Annyeong haseyo (Hello!)
Four days in to spring break, Kelley School's students have long forgotten the piles of work that lies on their desks back home. At 4:30 am on Friday (13th) one could see the excitement and the euphoria in the bus en route to Indianapolis airport. 30 hours later on Saturday , all one could see was exhaustion and fatigue in the bus to Stay Seven Hotel, Korea. In those 30 hours of travelling we flew on three flights, played cards on another person's seat, hung out inside the aircraft by clogging the aisles and ate sushi at Tokyo's Narita airport. It was a wonder how we all survived a rather turbulent landing into Tokyo. If it was my first time on a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, I'd be afraid of flying for the rest of my life! For most of us, who did not sleep, the travel was an excellent ice-breaker that gave us all a chance to spend time and get to know each other.
On the lazy Sunday morning after all the travel, we woke up to a nice breakfast at the hotel. We used the day to do some historic sight seeing. The city of Seoul has a beautiful blend between modern towering skyscrapers and old palaces and other monuments. Roaming around also gave us a chance to familiarize ourselves with the subway system, an expertise that would come in very handy for the rest of the week!
It was not too late before we realized that non-vegetarians were going to have a rough time finding food to eat. Korean streets and restaurants are full of various kinds of meat. In the last three days we have tried the weirdest food like silkworms and quail eggs. The only thing the 4 vegetarians in the group get to eat is kimchi and rice. However, that is when the life saviours McDonald's and Subway come in! There is nothing like having familiar food in a foreign land. Occasionally, the rest of us give in and get a bite of the "Big Mac"!
Over the past 3 days we have visited many companies in Korea such as Hyundai and Samsung. Looking at the fully automated robotic car manufacturing plant at Hyundai took us light years ahead of our time. There was no labor to be seen. The robots did their work on each unit every 57seconds. Looking back at our Hyundai visit, I now understand why so many people in the industry don't have jobs! Our visit to Samsung was similar. If you thought the iPhone was the coolest phone in the market, Samsung would have proved you wrong. We got to see phones with video conferencing and projector features. If that was not enough, we later got to know that the multimedia function on each employee's phone is automatically disabled as soon as they step into the Samsung vicinity. The reason? Privacy of their products and R&D departments. Clearly Korea and its industries are far ahead of their time.
Soon it's going to be time to go back. But until then, the experience continues.
-Nikhil Nanda
