the first impressions

The captain of my flight to Seoul
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I'm here in Changwon in the R and D Center of the FAG KBC (Korean Bearing Company) a part of the Schaeffler Group. Changwon is an industrial city near to Busan. It's only 30minutes away from Busan by car.

short dates about the city:

population: 500.000 people

companys that placed here: Schaeffler, ZF Sachs, LG, Samsung

The dormitorys for the workers of Schaeffler. My flat is there, too.
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Today it's the first day in the company. The first impression, I can talk about, is that everything is different to Germany...

But inspite of this fact, as I alighted out of the airplane in Seoul and went in the airport, the first thing I consciosly saw in Korea, was a huge lighted advertising sign of the schaeffler group.

You cannot belief how this sign warmed up my heart:)

The akku of my camera was unfortunatly empty. So I have no picture of the sign. But I will take one of it, that's for sure.

Mr. Han and me. The korean and the "longnose" as they call us.
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From Incheon Airport (international airport in Seoul) I took a bus to Gimpo Airport (national airport in Seoul) to fly to Busan. It last 30min. And I met there a funny person, who told me something about Korea and asked me about my plans there. It pointed out during the conversation that he was the captain of my flight.:)

What an honor. You can see the picture.

In Busan I was picked up and was brought to my flat. The conditions in the flat are a little bit cruel in germans comprehensions. But you have to know for Korean, who are the most time at work or on tour with friends, the living conditions are not so important. And the most worker live there only during working days and on the weekend they go back to there family anywhere else.

the R&D Center of FAG KBC
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I have only read about this, but I will confirm it as soon as I can with my own experiences.

I left my baggage in the house and went with two guys of the company to a restaurant.

They were realy friendly and they invited me to this dinner. There it was: The first cultural difference, I experienced by myself.

First you have to put of the shoes. I was unconsciously searching for the tables, but there aren't any like we know. You sit on the flour with legs crossed and in front of you a table 20 centimeter high and with a barbecue integrated in the middle. The service girl appearce immediatly and brings a lot of little dishes with different things in it. You have no plate for eating. You only take the grilled pork and dip it in some spicy dips and take it on a salad and mint leaf and you finished this with some typical kimchi (fermented chinese cabbage very hot) and garlic. Then you have to roll all these in the leafs like a little packet.

It tastes very good.

But the lunch today in the cafeteria of the company was not so good. It was a western style meal. There's also dinner in the cafeteria and this was typical korean food. This tasted better.

So now the working time is over.