Today was a short day on the itinerary and also concluded our company visits for the trip. This morning we woke up early and took public transport to an Oil Tank Museum. We planned on touring ourselves throgh this echibit but unfortunately when we got there we realized the place was closed. Hearing this news we got back on the bus and headed toward the location of our nect visit. Before the visit we got some lunch and Dr Yun treated us to a hot pot. This meal was absolutely delicious since it was an all you can eat buffet. One cultural thing that I noticed about Korean meals is how much they frown upon leaving food on your plate. If you leave any food on the plate it is disrespectful and a sign that you didn’t like the food. At this specific place, if you left any food they would charge you extra. In the hot pot we had everything from meat, veggies, fruit, noodles, and dumplings. Another thing that Korean meals are known for is how they are almost all feed/make yourself. The waiters rarely come visit your table after they sit you which explains why tipping culture doesn’t exist here.

The company visit we attended today was for Arisu, a Seoul water purification company. One of the workers is an old colleague of Dr Yun which is why we were able to land a tour of this place. Arisu is purifies water from the Han river and distributes it all around Seoul. The first step of the process was the gathering of the raw water. Then they put the water through large rounds of chemical processes and purify the water. They then sift it through sand and gravel to get any further chemicals out of the water before giving it its final round of purification. It was such a treat to experience a tour from such an influential company. You often don’t think much about where your water comes from and how they know that it is safe to drink which made this experience even cooler. After a tour of the headquarters we got a smaller tour of the water museum near the main base. In here we basically got showed the overall history of water purification and transport in Seoul’s history. These historical museums are very interesting because the work that people back in the day had to do before technology is astounding. After this tour we headed back to the hotel to eat and work on our final presentations. This unfortunately concludes my final blog of the trip. Thank you for following along!