It was a rough morning… I was up by 6am but my allergies started acting up a whole lot which made it difficult to get ready since we had to meet in the lobby at 7:20am. We were headed to Samsung Biologics in Incheon which is about an hour and a half away from the hotel. It’s hard to get over how many high rise apartments there are, especially right next to the Samsung Biologics plants. I’m just guesstimating but there were at least 30-40 buildings, each maybe like 40-60 floors tall, and all in one condensed area. It would interesting to look into the demographics of the school district, the rent, the income, average age, cost of living, etc. of the people living in these apartments.
Samsung Biologics was very interesting. The information about the company was very interesting and insightful towards bioengineering, the tech industry, and the future of how far their products will take medicine to. They also took us on a tour to see some large scale incubators of a protein in one of the plants. But what was most impressive of the company is that it was created in 2011 and its currently one of top leading CMOs (contract manufacturing org) in its industry.
We then drove back to a restaurant in downtown Seoul where I had a spicy tofu dish with a few side dishes including baby anchovies 😮. Then we had a quick ice cream run thanks to Dr. Yun, and then had 45 minutes downtime. Then there was a scheduled 2:30pm Seoul City Hall tour. It was really interesting to compare to Philadelphia’s city hall, because the Seoul’s new city hall building is like a mini spaceship inside. It’s so brand new and architecturally pleasing, it felt more like a high end mall than a city hall. The ambiance inside was amazing because there was so much natural light through the glass and the vertical garden going up 5 floors was awesome.
Then we went to the Seoul Global Startup Center (SGSC). Their job is basically to help foreigners start a business in Seoul. The government actually supports the development of startups and funds SGSC so that SGSC can provide resources like office space, funding, mentoring, networking, etc. to the startups.
After SGSC, we came back to the hotel around 5pm and got some rest. A large group of us then took the subway and a bus to Seoul Tower. It was dark by the time we got to the top of the hill (not the observatory deck) but it breathtaking to see the city lights extend in every direction.
