This whole trip has been so memorable, and I have enjoyed every single moment of it so far. But, today is the last one, which means my last blog of the trip. Are you going to miss me?
Our final day started off again with another trip to the Seoul City Hall. But, this time we are going to check out TOPIS, which stands for Transport Operation and Information Service. But before we even made it into the city hall, something was happening outside of the building, and it turns out that the mayor of Seoul was talking to reporters right outside of the building. That means that we all walked right past the mayor of Seoul. Even if I did not see him, I thought it was pretty cool that he was right there. Anyways, TOPIS is pretty much how all of the public transport and roads are managed in Seoul. It includes surveillance cameras for ticketing, data on buses and trains, and smart cars. It basically is how they keep track of everything in Seoul and make sure that it is working properly. The room that they brought us into to learn about TOPIS was this fancy conference room with microphones, so it felt very real.
Post-TOPIS trip, we went as a group back to one of the markets we were at earlier last week. We went to get some street food one last time. This time, we got some Hotteok, which is a fried pancake batter with a sugary honey-like liquid and seeds in it. It was really sweet and good, I liked it a lot. Then, we walked a little more to a place that served bingsu. Bingsu is a dessert made of shaved ice with different toppings on it. I got one with mango and sweetened condensed milk. I didn’t like the bingsu as much as some other desserts I’ve gotten so far on the trip, but it was still pretty tasty.
After eating some good snacks for lunch, we then went on to meet with our groups to prepare for our final presentation on the trip, to show what we learned about Korea’s culture and smart systems. We practiced our presentations for a little while, and then it was time to give them. I think that all of the groups did really well on the presentations, and it was really fun to watch each group’s video that we all put together, and to reflect on the fun memories we shared. After the presentations, it was time for our final group activity of the trip. We were doing a cooking class together!
After taking the subway over to the area of Seoul where our class was taking place, we walked into this really cute building. The design of the kitchen where we were going to do the class was really aesthetic, and I was really excited to try to cook some Korean food. The two dishes that were going to be made were Japchae and Gimbap. I would not say that I am particularly good at cooking, but I think that my dishes turned out pretty well, given my cooking knowledge.
After the cooking class, I went with a couple of others to go to Baskin-Robbins, because we heard that they have some different things here compared to the US. They were also having a Pokémon collaboration when we went there, so I got some Pokémon-themed ice cream. It was really good, and also a great end to what has been an amazing trip. This ending has been so bittersweet, because I am so tired and exhausted, but it has also been the most amazing trip of my life. I will always remember it and forever be happy that I was able to go on it.