The Arrival Store: Preparing for Korea
I have successfully settled in Korea. It took a lot of work to prepare many things to settle in more quickly, however the Arrival Store helped me with the last few important items needed.
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What is the Arrival Store? The Arrival Store is specifically designed to help foreigners move to Korea. Focusing on mainly helping teachers, workers, and students. The Arrival Store also provides a large variety of phone plans to avoid dealing with Korean only billing. These phone plans can range from a brand new or used smart phones, simple phones, and sim cards. You have an option of either renting a phone (smart or simple), short contracts for less than two years on either simple or smart phones, or if you are planning on staying in Korea for a while, a two year contract. However, with the two year contract you will need an alien registration card. All of the other options do not require an alien registration card and you can start using your phone or sim card right away. The sim cards have two options which are prepaid sim cards or sim card & plan for more than 90 days. This is the option I went with since I wanted to keep my phone I brought from Canada. Just make sure you unlock your phone in your home country before arriving in Korea.
TAS Phone Plans
The Arrival Store provides many other things as well, such as “Arrival Packages“. Most of these packages are targeted towards those who are working in Korea and having their own place without it being furnished. There are six Arrival Packages named “The Minimalist”, “The Prepared”, “The Complete”, “Avalon Teachers Package”, “Kitchen Kit”, and “Bed in a Box”. Most of these package range from $60 – $400 USD.
If you don’t want or need to spend a lot of money on these packages, there is also an option to create your own package or just simply order the things you would need. In my case, I only ordered an LTE sim card for my Samsung Note 3 and a North American power transformer. This way I could save money on appliances such as a phone charger, computer charger and hair dryer. All together I only spent about $60.
If you are going to order a power transformer, The Arrival Store recommends to watch this video to avoid any potential harm.
My Power Transformer
The Arrival Store recommends you place your order one week before your arrival in Korea. This way you can get your package as soon as you arrive!