World Students in Korea - 1st Camp of the very 1st batch of bloggers for the Presidential Council on Nation Branding

Last Thursday, the 23rd, I and 38 other students from 25 different countries (including my own, Brazil) split in groups on two buses in Seoul and headed to a life-changing 2-day trip around 3 of Korea's most important cities: Pohang, Gyeongju and Ulsan. Together we form the very first batch of bloggers selected by Korea's Presidential Council on Nation Branding - PCNB to work on helping raise overall standards in Korean society and improve the nation's image in the international community through our blogs. This trip marked our 1st Camp as World Students in Korea, which is the project's name.
First stop: Pohang city, where the PCNB's project's coordinators Mr. Wonkyu Im and Ms. Suhee-Park took us on a tour around POSCO, which is not only Korea's but the world's top steel making company. POSCO owns the biggest steel making plant in the world, plant #2, which we all got to go inside. They also took us inside plant #1 where we had the closest look possible at steel being melted in a gigantic melting pot with fire being spit high before our eyes. Beautiful, really. The steel though, is imported from Brazil (VALE) and from Australia. HYUNDAI Motors happens to be POSCO's 2nd major client - which I think is awesome.
The steel making monster founded in 1968 calls itself Green & Clean POSCO, due to its long-standing efforts to preserve and watch for the development and well-being of its community. "We do patriotic service through steel manufacturing", said the environmentally friendly company's presentation video played for us the moment we got there, in a Disney World ride looking room, where curtains are rolled up automatically showing a panoramic view of the company's colossal yard at the end of every video session.
Second stop: Gyeongju city, where, after a pretty long day, we stopped for checking in a nice hotel called Kolon. There, the coordinators of our project had booked a seminar room to give us a lecture on blogging. The lecture was amazingly well given (in English) and filled with informative presentations, especially by a Google Korea manager who was extremely helpful. It was one enlightening hour, which even included some photography hints and trials.
Time to relax and act silly now! =) After the lecture, a recreation couple of hours had been scheduled for us in the hotel. As it is defined by the Merriam-Webster, "recreation: refreshment of strength and spirits after work" was just what we all needed. We mixed up and danced with one another (there was even a professional DJ and an entertainer!), showed a little bit of each others' country's traditional dancing and sang Korean songs at a karaoke on the room's stage. Then, at the very end, we began circling around hugging one another and exchanging "cross-cultural" smiles. Right after this inspiring moment, the project's coordinator Mr. Wonkyu Im took the microphone and opened up his heart by saying, "If there is anyone that believes that boundaries and differences between nations and people cannot be overcome, then they have not experienced nights like this because tonight is the answer!" Well said and loudly applauded.
The next day, we headed to 2 of Korea's most important buddhist temples, the Sukgulam and the Bulguksa (still in Gyeongju city), where they provided us with outstanding guided tours, even though it was pouring rain and most of what there is to be seen in those temples is outdoors. Anyways, that was the historical bit of our 2-day trip, so that we could softly be reminded of this country's origins, of its people's beliefs and sacrifices throughout so many years. - That was my second time in both temples, by the way.
Well, and speaking of sacrifices, the next stop is all about this one person, this one remarkable Korean man who sacrificed everything to build a dream shipbuilding company. This company is now the world's largest shipyard, HYUNDAI Heavy Industries, in the city of Ulsan, capable of making 110 ships a year. Asan, a man ahead of his time who was once a rice delivery man on an old bicycle, built and founded the top shipbuilder in 1973 on a former quiet fishing village. Asan devoted his entire life to promoting industry and to rebuilding Korea. His hardwork and persistence on placing HYUNDAI (현대 in Korean, meaning "modern times") into the position of world's number one shipbuilder, turned Korea into the world's leading shipbuilding country. Not to mention that the world's 2nd, 3rd and 5th largest shipyards are also Korean: SAMSUNG, DAEWOO (DSME) and HANJIN, respectively.
After going on a guided tour around HYUNDAI shipyard, where we watched another impressive presentation video and were absolutely stunned by the company's size as well as by the size of its ships all around, we had one last scheduled visit to pay just near the shipyard, still in Ulsan... HYUNDAI Motors was our last stop. Founded in 1967, the company is a global leading automaker that finishes one car every 12 seconds. In 1999, HYUNDAI Motors and the also Korean KIA Motors became one company after HYUNDAI bought KIA which had gone bankrupt. However, they still use separate names for different cars (Kia is Kia and Hyundai is Hyundai). Although, since KIA is being manufactured under HYUNDAI subsidiary, they share a lot of parts in their cars. For example, Hyundai Accent and Kia Rio are virtually same cars, Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima are virtually same cars, Hyundai SantaFe and Kia Sorento are virtually same cars, etc... I've got a question for you now: what do you think about this and which company would be your favorite??
The moment we got to the monstrous automaker, we were once again welcomed with a beautiful, this time more artistic, video about the company and its achievements throughout the years. Truly impressive what they have done in so little time... And so, to wrap up this amazing first experience with the World Students in Korea project, one of the HYUNDAI Motors' guide took us inside the plant where we all had a close look at how fast they make and assemble their
cars.
- Enjoy this fun clip of our recreation time at Kolon Hotel in Gyeongju city: