Navigating Seoul

Annyeonghaseyo and welcome to Seoul!  Our Session 1 students have started to settle in and take the city (and local daisos) by storm. Yesterday the participants were split into three groups in a scavenger hunt activity that explored the capital city. In these groups students worked on team building skills while navigating to different destinations in the city on public transit and completing a mission sheet that included a photo contest. 

The destinations included Jogyesa Temple, the center of Korean Buddhism. The temple's serene environment is just steps away from our accommodations and has many beautiful and colorful lanterns the students were able to walk beneath. Another stop was Hikr Ground, a Korean tourism publicity center where visitors can experience K-Pop and media art. The site include gigantic screens with fun backdrops that are perfect to try to recreate your favorite music video. Right in front of Hikr ground is the Cheonggyecheon Stream, an urban waterway that passes under a total of 22 city bridges before flowing into the Han River. This stream was created as part of an urban renewal project, and has artistic water shows and many places to sit along the stream. The furthest destination the students had to use the subway to navigate to was the COEX Mall, a shopping center surrounded by tall business towers in the Gangnam neighborhood. Students took photos with "Gangnam Style" statue and were in awe of the Starfield Library, which has impressive towering bookshelves and over 50,000 books. 

Overall, the students were able to increase their knowledge of Seoul and had a lot of fun visiting these iconic sites!