Today, we finished off our POSTECH tour by doing an official campus tour with some current students. We were able to ask a lot of questions and contrast Korean education with American education. This tour ended with incredible campus food, and our guide even taught us how Koreans traditionally eat it. I had the Spicy Pork Stone Pot Set, and it was somehow one of my favorite meals so far. Also, we were able to follow him on Instagram, so we might continue to talk in the future. Overall, POSTECH was incredibly welcoming and I really hope some Pitt students take advantage of their insane facilities in the near future.
Then, we went on our main excursion of the day, Posco. Posco was built in 1970 to modernize Korea’s economy, and they did a hell of a job. It is a massive steel-making company that has globalized and also has another plant on the other side of Korea. During our visit, we drove around the whole complex, which included many blast furnaces, rolling machines, and a huge harbor to import materials. On top of this, we were even allowed inside one building to see the steel being squeezed into thin sheets. What was crazy was that we could tell when the steel was rolling towards us, as it was so hot (and we were 100 feet away). Sadly, no pictures were allowed, but this was easily the best site visit so far. This visit really put in perspective what I, as a mechanical engineer, will be working with in the future and how innovative things are continuously able to be made. We also went to two museums about Posco, where we saw these innovative steel products. The most impressive was PosArt, or steel with 3D paint to make it look like marble, wood, etc. I was so fooled that I thought the building was made out of concrete, it was steel!! Finally, they also make speakers that are integrated in steel paintings, and it’s only $1000, so I will be getting on for an apartment or house eventually.
To end the night, a group of us went to try Korean pizza. After a 25-minute walk, we placed an order but had to wait another 30 minutes for it to be ready. So, we went to a convenience store where I proceeded to get more shrimp chips (sorry, not sorry). I also got this peach tea drink that had napa Jello in it, apparently. That was also so tasty. We then went back, picked up pizza and went to the hotel. Apparently, Korean pizza requires corn on it and tomato sauce is not used. I still loved it, but most of the slices had olives on them, sorry Mom. After all that, I have been doing nothing in bed for a while until I finally got the motivation to do this blog. Onto working on our final presentation! See you in the next blog tomorrow about Hyundai!
