Banks ( and by that I mean Wells Fargo) suck

Banks suck. Especially Wells Fargo. Nothing about Wachovia was made better by this merger. I never really had that many people with Wachovia, but I've had all kinds of issues with Wells Fargo. Before I left for Korea, I went in person to a bank branch to ask what I needed to do so that my card wouldn't get blocked for having strange charges. The lady at the bank told me you can only make those requests by phone and gave me a number. So I called, explained the situation, and supposedly they made some notation in the computer to prevent a block. Well I used my card with no problem (or so I thought). I check my balance online and see that the purchase has been pending for almost a week. I understand that it can take longer to go through from a foreign country, but a week? So I emailed asking why it was taking so long and to double check that there wasn't a block. I get an email back with an explaination about using it as a debit (enter PIN) v. charge (no PIN) and something saying there's no block. However, when I tried to use my card tonight - decline! The only reason this sucks is because I don't have a Korean bank card yet. You have to get an alien registration card before you can get a Korean bank account. Good news is my health check came back - I'm healthy (or at least not going to endanger the public health of Korea). So my boss has to send my health check and my passport away to get my alien card. This takes about a week. Again, this wouldn't be a big deal except I am running out of cash. My boss told me if I need money to ask him since he knows I don't have a bank account yet. But I feel weird asking. I should have enough to get me to the weekend, and if my card still doesn't work, I'll ask my boss. Luckily, I don't have to pay any bills etc. yet so it's not like I'm going to go into debt or get in trouble or anything. Basically, the point of all that was to say I wish Wells Fargo wasn't dumb.

On a different topic, I went to dinner with Claire tonight (where my card got declined). We split what was called "Yogurt chicken salad". It's pieces of chicken with a sweet chili glaze, and lettuce and peppers with a yogurt dressing. It was very good. The weird part is that when it comes out, there are 2 big blobs of frozen yogurt on top of the salad. I don't know how Koreans eat it, but we took the blobs off and ate them seperately. The froyo was very good - not quite as sweet as US vanilla, but close, like a hippie yogurt store vanilla. They also served pickles and pickled radish cubes as sides, which is apparently typical in many resturants.