Our journey today went outside of Seoul into the city of Asan. While in Asan, we toured Hyundai and TK Elevator. Seeing the number of robots used in the Hyundai factory was fascinating. The whole facility was so structured. I had never been to a car manufacturing facility before, so this was such a cool experience. They had different robots and smart systems within the factory that were utilized to move parts and to put them together with minimal need for manual labor. It was even crazier to find out that they produced over 1,000 cars a day. One of the smaller things I liked about the factory is when they had a wall dedicated to showing different colors and models of their cars in miniature form.
Following our visit to Hyundai, we traveled to TK Elevator. This was also such an interesting factory and experience to attend. We divided into two groups to get the tour of the facilities that included a golf driving range technology, a gym, the factory itself, and the testing area for employees. In the testing area, there was a platform that was a couple feet in the air and dropped you into a foam pit to resonate free falling. Additionally, there was a couple of harnesses that would bring you up in the air and then drop you to have the harness catch you. They also had a really tall building that went up to 40 stories where they would test the different elevators.
After our hour and a half drive back, I went with a group of us to an Italian-inspired restaurant and then walked around the markets in Seoul. I finally got to try the twisted potato, thinking it wouldn’t be a potato chip, but I enjoyed trying it regardless. Time has flown by so fast in South Korea, it’s been crazy to see how far we’ve come.