In South Korea, you would definitely know about Seoul, Busan and Jeju. But Pohang?
In fact, Pohang is an important industrial city situated at the East. Given its good geographical location and being close to the sea, Pohang is known for three things – seafood, steel, and POSTECH.
Seafood – Jukdo Market is the largest fish market in the East of South Korea. The market is simply massive and worth a visit!
Steel – POSCO, the world’s fifth largest steel company, has two steel-making facilities in South Korea. POSCO started their first steelworks at Pohang in 1968. Even today, it is the second largest steel production site in the world. Imagine its massive scale! (The first goes to Gwangyang steelworks, owned by POSCO too)
POSTECH – Pohang University of Science and Technology is a prestigious private university established by POSCO, focused in the education and research in STEM. You could see it like South Korea’s SUTD. Facilities they have are really cool – it includes the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory – the world’s fifth research facility dedicated to the research of synchrotron radiation, and the Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence, Korea’s first professional production technology institute in the robotics field.
Enough with the introduction! First, let us show you some sights around Pohang and its vicinity,
Yangdong Village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Photo uploaded soon)
POSCO,
We wanted to show you how it looked inside, but phones were not allowed in. The sights are really breathtaking, the massive scale of the production complex and how steel slabs were produced and cooled. We really felt the heat.
And of course, POSTECH. (Photo uploaded soon)
Orientation covered everything we needed to know, including immigration (application for the Alien Registration Card), life at POSTECH, adjusting to life in Korea (including public etiquette, connectivity, banking, transport and other essentials), and of course, a great time with the many new friends made – not just from Singapore, but from many countries including Brazil, China, Canada, France, Germany, Morocco, United States, Zimbabwe and more! It truly is an international exchange.
Psst… if you want to learn Korean, POSTECH offers survival classes for basic essential communication, and structured classes to learn in a systematic manner!
Till then!
