Bang For My Bucks

I went to the bank to withdraw my money and to my surprise wasn't able to get it the way I wanted. Let's go back a few months when I was at the same bank asking for advice on how I could withdraw my money and deposit it in a Korean bank. I had 4 options to choose from:

1. Have someone from the US on my account wire the money.
2. Travelers checks - 2% fee
3. Use the ATM. Visa charges 2.5% alone and there's an addition $1 fee or so.
4 Change my account type to a Performance Select Checking Account. Pay a flat fee of $15 and have unlimited withdraws, but still have the 2.5% fee from VISA.

I had problems with most of them:

1. I don't trust anyone with my money, so I would never add anyone else onto my account. Plus it's a real burden for someone to go out of their way for you when you're so far away. Personally, I'm just too lazy to do that for anyone, haha.
2. I really hate that 2% fee. If I were to get the amount I wanted it would cost $400 just in fees. I would then have to deal with the service charge on top of that to exchange my money.
3. Just too much money going into other people's pockets and not mine.
4. Too lazy to change my account and too much money again for fees. I like my checking account the way it is.

My decision for the best cost effective method to carry my money physically with me would be the traveler's checks. The manager told me that they could issue me a single $5000 traveler's check to me when the time comes. So this is what I decided on months ago to do. Fast forward to today and the bank said they don't have enough traveler's for the amount I want to withdraw. They also do not issue traveler's checks for more than $1000. Double whammy in one day. I couldn't wait any longer cause I leave in 2 days. I heard the DOOM sirens go off in my head, haha. The reason why I waited until now to get my money was because I needed a certain amount first, but that amount just came in yesterday.

I had to discuss my situation again with a different manager. The manager told me the BEST and CHEAPEST method would be to open up a bank account in Korea and write myself a check. I am extremely skeptical cause I'm not sure if it would really work. I'm just so worried, but I agreed with him that this would be the best method. Well honestly....I agreed cause he said the deposit would be free on my end, haha. I would still have to pay for the service fee from the Korean bank AND succumb to the bad exchange rate. If you didn't know, the corner stores have better exchange rates than regular banks. It's like when I went to Canada, they have a better exchange rate at Western Union store than at a local bank.

With that, I withdrew some cash for my first few months in Korea. I just hope it all works out well. Hopefully I'll have more money to spend with this method.