Sofie to Korea

Having been busy with work in Seoul over the past couple of months, I rarely had the chance to get out of the city. This changed last week, when I went to Suwon for the very first time. Part of my husband’s job while we’re here in Korea is to develop exchange programs between his college in Denmark and Korean institutions. So, after a few weeks of being too busy to leave Seoul, we were invited to visit Kyonggi University in Suwon last Wednesday to discuss exchange student programs. I joined the meeting just in case there would be any communication problems. This turned out to be a wise decision. Suwon is a town just south of Seoul, and I was surprised to learn that it only took about 40 minutes by bus from Myeongdong. Not bad at all and very convenient and inexpensive.

In Suwon we had a meeting with the international office at Kyonggi University at 11 am, and since we arrived a bit early, we had plenty of time to explore the campus before the meeting. It seemed much bigger than Sogang, and it looked really nice.

After finding the place where we were supposed to meet with the Kyonggi representatives, we were then directed into a meeting room where we were shown a short video about Kyonggi University. We then discussed opportunities for expanding the existing exchange programs before being offered a beautiful gift set each with traditional Korean souvenirs including a pretty jade turtle figure.

After the meeting we were taken to lunch at a delicious restaurant, where they had ordered hanjeongsik a full traditional Korean meal with tons and tons of delicious side dishes.

It was a great experience to just go somewhere else and see a different school, and we were really taken aback by the extreme kindness we experiened at Kyonggi. We’re definitely going back some other time. Back in Myeongdong we stopped for a bite of street food before heading back home.