working visa...then of course...you'd have to enter korea on a tourist visa...leave, apply for a new working visa and come back.
What is wrong with lining up a gig BEFORE you leave.....submit the paperwork....the school is paying for your visa run anyway...just have the school FedEx the visa to wherever you are vacationing. Look for a position that is opening up a month down the road...or how ever long you want your vacation for.

inthewild · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Location: Korea

I was thinking of vacationing in Korea.

captain kirk · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

It wasn't a vacation, really, a three month buddhist retreat with monks sitting meditating all day and no talking. In Korea. When I applied for the next Korea working visa Incheon immigration made a fuss.
They wanted a statement, and contact phone numbers of those around who could vouch for me, of what I was doing for three months in Korea. I typed it out. Then they wanted it handwritten, the same thing. And so on.
Imagine their surprise when they called the temple (in retreats one isn't allowed to leave the temple grounds, isn't allowed phone calls or internet, outside reading material...just buddha) abbot and discovered I was in grey pajamas and not, as they feared, running around teaching privates. To whom, pheasants in the nearby forest?
For a vacation in Korea be prepared to have evidence showing you weren't teaching privates. Incheon immigration is known to be strict.

inthewild · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Location: Korea

Scenario: I get fired on 0 day's notice. I have to vacate my apartment over the weekend. I want to spend a month hanging around in Korea, not working.

I have to spend the $$$ to fly to Japan, re-enter on a tourist visa and then start my vacation?

During my vacation secure a job and the new school will pay for another visa run?

captain kirk · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

Yup. Saving money by eating ramyon all the way until you find the next job. Yummy. If you put tofu in, and hold back on the instant kochu powder you just might survive. And while in Japan be on the lookout for those earthquake clouds Whatthefunk warns about. Which can't be seen from within buildings Idea

Then...live to hagwon, hagwon to live Cool

can become your motto again.

inthewild · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Location: Korea

I'd eat well, I would just be losing money... since it is, after all, a vacation.

Is there something I'm missing here?

I know I could vacation in China, but I don't know the language. I could travel in Japan, but I hear it's expensive. Note: these aren't the only reasons I'm leaning towards Korea instead of anywhere else in the region.

I know enough Korean to survive and it'd be interesting to see the rest of the country that I've been living in.

I guess since I'd have to pay for both the costs out of and back into Korea, it'd be double the cost but...

JacktheCat · Joined: 08 May 2004

My advice.

Get a Korean job lined up that starts in a month or two.

Then go lie on a beach in Thailand for a month.

captain kirk · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

Where are you? Up around Seoul? The cheapest visa runs are known, I think, by looking on pusanweb. Maybe Tushima island taking the ferry. Since you're on vacation there's no hurry.
Did you get your letter of release and square up with immigration? I don't know why you'd want to hang around Korea not working. Once you work you've got weekends, afterhours to get familiar with Korea, as you say you'd like to do.
If you want to just chill out it's possible to hang out at Goje Island, rent a place for a month, and just sit by the sea there. Is that what you mean? That's what I'd do if staying in Korea for awhile not working. Soothing by the sea; study, meditate, whatever...Go down, ask around, find a little cottage kind of place to rent.

Son Deureo! · Joined: 30 Apr 2003

It sounds like you just want to extend your visa, which shouldn't be a problem. I've never tried to do it after being fired, though, just at the end of my contract term. All I had to do was go to Immigration with my passport, ARC, and a plane ticket showing that I was in fact planning on leaving the country and they extended my visa until my flight date. I think there was a small fee, maybe W30,000. They said up to thirty days was possible this way, as long as I wasn't looking for permission to work.

Buy a ticket, even if it's just a round trip ferry ticket or something like that, and you should be fine.