I spent my final moments in Korea packing up my stuff and doing some last minute shopping. Some notable places I visited include Muji, a Japanese department store, and SW19, a small Korean fragrance brand. After buying a few things and spending all my remaining cash, I hurried back to the hotel to leave for…
Tag: Plus3 Korea
열하나 – TOPIS and Cooking Class
Today our group started the day by visiting Seoul’s City Hall to learn about TOPIS (Transport Operation and Information Service). TOPIS is a high-tech traffic monitoring system used by Seoul to automate traffic patterns, public transportation, and monitor citizens violating driving laws. Our class was able to visit the TOPIS facility, which was located in…
Day 11: Gimbap and Goodbyes
Day 11 was our final full day in Korea. We were back in Seoul for our last day, where it all began. Our first activity was a visit to TOPIS, Seoul’s Transportation Operation and Information Center. We were back at Seoul City Hall, which we had visited on the third day. It felt like a…
열 – Hyundai and Seoul Tower
Today’s plan was to tour Hyundai Motors in the middle of the day and take a train to Seoul in the evening. To start, I packed all my bags to be sent to Seoul, and then took a bus to Hyundai’s Ulsan factory. The tour at Hyundai consisted of a product showcase and a factory…
아홉 – POSTECH and Steel Factory
By now, I was starting to a feel a lot better, so I decided to resume my usual participation with the class. We started our day off by touring POSTECH, a small STEM university in Korea. Apparently, this is a location where Pitt students can study abroad, so I made sure to ask the tour…
From Traditional Temples to Futuristic Universities
Today was the dreaded 5 AM wake-up call. Fun fact: I got up at 6:50. My bad. Basically, we were told that there would be drums over the bedroom intercoms to wake us up for the morning meditations, but after speaking with others, I guess that didn’t happen. That said, my entire room missed the…
A Temple a Day Keeps the Wild Boars Away
Admittedly, this was a tough day. We got up early just to immediately bus out an hour to the Seoul KTX (Korean Train Express) Station where we spent another two hours on the train, after which we spent another two hours bussing to Golgulsa Temple. It was rough on all of us, and unfortunately, not…
Day 10: Return to Seoul
Thursday morning, we officially left Pohang for the last time. Our visit was short, but I really enjoyed it. Although Pohang is not very touristy and doesn’t have as much to do as Seoul, in a certain way I think that really made me enjoy it. It somehow has a much more authentic, “small town”…
Day 11: Final Full Day in Korea!
Today was so packed that it is hard to believe we did everything in under 24 hours, especially considering how distinct each event was. First things first, I got the chance to see the beautiful vertical gardens in Seoul City Hall again because we were visiting TOPIS this time! As opposed to being led on…
Day 10: Hyundai Production Facility and Back to Seoul
This day was less packed than normal considering how much travel we needed to do to move back into our hotel in Seoul, but our visit to the Hyundai plant was interesting enough to make up for the time consumed by travel. Before we went on the tour of the assembly line of their Ulsan…
Day 9: Revisiting Postech and the Great Posco Visit
We spent less time at postech today, unfortunately not visiting PAL a second time. This was okay though, because we split off into groups and received a tour of postech campus by a student guide and got to see the interior of most of the buildings. They were all impressively modern with beautiful decorations and…
Day 8: PAL at Postech- The Coolest Place I Have Been In My Entire Life
Travel to Postech early in the morning by bus and see presentations about the school from a professor and the computer science dept. in the general presentation we learned about the school and why we are joining, and they were very kind. In the comp sci/engr dept we learned about their research and a newer…
Day 7: Temple Goodbyes
This morning was an interesting one because the first thing I hear when I wake up is that activities for the day started 2 hours ago. I get up and cross the room to check the time and sure enough, it’s 7:00 am and we were supposed to be up and with the group for…
Day 6: The Long Trek to Gulgosa Temple
First thing in the morning today, we all needed to grab our bags and head down to a coach bus, belongings in hand, because this was the last we’d be seeing of the hotel for most of our time in Korea. Today was the day of the temple visit! I needed to stay up late…
We went to Seoul city hall today. Specifically, we went to TOPIS. TOPIS stands for Transport Operation & Information Service. It was the transportation systems in Seoul. I first, had to go to the gift shop for Hetchi merch that I had not yet gotten. Everyone else had Hetchi merch but me because I was…
Seoul pt 2
It is a big travel day. We are going back to Seoul by train. But first we have to visit Hyundai! My first ever car was a 2014 Hyundai Elantra. Her name was Venessa. She had so much character. I eventually totaled her among other things, but nothing is like your first car as she…
Last Day!
Today we kept it simple and sweet. We started off with another tour of City Hall, but this time instead of learning about the history of the city and its fun facts, we got to go into the basement and see their situation room. While we were there, we learned all about Seoul’s traffic and…
Kars in Korea
Today, we got to tour the facilities at Hyundai. We started the journey in their museum, where we learned about the company’s history and its future aspirations. It was interesting to see how Hyundai has grown over time, from its earlier models to the more advanced cars they are producing today. We saw both old…
Pohangry for More Tteokbokki
Day 8: Today we visited POSTECH, which stands for Pohang University of Science and Technology. POSTECH is one of Korea’s top science and engineering universities and is especially known for its research and technology programs. Honestly, the campus itself already felt very advanced and futuristic compared to a lot of universities I’ve seen. The first…