Sell Your Seoul Trip 3 - Day 3 - The Future

Hi everyone! Ray here with the skinny on Day 3 events. The theme was "The Future(Technology)" ...though after the day was done it felt more like the theme was "Korea totally owns America in everything."

Our first stop was the Sangam Digital Media City (DMC). DMC offered many interactive exhibits that in the near future will let you create music without the knowledge of playing instruments and even using your windows to watch TV or give you better outdoor scenery (in case you get tired of that brick wall you've been staring out at every day at your apartment). Because Korea is so Green friendly, they've transformed Sangam from a former landfill where everyone in Seoul once dumped their trash, to a world-class educational research institute in media and entertainment.

Our next stop was to World Cup Stadium home to the 2002 World Cup Opening Ceremonies as well as FC Seoul, Seoul's Professional K-League Soccer Team. Being a soccer fan myself (What?! An American soccer fan?) I was REALLY looking forward to seeing the stadium up close and personal. We were able to get on the field and experience it as a player would. We visited the locker rooms, coaching rooms, showers, indoor practice rooms with turf, even a museum with uniforms and gear used during the tournament. THEY EVEN HAD A REAL WORLD CUP TROPHY IN THE MUSEUM!!! When you think of stadiums you think that they only serve one purpose. World Cup Stadium however was much more then JUST a sports complex. It homed restaurants, shopping, and even a spa! Amazingly the stadium was built in just 32 months...far quicker then the average 45-60. And its roof even gives shape of a traditional Korean shield.

Our 3rd stop was to The Olleh Spuare. Here we looked at how Olleh's technology is currently shaping our world in the present and pushing for new technology in the home and public. Development on 3D tv's, sd cards with a built in wifi chips where you can access your pictures almost instantly, even payphones with built in cameras...all things that can make the essentials far more useful, convenient, and fun to use. Publicly they offer an area to come in and use their computers to order all sorts of products. Think of it as a kinda of apple store. Olleh even houses a public venue where some of Seoul's best underground musicians come to play with all ticket proceeds going towards helping the needy.

Our next stop was to SKT T.um that offered exhibits on how multimedia will be accessed in the future. When you first arrive you receive what is called a T-Key. It looks kind of like a personal phone with a built in camera. The first thing we did was take our picture and enter in our info. We then took our T-keys into a room with giant screens on each side of the wall. These screens acted as a computer of sorts. With the wave of a hand picked up by sensors on the floor you could make video calls, use the internet and send email. With the change of a wallpaper (and not one of those basic wallpapers but something that's constantly moving) you could give your room the feel of being in in the city, space, or even a tropical paradise. The T-Key's built in camera also acts as a shopping tool. If you're on the street or in a shop and see you something you'd like to buy you can just simply take a picture of it and the T-Key will find the object for you to purchase over the net. SK even offers a full body scan for the shopaholics that will give you detailed info on your measurements and scan your face to apply on an Avatar. Once created, all you need to do is take a picture of a clothing product you're interested in and the T-Key finds it, apply it to your Avatar, and shows you what you would look like in it while fashionably walking down a runway.

Publicly Seoul offers free public wifi via they're totally awesome Media Polls. If you've got a smart phone at home you can pretty much just jump on where ever you are and find your way around using the maps or internet. Don't have one? Not a problem. The media polls have giant touch screens where you can access maps, take pictures, and even see whats going on in the news. Makes life SO much easier to get around.

Finally our day ended with a race to the Samsung D'light building. We were tasked to find our way there on our own by asking people on the street where it was. It took some creative thinking (or at least finding someone who understood English) to find the buildings location. Though I did end up loosing the race i was surprised to see how many Koreans understood what we were saying...even if they had no idea where the building was.

All and all I feel like there is so much Korea and Seoul is bringing to the table worldwide with electronics, technology, and finding alternative resources to saving energy and being green. Little things you would normally not notice unless pointed out, like not being able to power your room without your keycard in its slot, or escalators not moveing if no one is on it, goes SUCH a long way to saving energy and being green.

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