Korean Expat Community for National Disasters

I guess we are all familiar with China having a “Great Firewall” that blocks several popular applications that we are used to including Google Maps. And this became the greatest challenge for me since I heavily rely on such an app to navigate abroad like what I did on my trip to Fukuoka, Kobe, and Tokyo. (As for navigating here in Korea, of course, my trusted app is Naver Maps.) I also heard that there is a local app that is similar to Google Maps, but digressed since everything on it is in Chinese. Anyway, what I did was download VPN and took their 7-day free trial while still here in Korea, and then bought a temporary sim card when I reached the Beijing Capital Airport. I kind of regret not just paying for a roaming service for my Korean SIM card at the Incheon Airport since it is way cheaper and works even without VPN according to the experience of my professor who accompanied me on that trip—but what can I do? I already bought the SIM card when we found this out! I guess you can learn from our experience dear reader or listener! In addition, the VPN I downloaded is not that reliable since it cannot connect to other countries’ servers often. Back to the Beijing Capital Airport, I just asked AI how to get to the host university of our conference and where our hostel is nearby and it shown us the names of the stations, where shall we transfer, the approximate fee and time for the entire journey which is quite helpful. But I must say that I find following the highlighted path on the screen as the blue circle--which is me—walks around is easier than just reading texts and figuring out myself how far and in what direction I must walk and what are the names of the shops or establishments that I may encounter and serve as landmarks along the way. Maybe future AI assistants will be able to draw maps instantly for this context? In any case, using AI even with an unreliable internet connection helped me go to several places like the Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, and even to Shanghai to meet the Freedom Gundam statue! It is not bad at all!