Day 15: Progressive and traditional

This morning was an early one for those who had not yet packed their suitcases. At 7:30 we were outside, checked out and waited for the bus in our business casual clothes. A few people quickly ate their breakfast while the baggage was loaded onto the bus. To our great delight, this bus had more legroom than yesterday’s bus.

An hour and a half later, we arrived at UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology). After a small coffee, we entered room E204, which we enjoyed a lot as it is also the room number of the Scintilla room in Twente. During the talk, we learned that this university is growing rapidly. They were founded in 2009 from a government-controlled institute. This makes them more accessible and progressive compared to the private universities in Korea. After some goodies, we were given a tour of the various labs located in the basements of the buildings. Screens displayed the number of people and safety hazards in the labs. The labs themselves were very clean and their nanolab appeared similar to ours.

After a very tasty traditional lunch, it was time to say goodbye and continue to our next visit: The Bulguksa temple. This temple was the first heritage site in Korea to gain a place on the UNESCO list. Many photos later, we boarded the bus again and went on our way to the airport. We arrived at there around 4 PM, much earlier than expected. But this gave us more than enough time to say a big goodbye to Yang. She was one of our supervisors this week, but would go back to the Netherlands instead of joining us on Jeju Island. By the time we got through security, we had enough time to scrape some food together.

Our flight was a lot shorter than the one Yang would have taken. After 50 minutes, only one eight of the time of the bus ride back from Seoraksan, the pilot landed the plane with Twente ‘lomp’ elegance. Our tour guide was already ready in the arrival hall with a nice E.T.S.V. Scintilla note pinned to a stick. But this was not as beautiful as the sign on our bus with E.T.S.V. Scintilla in rainbow letters. Our hotel rooms looked beautiful and after this long day it was time to test the pillows.