We started our day by heading to the Hyundai Motor Company plant in Ulsan, which is the location of the company’s largest plant, producing about 1.4 million cars a year. We were only allowed to take pictures in the showroom where they displayed all of their latest models. Sitting in those cars, I liked their style and would consider getting a Hyundai in the future. Afterwards, we got to actually visit one of the factories; there are several factories in the plant, and each factory consists of four shops: stamping, welding, painting, and assembly. The assembly shop was very large and had car doors traveling above us, and the car bodies on conveyor belts. The factory had orders for over 200 different countries; you could see on tags attached to the cars where a specific car would be going. It was neat to see a cars that would eventually be shipped to Europe adjacent to cars that would be sold domestically in Korea. Never would there be an order for Japan. The bright colored cars were mostly for North America or the Middle East; as I mentioned in an earlier blog post, all of the cars in Korea are either a shade of black, gray, or white because no one wants to stand out. Like our visits to other large companies, I noticed that there are a lot of benefits for employees. The plant had its own mini hospital, and the meals are prepared and free in the cafeteria everyday.

Hyundai Motors was our only company visit for Tuesday and for the rest of our stay in Ulsan, so it was time to say goodbye. After an hour’s drive, we arrived in Busan, the “Miami” of Korea. Busan is the second largest city in Korea, and although it was no where near the size of Seoul, it still felt very big, and we were driving for a while through what felt like a city before arriving at our hotel. But before we even got to settle down at our hotel, Dr. Yun decided that we should stop at one of Busan’s beaches.

Haeundae beach is one of the most popular beaches in Busan, and it had many shops and restaurants across from the ocean. We explored the area for lunch and witnessed eels being freshly prepared in a fish market. It was kind of gross but also cool; I couldn’t look away. Since all of us were still in our business casual clothes, our time was short lived, but we would come back.