Travel:Tabibito

For the first time in 12 years I'm going to be stepping on American soil. It's about freakin' time! I'll be staying in United States for about a week, devoting half the time to San Francisco and Los Angeles each.

The flight features free (for now) wireless internet. The photo's just been taken a few minutes ago, in fact. Good thing I brought my laptop with me.

The first thing that came into view as we entered the exhibition room was a map of the world showing where the nuclear reactors have been built. The guide explained that, with 20 reactors, Korea ranked 6th in nuclear power generation capacity, trailing Germany. United States came out on top but they haven't really built new ones in about 3 decades. Two things were evident about Korea regarding this ranking: its reliance on nuclear power is significant, and its overall energy consumption is quite large as well.

After passing by multitudes of shops prominently featuring gulbi in front for a few minutes, we drove through rice fields that featured transmission towers scattered here and there. Then we noticed employee apartments for Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Korea Plant Service & Engineering (KPS), a sure sign that there's a power plant nearby. Eventually, a familiar dome-shaped building started appearing at the edge of the horizon.

As a part of the three-week training camp for the new interns at Korea Power Exchange (KPX), we were taken to actual power plant sites. I'm guessing that this was designed let us get the feeling of the real hardware behind the machineries that produce electricity for the nation. It would also double as a reviewing process for all the studies we did in the training sessions during the past week. Last week, we went to the Taean thermal power plant, conveniently located next to the training center we're staying for the second and third week of the training, Korea Power Learning Institute (KPLI). This week, we went to a place tad farther away. A place that shares a lot of similarities with a thermal power plant but also quite different in many aspects - a nuclear power plant.

Well, I'm writing this at a training center in Icheon. This is my first day at work in Korea Power Exchange, as the first 3 weeks of training is held at training centers in faraway location. I had much fun today with my teammates and all, but sadly the internet connection wasn't working on this computer I'm using at the lounge. So I'm using my cellphone as a temporary internet connection. Slow, but better than nothing.

I hope to tell more about the training as time and circumstances permit.