Throwback Thursday! (But not on a Thursday)
This is a significantly longer post, as I'm trying to fit 7 months of my time spent working, studying abroad, playing, and growing as a person into one blog post. I'll cover as much as I can remember of my travels and experiences while giving suggestions of what to visit or eat. Be sure to look out for a South Korea, PT 3 where I'll go in depth on what the highlights are doing a week or less or more trip in South Korea.
Unfortunately, all my photos uploaded out of order, which bummed me out a lot - severely unmotivated me - resulting in a many months delay in getting this out to the masses. There are several ways that I could choose to tackle this post, instead of chronologically as i had originally intended, I will be grouping experience types. If you're reading this, that means I persevered!
The first topic of this post will be my internship. The second topic of this post will be my time at school in Korea. Next (third) my adventures in TTE Club. Fourth, I'll go into trips and visits (places I went). Lastly - most importantly - food! Of course, I may periodically speak of my food adventures to keep things interesting or as they pertain to other activities.
Without further ado, let's get into it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My main purpose of my time in Korea was to fulfill requirements for an international internship and study abroad. This was to support my minor - Global Engineering Studies. Other requirements included 2 full years of a language (I chose French because it was offered at Purdue and Korean was not), a domestic internship, and multiple seminars during my tenure at college pertaining to the minor. My major being Mechanical Engineering really worked in my favor - allowing me more opportunities abroad than some of my counterparts in Nuclear, Chemical, and Biomedical Engineering.
I started my travel abroad in a small nanotechnology research lab! Here, we researched thermo-technology as it relates to human perception. Specifically, we created highly conductive, cooling, or heating elements for use in every day applications (such as the steering wheel shown below) to increase human cooling and heating instead of AC and Heating units, which utilize a lot of energy.
In the picture below, I can be seen posing for a picture after having soldered some thermocouples together. We would be using these thermocouples later in the week to do some experiments.
Below are some of my lab mates. We were measuring the size of the square conductors we had produced to get an accurate measurement prior to loading it to the machine to the left, which would take conductivity and other measurements we would need for our calculations.
A peek at our lab's room in the building. There were 9 of us crammed into a space not much bigger than this picture. Some of my colleagues were long term students, pursuing PhDs or their Master's Degree. Others were undergrads.
Here is an example of our work. The objective was to measure the cooling capability of the metallic squares we had made. I have long since forgotten what materials were used in the process and, due to the sensitivity of the project and ongoing research, I'm not sure if I would mention much more here even if I knew!
We spent many hours down in this lab space working with thermocouples and cryogenic machinery as we attempted to bring the material down to absolute zero to observe properties it had. All of this, of course, would be feeding research papers.
Definitely a highlight of my time in the lab was spending a day in the clean room helping Hoon with his research portions of the lab.
Heat - lots of it. Pressure - even more of that. That's about all I can say to describe the process of making the thermal squares.
Would it be an authentic Korean experience if you didn't go out with your coworkers for lunch, dinner, and fun? Nearly every day, we would go out for lunch in downtown Sinchon, in the heart of Seoul.
Very very often, at night after a long day of researching, we would spend time at bars. In the picture below, we have mugs of Meokgeoli and a bottle of Soju. This was just one of many stops of the night - we frequently spent hours out in town when we did go out.
Special shout out to Soloman for celebrating my birthday with me. He was an Indian research student in our group and was very invested in making sure I ate and drank well for my special day. This was one of a few birthday celebrations I had during my birthday week.
Would it be an authentic Korean experience if you didn't go to a Noraebang? These karaoke rooms were EVERYWHERE. You could buy or bring drinks and snacks in and sing for hours with friends. There were plenty of english and Korean songs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My second reason for spending 7 months in South Korea was to fulfill the requirements for studying abroad for a semester (for my minor). With the internship behind me (I had an opportunity to continue the internship into the school year), I chose to leave to give myself ample time to enjoy my time abroad, focus on my studies, and travel on a whim.
A little bit about where I studied abroad. I was accepted into the exchange program at Yonsei University (연세대학교). It is a private Christian university. One of the "SKY" universities, it is well known in and outside of the country - ranking number 76 on the world scale for best universities. As of 2022, they had nearly 30,000 enrolled students. Their mascot is an eagle, colors royal blue and white. The main campus is located in the heart of Seoul.
Here, you can see me posing by the monument of the Yonsei Eagle. This is one of the first things you see when entering the campus.
Here's a shot of campus. Much of the academic buildings were on the right or behind me. The student cafeteria and shops were on the left as well as conference and larger rooms. In the background is the heart of Seoul - a bustling area full of food vendors, live performers, shopping centers, and more beer and chicken places in one street than in the state of New York.
A similar view as the above, but at night. As you can see, it's a very well lit campus. I felt safe walking in the evenings or late at night coming back from downtown/dinner. The streets all over this part of the city were generally well lit.
Another view of campus. This one is taken from the top of the library and shows the very large hospital and medical center attached to the school. The school of medicine was definitely large here. Additionally, you can see the student amphitheater and access to underground shops, classrooms, and conference rooms, several aesthetic pieces across the campus and main walkway.
There were several hills to climb all over campus. Needless to say - I was in great shape by the end of my stay. This was one of my favorite paths to get from my dormitory to the main part of campus.
This was the dormitory I stayed in. There were eight stories and it was largely for international students. We formed communities on our floors, had a cafeteria in the Global Plaza right below our rooms, and a far walk to the main campus. I certainly got my steps in every day!
This is what my desk routinely looked like - filled with snacks mostly. Unfortunately, all I have to show the room is videos and will not be able to post what my room looked like. But it was quite functional. Room under the bed for suitcases, a small cabinet to hang up clothes or jackets. A functional desk. A toilet separate from the shower space. My biggest gripe about the dorms was that the AC wasn't turned on until almost the end of April, well after temperatures were in the upper 70s during the day. Needless to say, we sweat and suffered greatly. I had pretty bad spring allergies, so we couldn't open the windows at night.
This is what one of three main dining halls looked like. One places orders at kiosks in the center and then goes to the window on the other side to pick up their order roughly five to ten minutes later. It was a very efficient, and tasty, process.
While we're on the topic of cafeterias, now seems like a perfect break for some food pictures! The first four pictures are from the above cafeteria. Every meal came with your main dish that you had ordered, and then there was a buffet line of banchan (side dishes) that you could choose from.
You can see directly below I got an omelet with galbi (chicken that's seasoned). For my sides I grabbed some fish cakes and some greens/salad. I also got a small side of miso soup.
Below, in order, is a chicken cutlet with curry sauce and rice - with a side of miso soup. Some classic ramen with a side of lettuce, seaweed salad, and miso soup. Next, spicy ramen with fishcakes and sides of lettuce, seaweed salad, and miso soup. And, lastly, Pork cutlet, some fries and rice, miso soup, black beans, and cabbage slaw as a side. There wasn't much variety in terms of side dishes, but they did change them up sometimes. This cafeteria was more classic Korean and Asian dishes.
And now here are some pictures of food from the other cafeterias. From the more modern, somewhat European style cafeteria you get the two pictures below. The first has egg on rice, spicy salad, pasta salad, pineapple slice, and some chicken and onions with a side of kimchi. The second has some cabbage slaw, corn, fries, pork or steak, and red bean rice with an egg on top.
Perhaps my favorite cafeteria was the one attached to my dorm room. Not just because it was close, but because the food was just good. Below is some bulgogi and onions, sides of mini hot dogs, bean sprouts, kimchi soup, a bowl of rice, and some fermented cabbage. Below that is deep fried shrimps topped with onions with sides of bean sprouts, tteokboki (rice cakes), fish cakes, some cabbage, kimchi stew, and rice with an egg. And bringing up the rear is a takeaway salad box meal and hibiscus tea because I was feeling in the mood for something more familiar.
Enough about food. Let's talk about classes. I had to take two classes that would count as Technical Electives back home for my Major in Mechanical Engineering. I originally was going to take Hydraulics, but when I walked into class on day 1, he said 60% of the class would be in Korean and 40% in English. So that was a nope. This was the final schedule that I put together. I was taking a Korean language class (level 1, which turned out to be way below my skill level), Korean food class where we learned about the historical and present day foods of the country, reinforced concrete structures which counted as a technical elective and is actually a Civil Engineering class, and lastly an Environmental Engineering class focused on water purification methods and water treatment facilities - this also counted as a technical elective.
Below, you can see some of the work from my classes. First is a picture of my reinforced concrete structures class. I've blocked most of this from my memory, but enjoy the fancy graphs and equations. My favorite part about this class - NOT - was when he told me that we'd be given the equations on the test, but when we took the test, we were NOT given the equation sheet and instead were asked to derive all of the equations by hand. The second picture is a homework problem from the same class. No, I never did well on homework assignments. I managed to barely pass the class with a C.
The following pictures are from my water treatment plant class. Lots of chemical equations lots of talks about the components and process of water treatment. The pictures were largely for my studying, but here they're giving you a snapshot of what I learned. My favorite part - NOT - of this class was the final project where we had to work as a group of 4 to create a water treatment facility to adequately treat a made up polluted body of water given by our professor. All team members split up the processes and yet somehow, I got assigned the most math heavy portion of the process. I spent hours upon hours while traveling to Jeju and other places doing homework on bus rides and trying to understand things we were seemingly not taught in class. Maybe I overcomplicated things, but this was really hard because I couldn't communicate well with my classmates to ask for help. The cherry on top was that for the final presentation of our project to the class, one of the 4 of us would be randomly selected the day of the presentation to present the entire topic in English to the class. I feel like I should have been exempt from this as it's really just for the students to practice their english skills. But yup - you guessed it - I was the lucky winner. And then I had to present the parts of the project that my team made as well. Let's just say it must have gone well, despite how I felt about it, because I got an A in the class.
Obligatory and random mirror selfie in the Engineering building bathroom between classes.
Akaraka. A student-led festival that's one of the most popular at Korean universities. It's held annually in May at the university's outdoor amphitheater and features a concert, cheering, and fireworks. The festival has featured artists like Psy, 10cm, Le Sserafim, Aespa, Ive, Zico, Chang Kiha, and Paul Kim. The year I was there it featured TWICE , Beenzino , Zico , Red Velvet , IU which are all big name singers, artists, or groups in the K-Pop and K-Rap world. Below is where I sat in the amphitheater. I was lucky to get tickets. In fact, the people who graciously gave me a ticket are in the second picture. It's my friends I made in the Korean Fold Dance (Pungmul) club that I joined. More on that in the next section of this post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pungmul (TTE) was basically my personality. I'm so thankful for Hoon, one of the research assistants who I worked with at my internship, for speaking to the people at the tent during the club fair the first week of school. I had seen performances in my weekend travels of Pungmul, but I wanted to join the school club for it. For some background, I played drums, flute, and piano growing up, so I had some musical talent. Or so I like to think.
The group agreed to let me join them and it was one of the highlights of my time at University and gave me several friends on Facebook and Instagram. Many of which I have lost contact with, unfortunately, but I'm sure I could reach out again and re-kindle the friendship. Enjoy the following picture montage and explanations of my adventures with the club.
This was the location of many of our practices. This set up was the first meeting of the club. I remember that the meeting had been moved back an hour and I had no idea, so I showed up an hour early and no one was there. I was literally just about to leave when people started showing up. I remember them being hesitant for me to join, largely because of the language barrier, but I was determined to make it work and they had a few members fairly fluent in English who translated for me.
Enjoy the following pictures of us practicing, the practice room, and the storage room. I'll explain more about the instrument I was playing shortly.
There's a story behind the next picture which I would like to share. At the beginning of each TTE season, members are given nicknames. They tell a story to the club about anything they want - typically their childhood or experiences that brought them to university. The rest of the club then generates a nickname. My nickname was Mo-du, which is a play on words in the Korean language related to my collection of soju bottle caps. I have long forgotten the nicknames of the rest of the members, but that was what we called each other by.
My instrument of choice was the janggu. In general, 5 major instruments are used for playing Pungmul: ggwaenggwari (small handheld gong), janggu (hourglass drum), buk (barrel drum), and jing (gong) and sogo (kinda like a hand tambourine without the metal). Below you can see me fully dressed up and performing. Other pictures show the group in gear and me making my hat (yes we had to make them from scratch).
Some of our members were part of larger Pungmul groups (they were really really good at playing their instruments) and performed at regional gatherings. In the picture below, myself and some other group members traveled to support them as they performed for a larger audience.
One unique experience I was able to have was the club retreat mid-season. This is a very commen occurance in Korea for any club to have a bonding retreat - usually with copious amounts of food and alcohol - usually in some rural home that can be rented out for such occasions. It was only a night, but we stayed up all night playing games, drinking, and laughing. The taxi ride home was chaotic as well.
And of course I can't forget the post-practice late night dinners we went to as a group. Most nights after practices, a group of us would go downtown for food (typically chicken and beer). We also had several smaller gatherings to bond with our respective instrument groups. And of course the entire club went out after Akaraka together! As you can see in the last picture.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had the opportunity to take many trips and adventures in my free time at night and on weekends. Much of the adventures will be summed up nicely in my next Korean post where I will go into detail about a 7 day itinerary; however, here are some bonus items. For the sake of time and getting this post out, I'll simply number each adventure for now. Some pictures go together and I'll lump similar experiences together. If anyone has a question about a specific picture, just ask in the comments! Maybe some day in the future I'll come back and add descriptions to the pictures. The A stands for Adventure.
A1.
A2.
A3.
A4.
A5.
A6.
A7.
A8.
A9.
A10.
A11.
A.12
A13.
A14.
A15.
A16.
A17.
A18.
A19.
A20.
A21.
A22.
A23.
A24.
A25.
A26.
A27.
A28.
A29.
A30.
A31.
A32.
A33.
A34.
A35.
A36.
A37.
A38.
A39.
A40.
A41.
A42.
A43.
A44.
A45.
A46
A47.
A48.
A49.
A50.
A51.
A52.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 5 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Most important part of this post! FOOD! While I had the opportunity to take many trips and adventures in my free time at night and on weekends. Much of the adventures were rounded out by amazing food. For the sake of time and getting this post out, I'll simply number each food picture for now. If anyone has a question about a specific picture, just ask in the comments! Maybe some day in the future I'll come back and add descriptions to the pictures. The F stands for Food.
F1.
F2.
F3.
F4.
F5.
F6.
F7.
F8.
F9.
F10.
F11.
F12.
F13.
F14.
F15.
F16.
F17.
F18.
F19.
F20.
F21.
F22.
F23.
F24.
F25.
F26.
F27.
F28.
F29.
F30.
F31.
F32.
F33.
F34.
F35.
F36.
F37.
F38.
F39.
F40.
F41.
F42.
F.43
F44.
F45.
F46.
F47.
F48.
F49.
F50.
F51.
F52.
F53.
F54.
F55.
F56.
F57.
F58.
F59.
F60.
F61.
F62.
F63.
F64.
F65.
F66.
F67.
F68.
F69.
F70.
F71.
F72.
F73.
F74.
F75.
F76.
F77.
F78.
F79.
F80.
F81.
And that's all for this post, folks! Hopefully you enjoyed the excessively long picture montage. I promise no other post will be quite this long. Stay tuned for Korea Pt. 3 Where I tell the story of my dad and I in Korea and give specifics on places to travel and foods to eat!
~Wishing all the Wanderlust~
-Maddie
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