Our fourth day in Korea started a little bit differently. Instead of taking the subway as we had in previous days, we took a private coach to Suwon, a city about an hour outside Seoul. This was a change of pace and convenient for what was a longer trip than what we had done previously. Once we arrived at Suwon, we visited Hwaseong Fortress. Our first activity there was archery, which was fun, but ended all too quickly. We only got to shoot ten arrows, and I was pretty bad at it, so I wish I had a second attempt. Afterwards, we toured the fortress, which featured some very interesting architecture and nice views. We also got to learn more about the history behind it. A few of us then got waffles and gelato and tried some Korean snacks from a convenience store as a sort of quasi-lunch.

Our next stop was the Samsung Innovation Museum, which is one of the cooler museums I’ve visited, in my opinion. We took a guided tour that included several phases. We began with the invention of electricity and the different early technologies it produced. We then moved on to a history of Samsung Electronics and their contributions to semiconductor, display, and mobile technology. In the final phase, we got to see some Samsung products. It was really a glorified ad, but we got to see some really cool stuff, such as the gimbal-like stabilization on the Samsung S26, a fridge with Spotify, and 3D and ultrawide gaming monitors. The tour went by fast, and I wish we got to stay a little longer.

Formal activities for the day ended very early, around 4 PM. This meant we had a lot of free time. We were dropped off at the Namdaemun Market, where Chris and I browsed for a bit. There was lots of clothes and souvenirs, but nothing that particularly interested me. We ate lunch/dinner at Shinsegae, a department store that also happened to have a large food court area underground. I got nine dumplings, which were delicious. We then took a quick stroll through the Myeongdong market again on the way back to the hotel. We hilariously encountered some Italian brainrot characters in a store, including Tralalero Tralala, Chimpanzini Bananini, and Tung Tung Tung Sahur. Although we had a lot of free time, we got back fairly early, around 7. We wanted to prepare for what we knew would be a long next day.