Today, we had to get up at a bright and early 6 am to begin our bus ride to the Hyundai Asan Factory. We didn’t have time for hotel breakfast, so we got breakfast sandwiches on the bus.

We finally arrived at the Hyundai Asan Factory after an almost two-hour bus ride. Most of us slept on the ride, which was refreshing. The first thing we did was an introduction presentation to what the tour would consist of. We also had a presentation about the factory itself and similar factories around the world. One thing I found most interesting was the fact that they produce 1 car every 53 seconds! After understanding the different parts of the factory we would see in action, we had a couple of minutes to go into the display cars in the lobby.

Then, we moved onto the first part of the tour. The first facility included many different parts of the car making process. We saw the rolls of steel get punctured and sliced by 50 tons of force. It was really loud in throughout the factory because it was all automated by robots. Barely any of the first couple of steps were completed with the help of a human!

We then kept walking around and saw a lot of the robots doing their jobs. This included a lot of the work with shaping the steel into the proper shape for each given car. One thing I liked most was seeing how one machine has many different settings for each car model, meaning one machine could rotate and it would make a different car model.

After that, we went into the assembly factory. Here, there were many more human workers compared to robot workers. I didn’t get the chance to ask why, but my friends assumed it could be because of worker unions or quality control. This concluded the end of our Hyundai tour.

Then, we drove about 20 minutes to a rest stop. It was interesting to compare this rest stop to American rest stops. There were many little vendors with traditional Korean food and a convenience store. I tried a snack that reminded me of bugles.

We then had an hour long bus ride to the Han River. There, we had lunch and some free time before going on our ‘cruise.’ The cruise was a little ferry that had rooftop seating and indoor seating. I spent the whole time on the roof.

My favorite part of the boat tour was feeding seagulls. One of the opportunities we had was to buy dried fish and hold them out for seagulls to grab. Although it took some time, I got a seagull to eat my fish!

I also really enjoyed the beautiful views of Seoul while on the river. It was incredible to see the skyline and the Seoul Tower in the distance 🙂

Tonight, we have dinner on our own and time to hang out. We get to sleep in tomorrow morning, so I am very excited to catch up on some sleep!