A week in photos

I promised to show pictures of the cafeteria. The picture above shows what we see when we walk down to the cafeteria. The pictures show what they are serving in each of the rooms/lines. They cover Korean, Asian, Western and Noodle dishes. Then you select which cafeteria to enter (A or B) and then which line to get in.

Beef bulgoggi from the cafeteria

On Thursday, we were craving some Mexican food so we decided to go to a place Julios. There they serve something called a "bulldog" which is a margarita with a corona in it! Crazy I have to come to Korea just to learn of this amazing drink! 

Tuesday and Friday of  this week I went to Norebang (I described it in a prior post). 

Yesterday we decided to venture out into the rain and go visit the Korean War Museum. The Museum is huge and pretty new. On the outside are tons of old airplanes, tanks, guns, trucks and boats. It's pretty cool to see all the old machines. The inside is a combination of history about war in Korea, Korean War history, and simulation activities.

Norebang, Korean Class and BBQ

So last weekend some of the interns were exploring our area and after dinner and a few drinks we thought it was time we checked out a Norebang place. Norebang is basically rooms that you rent with couches etc where you do Karaoke with your friends. Most of the places have bars so you can order drinks and hang out. The one we ended up going to was pretty nice with a ton of songs in English and Korean. Was a little bit of a step up from my 25th bday in Chicago's Korea town - but very similar experience. However this time they definitely had "I think we're alone now" :) I am waiting for my friend to send me some pictures and I'll post them, but wanted to tell about the experience - always love me some Karaoke!

This week we began Korean class. For someone who has only learned Latin based languages in the past, Korean is not very easy. For instance while there aren't as many letters as in the Chinese language, they are very complicated and confusing. For instance there are sounds that I do not characterize as even sounds we use in the English language. For instance there is a vowel that is kinda pronounced uh or ugh - combination, but I didn't even understand whether that was a sound that we use in English. Took me an entire class to understand how to say it. Also there are 3 letters that pronounce p/b - with slightly different intonations (see below for alphabet). Given the fact that different sounds have different letters its very difficult to remember when to use which. However, given that I'll be here for 5 more weeks, being able to read and somewhat understand how to say things will help enough. I still only know a few words, and despite the difficulty of this language, it is still nice to learn a little bit about the Korean language.

This week was full of Korean BBQ. Earlier this week I had dinner with 3 other GSBers that are also in Seoul for the summer. That was fun to catch up and eat some good Kalbi (beef) BBQ at Samwon Gardens.

Later in the week we went to this local seafood bbq place which was very Korean. We really had no idea what we were ordering when we ordered it, but it ended up being a pretty cool and interesting experience.

Went to North Korea!!

....well not exactly. On Saturday, we went on a tour to the Demilitarized Military Zone. The DMZ is the 2.5mi wide area that separates North and South Korea and is the most heavily militarized border in the world. Korea is technically still in war, as the war never ended officially. This area was created to maintain peace and ensure that people do not freely enter or leave North Korea. North Korea is one of the most difficult countries to enter, in large part because of the communist regime which has for years tried to prevent the inflow of information and news from the outside world. In fact there are NO internet cafes in all of North Korea. When the two countries were divided citizens were asked to chose which country they wanted to live in and that after they made their choice they were not allowed to change their mind. This means that some families are split up between South and North Korea.

During the tour we first visited one of the freedom bridges which were essentially established to allow citizens to cross into the country of their choosing (as mentioned above). Now the bridges are primarily used for exchanging prisoners of war. (The main bridge is in the background of the picture below)

Also on the chain fence near the freedom bridge and on the gate that prevents people from walking around messages of hope for the future unification of Korea in addition to wishes of safety and hope for the people of North Korea.

After the freedom bridge we headed to Camp Bonifas, which is the area operated by the UN to monitor the South/North relations. Here we were asked to basically sign a waiver that we understand that this area is extremely dangerous.

We then entered the official Joint Security Area. The JSA is the only place in the DMZ where South and North troops stand face to face. Here we entered a large main building on the South Korea side. Directly in the middle of this area and right on the divider line are little buildings that are owned/shared by both North and South Korea. This is where I stepped into North Korea! Also the South Korean guards are the ones in the photos, and for whatever reason some of them face directly at the buildings. The guy below is technically in North Korea.

On the other side of these buildings is a large building that is the main North Korean building. When the big South Korean building was built it was originally larger than the North Korean building but the North Koreans then added an additional floor to big taller than the South Korean building. They did this with their flag pole as well.

What is interesting about this area is that the North Korean troops only come out when there are tours. The day we were there there was only 1 and he was on the steps of the building - hard to see in the picture. During the time we were there he kept looking at his binoculars and making sure we didn't do anything - like run across the line which will get you shot.

All in all it was an interesting day!

Exploring in the Rain!

So right now in Seoul its Monsoon season. I had been warned that June/July was the rainy season, but I did not expect this amount of rain. I was thinking the rain was going to be more like the drizzle that happens in Oregon - drizzles all day long but its not that bad to be out in it, especially with a raincoat. While that does happen here a little bit, it is often pouring down rain which makes walking to work and more important exploring this city impossible. The Koreans love umbrellas, which for an Oregonian like me has been hard to adjust to. What is more impressive to me is that many women wear high heels while its pouring, or even more impressive shorts. It's like they have massive, all protecting umbrellas to keep them dry. Mine unfortunately is not that nice.

As a result of this lovely weather, I didn't spend a ton of time out on Saturday. When myself and a few of the interns finally decided to head out for dinner on Saturday we were pleasantly met by a downpour. Luckily the downpour lead us to the nearest place we saw to eat - a crispy chicken place. Now I'm not really sure why, but Koreans LOVE crispy fried chicken. These places are everywhere! The chicken is actually baked, but its soo good it tastes like its fried. It comes with dipping sauces - we had sweat & sour and honey mustard. It was seriously amazing. I wish I got a picture, but I'm sure I'll head back this summer and will snap one then.

After the chicken we headed to a few bars for beer. What is interesting about bars in Korea is that people don't really stand around and mingle, they just pick a table and hang out with friends.

On Sunday I headed to a western brunch place that was delicious! It was nice to have some fresh food, as most stuff is cooked here!

Afterwards walked around a few very cute areas: Garuso-gil & Apugjeong, followed by an official Korean BBQ experience complete with seated floor tables, beef and Mandu - Korean dumplings. Yum! Again I need to add these pictures later too - I clearly need to be better about photographing stuff!

Anyway the weekend was filled with good food, cute neighborhoods and plenty of rain.

First Week Complete!

So week 1 is complete! The rest of the week at work went by pretty smoothly. We learned about some of the past projects current members had worked on, learned about life at the GSG and talked to alumni that have transitioned into other parts of the business. One interesting element that the team talked to us about was something called a Hoesik, which we should expect to experience this summer. A Hoesik is dinner of co-workes where they go out to eat and drink extensively. The Koreans love drinking - primarily Beer and Soju, a Korean sake. They tend to be pretty serious at work, but the Hoesik allows them to open up and loosen up and get close to their co-workers. They also talked a lot about how people are generally forget or ignore activities that happen during the Hoesik - essentially if you make a fool of yourself its okay the next day at work. This is obviously pretty different than in the US where people generally talk about nights out for days. It also appears that the Hoesik is fairly common, and occurs many nights of the week. Koreans also have some pretty different cultural norms, or traditions. For instance toasts are very important. Additionally it is important not to pour alcohol for yourself, and so its important to look when others' classes are empty. When you pour drinks for elders, its required to pour with two hands with essentially means putting your left hand on your right elbow and pouring with your right hand. I am definitely excited to participate in a Hoesik, as it's a very traditional part of Korean culture.

A few times this week we ate at in the Samsung cafeteria. This place is like a production line. You enter and there is a digital display of all the options they are serving for the day - usually around 8-10 different options. Then you go off in different directions to go to the line with the item you want to get. From there there are different seating areas depending on which item you get, so it makes most sense to get one of 3 things that others are getting with you so you can eat together. The entrees range from typical Korean food, to Western food to other Asian food. It's pretty good and heavily subsidized by Samsung so it costs less than $3 for a huge plate of food. I tried the bibimbap and then had a shrimp fried rice another day. I'm sure I'l end up eating here most days for lunch.

At the end of the week we heard some of the activities they will be hosting for us - baseball games, visiting the Demilitarized Zone at the border of South and North Korea, and a mud festival. Should be a fun summer!  On Friday we ended up getting our project assignments. I'm going to be working on some projects related to their premium mobile PC business. I don't know that much about what I will be doing at this point, but it definitely should be an interesting summer!

Arrival in Seoul and the Start of Samsung!

Hi All!

So I decided to start a blog to capture my experience living in Seoul and working for Samsung. I also thought this would be a great way to stay connected while I'm gone for 2 months!

So at this point I’ve been in Seoul since last Thursday. Another intern was on my flight to Korea, which was nice because we maneuvered the cell phone rental (old school non-smart phone), bus trip and search for our hotel together (the map we were given had no English on it or street names, only landmarks)). We are staying in a pretty basic hotel which is literally 2 blocks (<5 min) from the Samsung building. The hotel does have free western breakfast and a gym so that’s been good. The kitchen area is rather small (worse than the box of a kitchen Schwab has) so there is little chance I’ll be cooking this summer. The area around my hotel and Samsung is very very busy and has tons of restaurants, shops and bars. It's suppose to be a fun area to be in, so I definitely look forward to exploring it more. 

Over the weekend, the other interns and I explored various parts of Seoul. There isn't a ton of historic landmarks to see in Seoul, but we did make it to a few palaces with guards in traditional clothing, as well as the Seoul tower which is positioned on the top of a hill smack in the middle of Seoul. We also successfully maneuvered the subway system, which is very easy to manage, despite having 10 lines and tons of different stops. Additionally, we ventured to a technology market, which is basically a huge building housing a bunch of different vendors all selling the same items.  This place is massive and sells pretty much anything you might need (aka I bought a flat iron ). The Koreans clearly love their technology as is clear from this place!

As I mentioned  we've actually explored a number of areas. One area we visited, Insadong, is a pretty artsy area with a number of tea houses, restaurants, and tons of arts, crafts and antiques shops. Its a pretty cute area, and I definitely plan to go back here to get some nice gifts. Another interesting area is called Itaewon, which is basically "little America." This area is filled with foreigners, which you don't find in such large numbers in other areas. There were tons of American restaurants like Taco Bell, Outback Steakhouse and Subway. There is also an English bookstore here, so I'm sure this area will come in handy when I can't find something.  

Over the weekend we also explored a number of Korean restaurants. I hadn't had much Korean food prior to coming to Seoul, so I only knew what I had read about - bulgoggi, which is marinated, grilled beef and bibimap - which is a dish with rice, vegetables and beef. On the first day we decided to venture to a restaurant near the hotel. The place looked crowded, clean and smelled good, but did not have a single word of English on the menu. We basically pointed to a few dishes, none of which had heard of. We ended up getting a squid dish with a very spicy red sauce, a clam soup and a egg pancake, kind of like an omelet, which appeared to have squid and green onions in it. It was definitely a interesting first experience with Korean food.  The next day we tried to find a traditional beef BBQ place to get bulgoggi, but instead went to a place that specialized in pork BBQ. While pork is generally not my favorite thing, I figured I would do as the Koreans do and indulge. It tasted a lot like the fat part of bacon, so probably won't do it again, but it was an experience! For lunch one day we wandered upon a place where a lot of people were eating a noodle soup type thing. We must have ended up ordering the wrong thing because we got a more stir fry like thing where it was cooked in front of us, but turned out to be pretty good. 

As you can tell, not that many restaurants have English menus and if they do they may not be all that descriptive. This turns out to be difficult many times, but has also been an experience to sorta just see what happens. In the area around where we are staying there are a TON of restaurants - there is no chance we'll be able to try them all. There is also an impressive number of American chains such as Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and Burger King. That'll come in handy when I'm totally sick of Korean food. Another fascinating thing I've observed is the number of coffee shops. I would say there is a coffee shop every 4 doors. Koreans clearly love their coffee. I've heard that its pretty hard to get a warm cup of coffee in the summer and its hard to get a iced coffee after September. Regardless they clearly love it. Another interesting phenomenon is the number of German beer places. I think there are probably 6 within 5 minutes of my hotel.  

Yesterday was my first day of work at Samsung. Most of the day was spent meeting the other members in my group. The Global Strategy Group (GSG) has nearly 70 foreigners (all with MBAs) working in 3-month cycles on a variety of projects across the company. Yesterday was also the day that the projects are presented for the next cycle of project work. This was particularly interesting because it gave me a much broader perspective on what type of projects people will be working on, but also gave me a little insight into the different areas that Samsung is focused on right now. In the US, Samsung is primarily known for Consumer Electronics and Appliances, but in Korea Samsung makes EVERYTHING. I'm not kidding - the toilet at work is made by Samsung. Samsung is written across many buildings, and actually comprises 20% of the Korean GDP. The projects that were discussed covered Consumer Electronics, Semi-conductors, Construction and Green Technology. It was very fascinating. Another interesting thing about Samsung is that they are extremely fearful of information leaking out. As a result you have to "checkout" a laptop, interns aren't given official badges at work etc. It's pretty intense. This makes for a very different work environment where no one works from home, and people stay at work to get things finished. While Koreans typically work pretty late, most of the GSG works until 6 or 7 usually. After work the entire GSG went to a German bar for happy hour. It was nice to get to know some of the members in an informal environment. 

Today, we had a few briefings on various things regarding Samsung and took a visit to their offices in Suwon, which is about 30 minutes from Seoul. Here most of the marketing groups and R&D groups sit for Samsung. We were taken on a tour and shown all the latest technology that Samsung has developed including very thin LED tvs, the Galaxy Tablet, and robot vacuums. Later in the day we got our desks, and gave our preferences for projects. It will be interesting to see what we end up working on.

Alright, given how long this is, I figure I'll stop right here, but will definitely write more soon!