What an action packed first day in South Korea! Our travel journey started by arriving to the University of Pittsburgh at 12:00pm on May 9th and it ended with us departing our plane in South Korea at 4:00am May 11th- a long day! Once we arrived in Korea, we hit the ground running. We met our amazing tour guide for the trip, Jinny Kim- she’s the best. We first made a stop at the convenience store (nice to CU) in the airport where I got a Starbucks dolce coffee and truffle chips. We then left the airport, via bus, to drop our bags off at the hotel. I then explored our neighborhood by eating dumpling soup for breakfast and grabbing a pistachio iced latte after. There are SO many coffee shops in South Korea. Everywhere you look is a different coffee shop. We then took the subway to the Royal Palace, Cheong Wa Dae, and the Blue House. We saw the changing of the guards which was a super cool experience. Jinny explained to us all of the history behind these historic places. After touring, we walked through a local market and tried some snacks. Through the afternoon I had a type of chicken, an ice cream bar, lemonade, a ham and cheese bagel, and cheesecake! After exploring, we then had a challenge proposed to us where our groups would have to race back to the hotel and the top 2 teams would win a prize! My team narrowly got second and won a prize of being treated to a nice dinner! We chose not to redeem our dinner last night as we were too tired. We settled into our rooms which had a great view of Seoul. My and my roommate then both fell asleep around 5:30pm. Definitely an exciting first day in Seoul!