The day started early due to some jet lag around 4:00 a.m., which was frustrating—especially because breakfast wasn’t until 7:30 a.m. When we got to breakfast, I was intrigued to see that it included chicken wings and other foods you wouldn’t normally see in America. After breakfast, we headed to Hwaseong Fortress, where we walked around and took photos. We also had the chance to try archery, which was my first time! I feel like I did really well, other than the fact that I only hit the target three times.

For lunch, we were treated by Dr. Yun and went to a traditional restaurant for kimchi stew. It was really good but also really spicy—I would definitely get it again. The next item on the agenda was visiting the Samsung Museum, where we toured all the innovations by Samsung over the years. We also saw some new technology that I found super cool! Two things intrigued me the most: a smart refrigerator that showed the food stored inside and a TV that looked like a painting.

Lastly, we went to the Myeongdong market, where there were tons of shopping spots and street food vendors. I got a few gifts for family and some treats. The treat I chose was a strawberry snowflake ice cream sundae, which tasted phenomenal.

For the welcome dinner, we went to another traditional restaurant that served ribs, beef bulgogi, and 18 side dishes, all of which tasted amazing. Some of my favorites were the ribs, glass noodles, and bean sprouts. During dinner, it was also really interesting because we learned some traditions about eating and what locals do during meals. One of these traditions was putting water in the burnt rice and drinking it for dessert.