There is so much to do in Seoul! I’ve been here for two weeks and I feel like I have only scratched the surface of all of the amazing restaurants and cafes this city has to offer. Because I work in Seongsu, an amazing area for shopping and dining, everyday after work I ask my coworkers for recommendations on places to eat. I’ve been trying new things every day!
By far, I think my favorite place in the city is Hongdae. There are so many cute cafes, like 943 King’s Cross, a Harry Potter themed cafe that I went to do work in on my remote day on Wednesday. Not to mention the shopping and nightlife, where places are open late enough for me to go after work. There are so many different styles of clothes shops as well, which is great for someone like me who wants to expand their wardrobe and style as much as possible.
This past weekend was rainy, so I ventured out to Gangnam, where there are a lot of indoor activities. Lotte World is one of them, which is an indoor theme park. The Starfield Library and COEX Mall are other places I’ve been really excited to go to in the area. I didn’t have time to go to Lotte World because I vastly underestimated the size of the COEX Mall, but I spent a lot of time walking around and exploring the different shops and restaurants. The Starfield Library was also a beautiful spot to take photos.
Next weekend, our internship program is taking us out to Gyeongju, a coastal city on the southeast rich with history. I can’t wait to explore outside of Seoul and enjoy the sights!
At my internship, 2 days a week (Thursday and Friday) I work the taproom from 1-5pm. I have a big project that I am currently working on, so sometimes it gets a bit difficult trying to manage my tasks knowing that 8 hours of my time working is going to be spent elsewhere. My first week, admittedly, I did struggle with this. However, I developed a rhythm that made me complete my tasks much faster.
In my time before moving to the taproom, I try to be realistic about what I can get done in that 3 hour block I have. I try to not start anything too big, so last week I mostly spent that time doing data organization and cleansing to make my life easier in the future. I also have an hour at the end of my workday after the taproom where I can go back to the office and finish wrapping up the work I was doing before lunch. I have been spending this time polishing up details and making notes on what still needs to get done for the following day or week.
For the rest of my week, I have a list of tasks from my manager that she wants me to get done, as well as optional tasks if time allows. Everything has the same deadline, so I started off with tackling the big assignment, which was making a profitability dashboard for the company. In order to do this, I have to do a lot of data cleansing and management, so I have been spending the majority of my time doing that. I interspersed the other, smaller tasks in between my time whenever I wanted to switch gears for a bit. My main focus has been making the dashboard, however, since that has the highest priority.
On Wednesdays, I am work from home. It is easy for me to lose track of time when I work from home, so every morning I start off by going to a cafe at the time I would be going to work. This helped tremendously last week, as it got me in the work mindset without being in the office. Whenever I go to take a break, I move to a different cafe. My manager said that the point of me having a remote day is so I get the chance to explore the city, and I took full advantage of that by cafe hopping! I can’t wait to do the same again this Wednesday.
