I realized there are a few more bits about Korea I need to write about.
I miss my motorcycle. I really, really do.It was a great way to get to and from work, fantastic for runs up to Seoul, and sure beat the hell out of the bus or the subway for getting over to Bundang to visit friends.
Sadly, not all memories of the bike are good ones.
I lucked out and found a buyer with no real problems. Well, no problems as far as the buyer went. The hassles came with the actual paperwork involved.
Buying and selling vehicles can be troublesome enough sometimes, but to do it in another country where you don’t really speak the language can be an even bigger hassle. Korea, like some other Asian countries, uses “name stamps” to sign official documents – and that’s cool. Some of them look pretty neat, and they strike me as being much more official than just signing your name.
Thing is, they’re pretty much a “locals only” kind of deal.
Which is all well and good, until you have to have one. You see, in Korea buying a vehicle is a very simple process. You give somebody money, they give you the keys and off you go. DMV is your hassle, but it’s not an insurmountable one.
Selling a vehicle, on the other hand, is not so simple. In order to do that, you have to give the buyer an official receipt. What makes a receipt official?A name stamp.
So, a few days before I was due to leave Korea, I had to buy a stamp. That’s no big deal. $4 and 10 minutes later and I’ve got my stamp. That’s the easy part. Just having a stamp isn’t enough. The stamp has to be official as well. So off to city hall I go, to get my stamp registered. Ordinarily not a big deal.
Just so long as you don’t get hit by a car on the way there.
Yup, the day before I was going to sell the bike, I got hit. How’s that for shitty timing? I was tooling down the road, just a few blocks from city hall, when some asshole decides he doesn’t need to wait to pull out from his parking space. I swerve, but it’s not enough. My right ankle and right side panel get clipped by Mr. Impatient’s bumper. I’m pissed, but not feeling any pain – and it was entirely his fault – so I don’t stop. I make my way to city hall to take care of my name stamp business.
It’s only after I get there that I realize part of my motorcycle is missing.
After pulling into a parking space, I looked down at my ankle to make sure it wasn’t messed up. It wasn’t hurting, but I didn’t want to go wandering around city hall if I was bleeding or anything. (Certainly not after leaving the scene of an accident.) My ankle was scraped, but the side panel of my bike is completely gone.
FUCK!!!
So, it’s back on the bike and back to the scene. Mr. Impatient is gone, but I can hear a bit of plastic being repeatedly being run over by traffic.
Lovely.
I grab it, and it’s not too horridly screwed up. It’s scraped and cracked, but will still stay in place on the bike.
(The white paint on the muffler came from the jackass’ car as well. I can only hope his shit was looking as screwed up as – or worse than – mine.)
I slap it on and head back to city hall to conduct my business. At least that part of my day goes smoothly.
I stopped in to see my mechanic on the way home to find out how much it’d cost to replace to side panel. Turns out you can only get them in a set (left and right), but they’re cheap. Only about $30 for the pair. Of course, they take 3-4 days to come in, by which time I’ll be in Japan.
I called the buyer when I got home and let him know what the deal was. He agreed that it sucked, but we worked on the price and were both happy with the sale terms. He took possession of the bike the next day and we both got what we wanted out of the deal.
Now, I know some of you might be thinking, “but Drew, leaving the scene of an accident is very bad!” Well, it all depends on where you are. In Korea, it’s a pretty common thing. Just about everybody drives a cheap car, and most of them look like crap anyways, so nobody seems to worry about dents and scrapes all that much.
At least, that’s how it looked to me, so I just went with it. ^.^