Ulsan - City of Good Friends

Ulsan is an industrial city, but Sohee has lots of friends here that she met through the ESL program at the UofR. So we decided to see the sights here and visit some old friends.

Firstly, we check into our hotel. The Hyundai Hotel. Yup, same company that makes the car. Hyundai, Samsung, LG make and do everything here. We even bought some LG diapers for Hannah... ahahaha! Anyways, this was by far the nicest hotel we stayed at.

It was in the industrial part of the city, but it had a pretty good view.

Hannah enjoys heights.

Not far from our hotel was a McDonald's, and you always gotta check out what other countries are doing. We were there for breakfast, and it is pretty much the exact same menu. I'd say the quality was a little bit higher. The coffee was really nice, the McMuffin was built with care, and the hashbrowns were nice and thick.

One thing that was pretty cool (and you see this in a lot of restaurants) is the way they handle the trash. Liquids go in one bin, cups get stacked, food waste in another, and regular trash in another. They try and recycle as much as possible which is quite rad. We need to start doing that in Canada.

Do it for the polar bears.

Next day was busy. We first have lunch with our friend Cheol-Wook. His parents own a restaurant with the most amazing samgyeopsal (pork) ever. I have even blogged about this before, but it was worth mentioning again. It's amazing. Secret recipe. You need to go there now.

Pork flip, son.

When we offered to pay, they refused our money. Amazing food and amazingly kind. Many thanks!

CheolWook and his mom.

Next, we hit up a traditional cultural festival that was going on in Ulsan (Soeburi). It is supposed to be a festival celebrating Ulsan steel making and engineering. They have a huge history of engineering here and they celebrate it with old and new innovations. But in reality, it's much more... It's basically a cultural folk festival. Here is a marching band playing traditional Korean music.

Each one of those tents has something different. Some had traditional items like masks or carvings of scriptures, and some had an activities you could participate in. Like drumming! One of the beats they were playing was very similar to one of the cadences I played in high school, so we had a little jam session going.

Crazy foreigner knows the traditional cadence for some coincidental reason.

Next, we found the marching band playing again... and they were putting on a performance. Some were playing traditional music with traditional instruments, and some were break dancing (b-boy). Traditional mixed with modern freestyle dance. Deadly combo.

What a crappy photo of something that was very awesome.

We then found this blacksmith dude engraving names into metal. He was surrounded by crazy eager kids jacked up on sugar, so I was astonished that there wasn't a terrible accident involving liquid metal.

Protip: red coals are hot.

We then stumble apon the main area of the festival where another perfomance was going on... probably the highlight. There was a 30 minute-ish performance of a traditional ceremony. There was a lot of drumming, music, singing, and speeches/prayers.

The ceremony itself was sort of strange yet intriguingly rad. They were praying to a ghost for good luck, and offered the ghost gifts, one of them being a pig's head (it was fake, but I bet there was a time when it was real).

Head of swine (could be a rad band name).

When the ceremony was all over, they had a big party. They broke the 4th wall and the party was for everyone in the audience too. They started playing happier music, dancing and handing out rice cake (it's a dessert used for a lot of celebrations) and makkoli (unfiltered Korean rice wine). That's right, they were just straight up handing out alcohol to everyone in the crowd. It was amazing. We seriously need to lighten up our liquor laws in Sask. So, because I was a foreigner, I was offered a fair share of both.

Rice cake entering my mouth.

I was then offered to come on stage and party with them. I have no idea what I'm doing, but they seem to enjoy the fact I'm willing to participate with them. It's really my pleasure as I enjoy dancing (badly) after drinking a little free rice wine.

The High Ten dance with the leader dude.

After resting a bit, we go to the beach.

But we are not here to relax. We are here to hike the mountain that is to the right of us. In flip flops. Holding a baby. Why am I so crazy? We'll never know. Actually, it's not a steep climb. It's basically like walking up stairs for 45 minutes. And then down. The first part actually is steps. Haha. Great fun.

The start of our journey with CheolWook and his girlfriend:

Why you gotta take me everywhere?

When you get to the top, there are some wicked deadly views of the beach, city, and ocean. I won't ruin it with my smart ass comments. Just enjoy:

Making our way back down, the sun is beginning to set. It was a long and tiring, but the view made it all worth while.

Past our friends, past Sohee and Hannah, you can see the beach, where flip flops are advantageous.

Next up, we meet the rest of the crew (all of the old ESL students) at a Jajangmyeon Restaurant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jajangmyeon). The food was amazing, and it was good to see some familiar faces again. They are such kind people and it was really cool that they all came out to see us.

Peace for everyone.

Lastly, before I wrap up... here is a picture of our drinks. Soda Pop is still served in glass bottles. Yes, I know you can still find it in Canada if you look hard, but it is straight up the most common medium here. Hell yes. Pop is just better out of a glass bottle. If you think otherwise, I don't think we can be friends anymore. Also in this picture is Pineapple Fanta. I really didn't know what to expect, but it was #%$*ing awesome! You can't get it in Canada, so I might take a suitcase of this stuff with me. The taste is so refreshingly good, it'll blow your face clean off.

Where will our journey take us next? Here is a not so suble hint: Busan.

Gyeongju - Part 2

Yay, back in Internet Land (Seoul/Homebase). We stayed in some crappy hotels the last few days, so I did not have WIFI available to me. Well, I didn't have free WIFI. They have WIFI everywhere, but it's locked down here really tight... you have to have a cell phone plan to connect to them. Anyways... enough excuses. Where was I?

Ah yes, after visiting the Buddah on top of the mountain, there was some night spots to check out in Gyeongju.

One of the most awe inspiring spots was the Cheomseongdae Observatory. This is one of the oldest scientific structures in the world used for studying the stars. It's not anything really special to look at, but if you consider the history and the fact that it survived time and many wars, you can't help but be in awe.

Next, we checked out Anapji. This is where the royalty and nobles would hang out. It was built as an amusment park/getaway. Now it's just a park with some beautifully lit up monuments.

Did I mention there was a super rad pond in the middle?

After walking around so much this day we packed it in and went back to the hotel for some shut eye. In the morning we were treated to a sort of nicer day. Here is the view of the lake from our 1970's hotel room:

They advertised that they had a tennis court. That's the brown dirt with the broken net.

We then decided to check out Yangdong Folk village. Upon getting there it didn't seem all that special. Just some very old houses. Until I saw a guy come out of one of the houses. Yeah, people are still living there! These Korean people are still sort of living the traditional lifestyle (well, for the most part.). This is a treasure of Korea and even Prince Charles has visited here before.

Traditional, plus cars.

The houses with the grass roofs were used by the servants and the houses with the fancy curvy asian shingle roofs were uses by the nobles.

Grass hut, where I'd probably live.

Next, we went to Millenium Park. This new amusement park was built to showcase Korean History and culture. As we were there, of course there was another school tour going on. Here are some teenage girls gawking over Hannah. She is somewhat of a celebrity here because everyone thinks she's sooooo cute.

AWWWWWW!!!

Near the entrance, there was fountains of all the 12 Lunar calendar animals. I'm the rooster. There's a fun fact for everyone.

Looks better in real life. Like most things.

In the park are also 2 shows that they put on. The first one tells a story about a war with China. It was pretty cool actually. They had fireworks, sword fights, ship fights (one of the boats sinks! haha), and dancing. They also did some crazy fantasy magic stuff. Maybe not historically accurate, but awesome nonetheless.

I control the water, fools!!!

Huge set. That's what she said.

Some dancing. Someone is in the rear of that animal costume.

Oh noes! The Chinese attack. Choreographed sword fights ensue.

Chinese lose. Some die, some get their ship sunk.

After the show, we wander around a bit and there is a spot where you can try archery. It's harder than it looks, but I hit the target a couple of times.

Robin Hood. Or Skyrim. or something.

We then saw another show/demonstration. It was half ninja tricks, half horse tricks and all awesome. I actually liked this show more because there was some serious skill involved, and they could have died 70 times over.

Prepare to DIE!

On horses, they shot bow and arrows and spears at a target. They were going with some decent speed and hit the target every time.

Back to ninja's...

The bamboo didn't have a chance.

Back to horses. They are now doing some tricks. They do flips and tricks and never fall off the horse.

Just chillin.

These pictures seriously do not give justice to what they were doing. I'll try and post some video of this later because it was seriously very rad.

On our way out, we decided to have one last final family photo at the park. After this, we returned the POS car and hopped on a train to... ULSAN!

Gyeongju - Part 1

On a very early Thursday morning, we hopped on a bus and headed for Gyeongju city. We left shortly after 6am, but because of our weird hours, we were not tired.

Got ma ticket!

This city was the capital of Korea during the Silla dynasty. It is also one of the only cities that did not have all of its monuments destroyed by either the Japanese occupation, nor the Korean war. So, we are going to check out some rad UNESCO monument sites.

Along the way, we got to see some farm land. Sort of reminds me of back home, except there are mountains, and the farms here are a lot smaller. It's mostly all rice, but the levels they need the land to be at for proper irrigation is pretty cool.

After arriving, we rented the crappiest car possible and got a move on. This car had this annoying GPS that had this whole start up music sequence that lasted 30 seconds. It would also complain whenever you would go over the speed limit, like your mother was sitting there shotgun. It also only took LPG gas. It had its own gas tank for that which took up most of the trunk and we were worried the whole time it was going to explode on us.

Deathmobile.

Then we stopped for a bite to eat. Gyeongju is famous for tofu soup so we had the most amazing meal here. That fish on the table was amazing too. You literally had to try it to believe. Seafood is amazing when it comes straight out of the ocean. Saskatchewan needs an ocean.

3 days later, and I'm still thinking about this meal

Next, we went to Gyeongju Bulguksa. This is a Buddhist temple constructed in 774. It was burned down several times and rebuilt every time to its exact original architecture.

Walking up to the entrance gate with a baby, who doesn't look at the camera.

We are not allowed to take pictures of any of the Buddha statues inside (well, we have one but promptly got a scolding from a monk... I won't post it out of respect). So most of these pictures are just of the monuments and buildings in the courtyard. Inside each of these buildings is a gold statue of Buddha and beautiful artwork. It is also filled with candles. Non-scented ones I presume.

Here's a different part of the courtyard:

Tripod + Timer = Family shot!

Entering and exiting the temple, there is a beautiful huge pond garden.

I saw fish jumping out of the water, but of course I can't take a picture of it you silly sally.

Next we went to Seokguram Grotto. It's an amazing monument of Buddha and is considered to be an amazing piece of art. It is completely carved out of Granite. So we drive for 30 minutes up a mountain in our piece of crap car. The road is long and winding. We have to dodge buses, and it's starting to get foggy, cause well... it's clouds. We are driving up a mountain. We finally make it there and see the gate entrance.

Temple in the sky.

But we can't see the grotto just yet. We find out we have to hike uphill for another 20 minutes. At this point, the air is thin, it's freezing cold, and we are in shorts and flip flops because we plan very poorly. Everyone else is bundled up and we are the only crazy people underdressed (baby is very warm in blankets. DO NOT CALL SOCIAL SERVICES!). Non-the-less, the walk heats us up. We are Canadian. Cold doesn't stop us.

Before my mom says anything, I was a gentleman and pushed the stroller. This was just for the photo.

So we get up to the main area and there are a ton of crazy kids there because there is a middle school tour going on. It is extremely loud here. I'm sure Buddha is rolling in his tomb.

ARE WE LOUD ENOUGH?!?!?

All the lanterns are out because it's Buddha's birthday coming up soon. It's not like Christmas, but it's a national holiday and you can go to a temple and monks will give you free tea.

Colourful Radness

So, we have another short climb 5 minutes (this time without a stroller, carrying the baby by hand because it's rocky steps the whole way). OMG let's recap! Driving a long winding death wish road, hiking, crazy kids, more hiking... The suspense must be killing you. It was for us. We travelled far and long and endured pain to see it... so here it is. Here is the picture we got of Buddha carved out in the granite which resides in the Grotto:

What?!?!? That's it?

Yup, that's it. The Buddha is inside that building and it was pretty amazing. This is all we can show you because... you guessed it. Can't take pictures of Buddha. I know this is a lie because we took 9000 shots of him in Thailand years before, but there must be different rules here in Korea.

For those who can't use google, here is a photo. Professional photographers get a pass for some reason:

Anyways... That's enough blogging for today. I'll post part 2 in a few days. Are any of you even reading this? Leave a comment if you are.

In Korea, Jet Lagged.

You may be asking yourself why it has taken so long for a post to appear. Sohee and I are experiencing some of the worst jet lag ever. Jet lag is challenging, but with a baby, it is at level: "Professionals only. Do not attempt.". Basically, whenever we think we have gotten on track, we have a baby that is up and ready to play at 3am. We are sort of on schedule now... less naps during the day and waking up at 5-6am instead of 3am. So, let's start this off from the beginning:

We fly out at 5am from Regina. We stumble onto 3 planes, then get blasted across the Pacific ocean at sound crushing speeds. Hannah did pretty good on the flights, but it's just really hard for the parents to relax when taking care of little ones. But some moments are perfect. If you don't find this next picture adorable, there is something seriously wrong with you:
Through the magic of blog, we are now in Korea after 2 layovers, and 14 hours of flight time.

What's up Korea?!?!

After customs and all that fun stuff, we find out that our Korean bank card doesn't work. Moreso, I can't remember the pin#. Because it's a Friday afternoon, the bank can't resolve this until Monday... so stuck without money, we find out that Visa is accepted everywhere these days. Boom. Catch the bus, and another hour and a half, we are finally in the city. We meet our friends, Mihee and Leon, who will be letting us stay with them.

The next few days are a blur. We left on a Thursday and arrived on a Friday. Our sleep schedule is messed to the nth degree. I have no idea what day of the week it is anymore. I'm also culture shocked once again. I have to start getting used to the big crowds of people, the traffic, the concrete jungle of high rise buildings, and the air pollution. But it's not all like that. There are a ton of parks and beautiful nature stuff right in the big city. In our zombie state (we likely woke up at 3pm this day) we took a walk in the park. This park is pretty big, and it has a bridge over the highway. There are also a ton of gym machines a long the way to stop and work out. But not today. Just going to enjoy the flowers n' stuff with my wife.


During one of our night zombie states, we went to the night market (Dongdaemun, I think). This market has a ton of knockoff (illegal) brand name clothing and handbags. Basically everything you can think of. We still have no cash at this point, so we were just scoping the area, as it has a lot of crazy buildings with pretty lights.
I stopped to enjoy the food. I'm eating a Korean pancake here.
I'm gonna keep this post short as we have another long day ahead of us. I'll have lots of stories and pictures of our adventures, so stay tuned for more.