Don't have a cellphone, don't have any coins, but have a number to call?

Let's say you're in Korea, and you have your friends' phone numbers, but you don't have a cellphone with you, what do you have to do to make phone calls? Of course the best thing to do is to buy a phone card and carry it with you, but you might only have to make one or two phone calls throughout your entire stay.

In that case, here's what you can do. Look for a telephone booth that looks like THIS one. (It doesn't have to be as dirty as this one, but yeah, you get the idea.)



And pick up the receiver. At first you won't hear any sound from the speaker of the receiver.



Then you press the RED button. That's the emergency call button (긴급 통화 버튼). And you'll hear the signal. And what you do next is simple. Simply dial 1541. That's the number for making collect calls in Korea.



Your friend will receive the phone call, with an annoucement at the beginning of the call which says something like "Will you receive this collect call?" and if you friend says YES (or press a number), you can talk to your friend, and decide when & where to meet! Yay!