Adventures in Korean communication

Cellphones are everywhere in Korea, if you don't have one you are way behind and will probably get laughed at. I've had a phone here since I got here but it was a "pay-as-you-go" phone. Which meant that every month I had to hike down the street to a store and hand over some won to make sure it kept working. Occasionally I'd go through the won on my phone quicker than expected and suddenly I'd be without a phone. It happened at odd times. Usually while I was out of town or even on a weekend when I couldn't go add minutes so I was not accessible on a weekend. I have enough ways to get in touch with people it wasn't really a big deal for me except when I was out of Daegu and trying to meet up with people. My cellphone was in the name of a nice Korean guy who owns a cellphone store at the corner. I started talking to Sunny about her helping me get a phone in my name. She was more than willing and we took off from school one afternoon to visit a couple of stores in the area and get me a phone in my name that would direct bill from my bank account. We walked into 3 stores and they would be friendly but say nope we don't have the right type of phone to let a foreigner have. I was like is it because they are in Korean? Nope. Is it because they are afraid we will leave the country and not pay our bills. (well maybe.) Nope. If you want a phone in the name of a non Korean here. It can't shoot video. This is in a country where cellphones can be used to pay for everything from subways to food. You can listen to music, watch tv, play games, everything on the cellphones. But they lock them down so that foreigners can't use all the features. We eventually had to take a bus downtown and ended up with the phone in Sunny's name but auto-pay from my bank account.
It's just another reminder of how things work over here.