Keeping in touch while living in South Korea

42358POSTS

8 years ago

Hello everyone,

What are the best ways you've found for keeping in touch with friends and family back home while living in South Korea? How frequently do you stay in touch with loved ones?

Are there local equivalents to common instant messaging and online video calling services that you prefer or are more widely used?

If there is a sizeable time difference, how do you manage this?

Do you make international phone calls from a landline or mobile phone from South Korea? What do you think of the cost?

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Priscilla

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asacan New member

5POSTS

8 years ago

WhatsApp is indispensable! I have a Korean mobile phone (I don't even bother with a landline) with "unlimited data" (11GB/month at highest speed, then 2 GB/day at a lower data rate). I will also use Facebook Messenger with people who, for whatever reason, don't have WhatsApp. I speak to my parents using Skype.

I call my wife in the U.S. daily, my kids a few times/week and my parents about every other week. As for the time difference, I just schedule my calls for times I know they'll be at home, for my parents, I call fairly late in my night (their morning) and for my wife I call in my early afternoon (the end of her day). We're about to go through a time change (Daylight Saving Time ends in the U.S.), so it may introduce some minor annoyances as to when I can call my family.

Again, I don't have a land line, so I don't make international calls, I can't comment on that. My mobile phone doesn't allow for international calls to be made, so it's just the phone apps for calling internationally.