Day 22 & 23: Hello Goodbye

Today was our final day in Daejeon, with the final company visit and the final supper. But before all that a welcome sight in the morning at breakfast, as the chicken nuggets were much warmer (maybe even 20 degrees above room temperature!). We took a tour bus headed north to the Maxon Motors headquarters in Korea situated in the hills between Daejeon and the Seoul metropolitan area.

Here another company presentation would tell us about how they were a leading company in several markets, with what I think was personally a better notebook than the ASM one we got earlier in the trip, however opinions on this subject differed among the group. The factory tour at Maxon was very interesting and a refreshing change of pace from the other tours we had, as we were shown around a relatively small scale and partially automated assembly line. Due to the custom drive solutions Maxon motors provides there are many different sizes of DC and BLDC motors in construction at all times leading to an enormous amount of plastic bins and boxes used for sorting. The automatic winding machine used to create the stators was very satisfying to look at, especially for someone who’s had the ‘pleasure’ of winding large inductors themselves. After the factory tour lunch was served in the company canteen, including bibimbap, side dishes and some sort of Korean spring rolls.

Now we headed for Incheon, to the Golden Tulip hotel close to Incheon Internation airport. We were greeted by the most fancy beds and showers of the whole trip, after which we headed for a fine dining restaurant located nearby. The food had a certain, as the french call it, ‘je ne sais quoi’, with which I mean the staff didn’t seem to understand much of what was going on. The next morning would follow the tune of the famous Swedish band Europe as the Final Countdown of this study tour would begin at dawn.

The last day in South Korea started with a nice buffet breakfast where we could choose to eat an eastern, a western breakfast or a combination of both styles. This last day everyone traveled in smaller groups, since some had a vacation before the study tour started, three groups went on vacation after the study tour and the main group just enjoyed the study tour and were ready to go home. The first group had to catch the plane around 10:00 while the last group left the country around 22:00, so the schedule for today differed a lot for each group. I was part of the group that took the last flight and we choose to spend the day at the spa. At the spa there was an infinity pool from which we could see the planes land at the airport. We ended the day with one last Korean BBQ before heading to the airport ourselves. By the time we landed at our destination the other groups had also safely arrived at their destinations to either enjoy their vacation or get back to work in the Netherlands.