Korea - Day 4

Day four was all about visiting Hyundai heavy industries.  For those who do not know (which included myself before this trip) there are multiple Hyundai companies.  Hyundai was founded by Chung Ju-yung and some of the other parts which you may know (such as the car branch) are actually run by members of the founder's extended family and are not connected to the original company.  The Hyundai that we visited is the Heavy Industries company which means incredibly large ships.  Once again, because Joonhaeng is a total pimp, we were picked up in a first class bus.

• Top left: I am amazed at how awesome our bus is.
• Top right: Hyundai has a department store?  This is old-school business where the company runs an entire town to support their enormous factory.
• Bottom right: Also a Hyundai hotel.

After arriving in a fancy dining hall (which we later learned is typically only used for VIPs) we were treated to a 7-course meal that was pretty much the fanciest meal I’ve ever had while we chatted with an MIT alum (who was in charge of all R&D at Hyundai and a director).  We could not take any pictures inside the facility but I can tell you we were all impressed.  The sheer size of these ships and engines were unbelievable.  The cam-shaft for the diesel engine must have been 15 meters tall and 6 meters wide.  I wish I could say more about the factory but we really got more of an executive level tour than the detailed tour we typically take with LGO.  This was mostly due to our time constraint but it really did not allow for us to ask detailed questions about how they do operations.

• A view of the factory from the luxurious building where we had lunch
  

After a long bus and train ride back to Seoul we discovered that it was snowing.  Luckily this did not prevent us from having Korean BBQ (where you cook your own food over coals at your table) followed by shenanigans at the tent-bar.  The highlight of the tent-bar was the group eating octopus that was still wiggling as people ate it.

• Bottom middle-right: Joonhaeng is a master chef.
  

From 3-17-10 Ulsan and Seoul Korea

Korea - Day 3

Our third day started with a train ride south.  The train was traveling at or above 300 km/hr and felt smooth as silk.  Impressive!  After the train we again loaded onto a small bus.  This one was butterfly themed

• Bottom middle: Hector taking a picture of the train station
• Bottom right: Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high.  Take a look, its in a book.  A reading rainbow...do you remember that show?

We took the bus to Gyeongju for some historical learnin’.  We started at the National museum for a look at some archeological finds from different eras in Korea.  My favorite thing was the model of the ancient city and the model to show how they cast these enormous bells for the Buddhist temples.

• Top middle-left: You can see how they would pour boiling metal into a bell shaped hole in the ground
• Middle right: A large model of the historical city (which was a planned city with straight roads).  Amazing!

Next we headed to the burial grounds of the kings from the Silla dynasty (53 BC to 935 AD).  We met some people who are ancestors of these kings and each person is responsible for maintaining a burial mound.  Someone else got a picture of us with a couple of these guys, but I don’t have that picture yet.

• Middle right: Korean's love strange cartoon figures...and we love to make human MITs...so its perfect.
• Bottom right: Descendants of the Silla dynasty.
  

Then we headed to lunch!  This lunch was fun because it was a tiny little shack (they had a squatty potty) with delicious food.  Definitely not an American tourist place.

Next we bussed up some crazy mountain roads (no guardrails) to one of Korea’s most famous Buddhist temples.

• Everybody ring the bell and make a wish!
  

We finished the site seeing by visiting another temple complex that was quite large.  There were just too many temples to take pictures of.

• Top middle-right: Chris Lin doing shadow puppets
• Top right: Said shadow puppets
  

After that we checked into our hotel and then made our way to dinner for duck stuffed inside of pumpkin (I was able to get just duck).  After dinner we went to a traditional Korean spa where we all got oversized clothes so we could sit in boy/girl spas.  We all learned that the two spa temperatures that are available are really hot and try not to pass out as you walk hot.  After a relaxing spa visit we headed back to our resort.  The resort we were staying at had a 24-hour convenient store and a karaoke bar that was open late…so we proceeded into karaoke which went long into the night.

• Top middle: My voice hurt from singing so poorly
  

Korea - Day 2

After free breakfast in the executive lounge (did I mention that Joonhaeng is a pimp) we piled into a small bus for a tour of Seoul.

Many of the tourist areas in Seoul are closed on Mondays so our choices were limited, but we made out OK.  Unfortunately it was raining in the morning so we all got a little wet.  We started out in the market area looking for a tea shop, but it was too early in the morning so we took off.

Then we wandered some of the historical looking buildings (most of the city was destroyed in the war but they maintain the authentic look of some of the residences in this particular neighborhood).

Our next stop was the Korean President's house (like our White House).  This merited a human MIT.

We returned to the market for tea and I re-confirmed that I do NOT like tea.

After that we went to lunch at a quaint little dumpling house.  We had to sit on the floor, but it was quite nice because the floors used the Korean heating system (I don’t know how they heat the floors now-a-days but years ago they used charcoal and stones under the floor which kept smoke out of the palaces and helped to maintain them).

After lunch we headed to the main palace of the Joseon dynasty (1392 to 1910).  Most of the palace was destroyed by the Japanese in 1592 and 1910 but the Koreans have restored parts of it.

Then we headed to downtown Seoul to check out the buildings and see the river walk.

• Bottom right: Stones across the water clearly merits a human MIT.
• Middle: We apparently took too long to take our MIT picture.
• Bottom left: Flags of all of the countries that assisted South Korea in the Korean war.

After the downtown area we headed up to the Seoul Tower for a scenic view of Seoul and a fancy dinner.

Finally we headed back to the hotel.  We were supposed to Karaoke tonight but everyone was still tired from the trip so they all went to bed.  Joonhaeng and I went to the sauna for an hour (no cloths sauna = no pictures) and then we headed to bed.  We had to get up at 5:45 so we could catch a train to Gyeongju.

Korea - Day 1

After 24 hours after travel we have arrived in Korea.  We were met at the airport by some of the other LGO students who had also arrived within the previous hour.  Of course we were greeted by an extremely friendly Korean lady (everyone is SO friendly) and we were directed to our first class bus.

• Bottom right: Our greeter insisted on carrying Chris's and my bag
  

After a 45 minute ride we arrived at our pimp hotel, the Shilla, which we have been told is pretty much the nicest hotel in Seoul.  Our fellow LGO student and guide/host Joonhaeng is pretty much a ballah.

Most of the guys were tired so they went to bed, but I made a good effort to get over my jetlag while on the plane (stayed up all night the night before the flight and took a sleeping pill when I first got on the plane) so a few of us wandered the area around the hotel.  Turns out there is not much around the hotel so we grabbed an ice cream and headed home.

My Class Schedule...One Last Time

So for the last time, I will outline my semester's classes.

10.542 Biochemical Engineering

The way ChemE works in LGO you have to take two "harder" classes from a list and can kind of take two whatever classes after that (you can even branch out of the ChemE discipline if the advisor approves of the class).  All other engineering requirements are fulfilled through you summer credits and thesis work.  Biochemical engineering fulfills my second "harder" class.  It looks like I'll have to remember kinetics (I got an A in that class...5 years ago) and some calculus.  This could be a long semester, but at least the professor seems really good.  She seems completely down to earth and not the crazy eccentric MIT professor that you expect.  She is totally normal sauce.

15.223 Global Markets, National Policies, and the Competitive Advantage of Firms

I wanted to take this class because it had the word Global in it. ;-)  The title of the class is long enough that I should not need to describe to you what the class is about (especially since it is a half semester class...the class name length to time spent in class is absurd).  I wanted to take this class because I am not well versed in things that occur outside of the US (or inside for that matter) and i just wanted to expand my general knowledge.

15.317 Organizational Leadership and Change

This class (also a half semester class) is the final component of the leadership class that the LGOs have been in since we joined the program (apparently having a class that takes place over two years is hell on the registrar system...personally I am glad that LGO could make the registrar as frustrated as registrars everywhere seem to make students).  Not much to add here that I have not mentioned in previous posts about this class.

15.434 Advanced Corporate Finance

This class is essentially Finance 3.  It should cover some M&A topics but there will also be some more depth of project analysis, which is mostly what I am interested in.  The class also has a heavy Excel focus, and workin with Excel always makes me happy and I'm always up for learning more Excel tricks.

15.660 Strategic Human Resource Management

I describe this class as a dive into HR for managers that will not work in HR and I think this class will be very useful.  So far it is hard to tell how much I like this class.  I think that I will like the cases we cover (and it is mostly a case-based class) to help me learn more about how different companies approach HR , what works and does not work, and why.

15.769 Operations Strategy

This class is required for all LGO students and is taught by the Don (head of the program) and another professor.  Given the focus of the LGO program its easy to understand why we all take this class.  The general message is that the overall strategy of a firm needs to mesh well with the operational strategy of the company.  This sounds easy, but you'd be amazed how disconnected a companies strategy can be.

ESD.261 Logistics and Supply Chain Management

This is basically a supply chain case-study class.  I took it because I did not want to graduate without any experience in logistics.  So far, this is my favorite class because the professor (Byrnes) is fantastic.  He's very good at leading a case and he has an incredible memory.  Knew just about everyone's name by the end of the first class and he remembered a small section of my internship poster from knowledge review.  So far, I'm very impressed.