NHN (NAVER) Green Factory (HQ)

Lobby

On Friday 13th December I visited the NHN Corporation's HQ: NHN Green Factory. NHN Corporation is well known for providing one of Korea's top search portal (engine): NAVER, and mobile messenger app LINE.
The reason why I visited was because my New Media (NM) professor offered it as an optional trip for the class since we missed a lesson due to the national holiday Chuseok (mid-autumn festival). Originally, we were going to visit KAKAO Inc. HQ, but apparently there wasn't much for us to see, so Green Factory was our back up. Our NM professor has amazingly scary connections in Korea... Apparently he was offered to become the chairman of the Korean branch of Twitter around mid-term period, but rejected it because his wife told him to base his decision on where he would enjoy working the most: teaching us. Aww.
Getting back on topic. Initially, I was reluctant to attend since I'd rather spend the day revising for finals and finishing up my group projects than wake up at 7am to take a 1 hour train down to Seongnam - we had to meet at 10.30am. But ended up going after realising I would regret it if I didn't go. After all, I did come to Korea to learn more about Korean media. Might as well take this free opportunity to visit an institution, and grab a free lunch while I'm at it!
Unfortunately, it was Winter, and there was ice everywhere on the ground in the morning, so I ended up slipping and falling on my way down to the subway. Arrived at Green Factory in pain. But luckily that was the only negative point of the day.

Huge Christmas tree in the lobby

The HQ is a 10 minute walk away from Jeongja Station, very easy to find and not so hidden away. The building itself is really easy to spot amongst others since it is basically a glass pillar of green. I didn't walk from the station to the HQ. Instead, I was meeting up with a classmate, who was also a KUBA buddy, to guide me there in case I got lost. She ended up arriving late that morning and paid for our taxi ride to the HQ since it was a lot faster.

Upon entering the lobby, the first things we saw were the LINE character statues just placed there out in the open waiting for you to take pictures with them! It turns out that the public can access the ground floor's (first floor) facilities: NHN's souvenier store, coffee shop, 'chill-out-and-read-magazines' area, and their beautifully green library which has 2 floors!

To the left of the lobby is the sovenier store, coffee shop, and chill out area. You will first reach the chill out area where you can browse and read a wide variety of magazines, as well as be able to use the free sticky notes and pencils provided to take notes. This area also has seats that face the windows so the reader can catch some sunlight. The souvenier store's goods were reasonably priced. I would have bought a LINE character plushie but at that time I was low on money. The souvenier store is also merged with the coffee shop. The coffee shop 's staff is mainly comprised of people with disabilities. NHN tries their best to make employment available for the disabled. Later on the day I saw an employee in a wheelchair, which was surprising to me because it was such a rare sight in Korea. Heck, it's just usually rare to find people in wheelchairs here in Korea compared to England.

NAVER Library entrance

To the right of the lobby is the public library: NAVER Library. As mentioned before, this library has 2 floors in which the public could access freely. The shelves are wonderfully designed with a natural, organic and sophisticated look. And most importantly, at the top of these shelves there are green plants growing on them! You can see the leaves poking out from the edge of the shelf if you look upwards.
If you walk up the stairs towards the 2nd floor, you can get a beautiful view of the plants growing on the top of the shelves! There are study desks lined near the stairs in which you can read/study with all this beauty in front of you!

Library shelves with plants growing on the top (second floor balcony view)

The 'chill out zone' in the library (second floor)

There are also innovative mobile desks that you can roll around like a trolly to pick up books and take notes while standing/on the go. No need to grab a space at the desks! Besides, it's a lot healthier to stand. NHN knows what's best.

The 2nd floor has more workspaces and room than the 1st floor. Unfortunately, the shelves here aren't decorated with growing plants at the top. However, there is this really comfy-looking raised resting area where one can take a nap, or read whilst lounging on beanbags. I'll call it the 'chill out zone'.
The 2nd floor also offers an Accessibility Zone, where the disabled can try out these specialised computer gadgets that can help them navigate the web a lot easier.

After fiddling around with the gadgets, we were then taken to an area with a line of private rooms that are offered for journalists and employees to hold private meetings. These rooms are only accessible with a lobby-approved visitor pass. One of the rooms held a vending machine, which was placed there to keep it away from the public since the prices of its drinks and snacks were a lot cheaper than typical vending machines.

Innovative elevator touch pad thing

The Green Factory utilises innovative elevator technology in which all you have to do is tap on the touchscreen which floor you would like to go to, and then wait for one of the 6 elevator doors to open so it can take you to your destination. Upon getting inside there is no need to push a floor number since the system will already know. The elevator's so spacious as well!

So after taking the elevator up to one of the most upper floors, we were brought to the employees' hangout space.
Typical of most new media/internet-based companies, this space had a playful design to it, in which it resembled to a modest adult version of a playground. With benches designed like bicycles, wooden gazebos lined on the sides, parasols, deck chairs, a fountain, and etc. The floor was also partially covered in astro-turf/grass rugs.
The space looked almost like a garden, albeit a little be cluttered. Because the walls surrounding it were large window panes - like the rest of the building, natural sun light lit the space therefore making it all look convincingly natural, like I was outside.
It was basically an imitation of the great outdoors without the risk of wind and rain ruining your break.

Hangout space

After snapping a few photos in this area and resting for a short while we rode the elevator up again to one of the very few top floors of the building, which showcased the history of NHN Corp. on a few shelves. The theme of the display is the NHN Corp.'s 'mission'.
In a room on the same floor we were shown a video and powerpoint presentation about the NHN company.

Best donkatsu ever :Q_

 Right after, we were taken to the basement to have lunch at what my professor dubbed as the "famous Naver restaurant", which in reality was a large basement canteen offering above average quality food. I wouldn't confidently call it 5 stars worthy food, but it's most definitely made of a higher quality by well trained chefs for sure.
There were 4 different lunch sets to choose from, everyone was handed a lunch coupon and told to line up according to what lunch set we wanted. I opted for the donkatsu option purely because of the mini pizza served as a side dish - plus the line was a tad longer than others.
Needless to say, I never had such amazing pork cutlet (donkatsu) before. It was so damn crispy, firm, and flavoursome. None of that soggy and flimsy crap that I was used to eating. I was deeply regretful that I couldn't finish all 3 pieces of donkatsu... The corn soup was lovely too.

With lunch being the last thing on the itenary, the trip ended around 1pm. But before we left, the director NHN had bought us stuff from the gift store! We were gifted a notebook and pen each. Such a lovely guy.

Upon leaving the building, the roads and streets were still pretty icy. So everyone slowly and carefully walked their way back to the station...