In this vlog, Kristin Fagerback recounts her arrival in South Korea on April 26, 2020 and the mandatory 14‑day self‑isolation process imposed during the COVID‑19 pandemic. She describes navigating roughly seven distinct immigration and health checkpoints: temperature measurement, placement of a blue identification necklace, presentation of her alien registration card (ARC) and lease contract, and a phone verification call to her landlord. A brief misunderstanding about a costly "foreigner quarantine" is resolved when officials recognize her residence status. After clearance, she is given a sticker indicating her quarantine status and is escorted by police to the airport exit. Limited airport bus service forces a two‑hour wait for a single bus that transports all arrivals to Gangnam Guchang Hospital rather than a regular bus stop. At the hospital she completes extensive paperwork, undergoes a nasopharyngeal COVID‑19 swab (which hurts), and, after testing negative, is taken home in a 119 ambulance because public transport is prohibited. Upon returning home, she must download a government‑issued self‑quarantine health‑check app and log her temperature twice daily for the two‑week period. The video ends with an invitation for questions and a promise to share more details about the health package and quarantine procedures in a future video.
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Hi! Hi! So my name is Kristin Fagerback and I'll share with you a little bit of my experience of— sorry, that was a weird introduction. I'll share with you a little bit of my experience of getting into Korea and being in the 2-week mandatory quarantine. Well, I'm in the self-isolation. Um, so first when you get into Korea, there's like— immigration is huge. Like, there's, I would say, like 7 different checkpoints if you want to count like all the little ones, and you have to fill in a bunch of health papers and they check your temperature. And, um, your experience may be different than mine. I landed in Korea April 26th, and, um, then, um, yeah, so first I went through like the health quarantine checker, and they had to record my temperature, and then they put like this blue necklace thing on me, and then I had to go through the foreigner immigration area, and I had to show my alien registration card and proof of residence. And so I showed my real estate contract my lease contract. And then they ended up calling my landlord twice and just like— because someone has to be responsible of you, I guess, or I don't know. I didn't want to bother my landlord, but they called him twice and like make sure I lived there and told them the whole situation of I'm coming to Korea and I have to be in the 2 weeks of quarantine. But all of a sudden I thought that I might have to go into the other quarantine, like the one that you have to pay $100 a day and it's $1,400. Because one guy's like, "Oh no." Like one of the workers was like, "Oh no, you'll probably have to go into that foreigner quarantine, blah blah." And I was like, "But I have a residence here and like I still have the ARC card even though it's expiring soon." Like I have to change my visa soon, which is another story. Anyways, um, so I got past all of that, and then you get to an area and they put like a sticker on you after the immigration that shows like, I guess it means like where you're going or if you're allowed to leave the airport by yourself, because to me it seemed that the people that have to pay the mandatory 14-day government quarantine have to like stand right by the exit of the customs and they have to wait for someone to pick them up. Long story short, they tried keeping me there for a second, but I stayed calm. I was like, "I have a residence still. I don't know what they're doing." And anyways, eventually they let me go out of the exit area, but then you can't like leave the airport. There was police like standing by the exit of the airport. And they asked me, like, do you want to take a taxi or a bus? And I was like, okay, I'm going to take a bus. And so I go try to the bus place they direct me. It's like the airport's very strange. It's interesting but strange. And then you can take a bus. But that day there was only 8 arrivals into Incheon. And so there was only one bus going to my area of Gangnam and like one bus time, which was 8 p.m. So I had to wait like 2 hours till my bus left. And then they told me that bus doesn't like take me to the normal bus stop, airport bus stop in Gangnam in Cheonsa-dong. First, they have to send all of us, all the people coming from the airport on that bus, they have to send us to the Gangnam Guchang Hospital. And they checked me for COVID, which I tested negative. And yeah, so it's late at night and the bus drops you off at a hospital near Gangnam Guchang. You fill out all this paperwork. Paperwork, and then they tested me for COVID, like swabbed my mouth and then the thing up your nose, which kind of hurt. Then after I do that, finally you get to go home, but they don't— you can't like take public transportation, so they ended up sending me home in an ambulance. Like, they were like, okay, now you're gonna be transported home after the hospital. So they're like, they point to me where to go, like you have to go past the white tents, and they pointed me where to go, and they're like, oh yeah, you're gonna go in here and like they point at the yellow 119 ambulance. I think that's what it is, 119. And so I ended up riding an ambulance back home to my residence. And anyways, so then you get home and as you may already know, there's an application that they made me download at the airport that it's a self-quarantine health check and you have to get it checked twice a day. Anyways, so that was my immigration experience. And if you're interested in what kind of health package they give you and how the quarantine— self-isolation quarantine is in Korea, I'll post that in my channel so you can check it out. Thanks for watching, and if you have any questions, leave them below. Um, I appreciate if you like my video and subscribe. Have a great day!
