For Thursday, our first original company visit was canceled so we were scheduled to visit the U.S. Consulate General in Busan instead. I thought this was going to be a very interesting visit and I was right.

I have been to a U.S. Consulate before—in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, so I kind of had an idea of how the process works. However, I did not anticipate the Consulate here in Busan to look and feel like the way it did. Unlike the massive, fortified, admirable building guarded by heavily armed U.S. soldiers in Ho Chi Minh, or most American diplomatic missions across the world, the Consulate General in Busan was half a floor in an office building, staffed by 3 professionals and an intern. Our talk with the senior ambassador was great and mind-opening.

We had lunch at a restaurant that had the vibes of a garage but it was amazing. The food was great! I was very glad we were back to the delicious, normal Korean food. After that, we got ice cream and were dropped off at the Pusan National University (PNU) for a university visit.

A lady introduced the school to us with all the different programs they had, including those offered for international students. We then had a professor come in to talk about North Korea, one of the topics I have a lot of interest in. I wanted to ask questions but the presentation touched the very basics of North Korea—which I expected them too, not everyone’s a social studies enthusiast like myself.

Then we got to see a few other stuff that I assumed the Engineering would be more excited to look at. Heck, even I myself thought it was amazing. PNU’s got these 3D printers with a bunch of Korean students playing with them. We ended the day at the fish market and had live octopus, yet again!