In this vlog, Kristin recounts her two‑week mandatory self‑isolation after arriving in South Korea on April 26, 2020. She explains how the Korean government enforces quarantine through a health‑monitoring app that requires twice‑daily temperature logs, location tracking, and police oversight—illustrated by a case where a foreigner was caught leaving his residence and deported. A quarantine officer contacts her via Kakao, visits her home, and delivers a care package that includes masks, a thermometer, trash bags, cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, paperwork, and a flower. She is offered a choice between a food package (rice and other items) or a ₩100,000 cash transfer to a Korean bank account, which she selects. Kristin shares practical tips: setting alarms for log submissions (9 AM and 4 PM), responding promptly to officer messages, arranging trash pickup, and understanding the app’s background location tracker. She invites viewers to share their own quarantine experiences in Korea and asks for questions.
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Hi, um, so I'm Kristin and I've made another video on what my experience was in going through the Korean immigration during corona. If you want to watch that, that's in my channel, but carry on. I'm making a continuation of everything that happened. So, um, so I'm in the self-isolation quarantine for 2 weeks. Mandatory for Korea. And so I'm in my house in Korea. I'm not allowed to leave. There was a report of a foreigner leaving to go downstairs to a local convenience store. And you have a tracker. The Korean government's tracking you on the mandatory application you have to download, health application. The police showed up within 12 minutes and found the foreigner and deported him. So you really can't leave your house, and some people think that even like your neighbors are like accounting. I don't know about that. I don't think so, but I could be wrong. Anyways, so my first day of arriving in Korea was April 26th, and so my last day of quarantine is May 10th. And so the first 2 days in quarantine, every— you have to fill out the health application twice a day, so check your temperature twice a day. Um, and so about my 3rd day into quarantine, I— or my 2nd day into quarantine, a health officer, um, called my landlord, and my landlord called my real estate agent to try to get to me because like Korean phone problems. Um, but I have my American phone with me. Anyways, so the quarantine officer contacted me and like then shared her Kakao and said she's gonna come visit me on my third day of quarantine. So she came to my house and then she brought like a care package and informed me of a food package I could get too. And so you get like— this is kind of a care package, kind of. Then you can get a food package too, which I'm not sure what it is, but from what I saw of other people, they get rice and some random stuff. I think it depends where you live in Korea. But you don't have to get the food package. Instead, I just got, I think, ₩100,000 sent to my bank account because my quarantine officer, they give you the option: do you want the food package or do you want $100,000 sent sent to your Korean bank account. So I was like, I'll take the ₩100,000 sent to my Korean bank account, then I can do whatever with it. So essentially the Korean government like paying for my quarantine, which is cool. And then yeah, so in this care package, I'll show you what you get. You get a bunch of masks, like tons. I didn't count how many. Then you get surgical masks. 2. And then you get a trash, like a, uh, this, because you can't— like a trash bag, sorry, brain fart English— because you can't leave to go take your trash out, I guess. So it sucks, but they said they're gonna pick up the trash, um, after 2 weeks. And then you get a thermometer because you have to check your temperature every day and it's like, it's kind of a strange thermometer. But so don't worry about not having a thermometer, they should give it to you. If not, message your quarantine officer and ask her for it. And then they gave me this like Dr. Q cleaning thing, and then they give you like a bunch of papers and stuff and hand sanitizer, but I'm— I've already used that. And she gave me a flower too. Very lovely. So it says like happy, so yellow happy flower. Anyways, so that's the quarantine procedure I have to do. So I set 2 alarms every day, one at 9 AM and one at 4 PM, because if I don't— if you don't log, or like for my situation, if I don't log my temperature and how I feel in the quarantine self-isolation application before 10 AM and before 5 PM, then the health officer messages me and like, "Hey, you should check your temperature and log it and submit it to the app," because your quarantine officer is checking your app. And then yeah, there's a location tracker on your app, like it's like running in the background sometimes, so it's to see if you've left or not. So anyways, I don't know if that's like how your situation is going to be. I live in Gangnam-gu, so my situation is taken care of by this gu, my quarantine. And oh yeah, they also give like a cute little bag letter thing. I'll get it. So yeah, I got this, and that's— and then they gave me a little letter too. So yeah, it was nice. This was for the flowers they brought me. Anyways, I'm interested to hear about what y'all's experiences are in quarantine in Korea, and if you have any questions um, yeah, and get through this, and then we can have fun in Korea, right? But, um, yeah, leave comments and questions below. Thanks for watching!
