[Part 4 - Ulsan] My 1-month graduation trip to South Korea with Char!

Taken at the Daewangam Park

Ulsan, an industrial city where not many will think of when traveling to S.Korea. Ulsan is situated at the southern eastern side of S.Korea, in between Busan and Gyeongju. Definitely way bigger than Singapore. That's where oil come from by SK Energy, where Hyundai cars are assembled and have the largest shipyard by Hyundai as well. It is also the place where whaling activity was once held. In this post, i will introduce Ulsan's attractions and the things we did when we were there.

Day 5 - Arrival at Ulsan > Daewangam Park > Ilsan Beach

We arrived at Ulsan KTX station at 3PM and took a bus down to the main city of Ulsan. Dropped halfway and catch a taxi to our host's apartment. As we took a ride off to Dong-gu, one of the district of Ulsan, situated nearer to sea, we can't help but notice all the industrials. In my mind, i wonder... why would people live near to an industrial site? Isn't the air badly polluted? Hmmm...

Anyways, this time round, we booked our accommodation through Airbnb (home-stay this time round!). Our host's name is Emily, married with 2 children, a daughter and a son. Apparently, the both of them are studying. Her daughter's a university student studying in Busan while her son is probably studying in Ulsan whom we didn't get to see. We only manage to see her husband who comes home late almost everyday due to his job as an engineer.

When we arrived at the address she gave, it wasn't where she was. She had to come down and search for us. Haha! She lives in an apartment called 'Prugio'. It is the brand of the apartment. Not only there are Prugio apartments in Ulsan, there are others in other cities as well. So apparently, there was a whole spread of Prugio apartments in Ulsan, thankfully, just across the road. So confusing. But we manage to make it to her house anyways. We were greeted by the children she was teaching English to. One of the boys wanted to talk to us in English, but when Emily brought him to our room, he got shy and just said 'hello'. So cute~

We stayed in her daughter's room which was the nearest to the toilet. 

What i like about living with a local is that i get to experience how the Koreans live and get to see the different lifestyles they have. Their apartments are almost similar to Singapore's except for the scenery. As you can see from the below picture, they are actually surrounded by mountains and what not, mostly nature and i like that! At home, it's just more HDBs around you with small little punny parks with no nice views at all. Besides that, the apartments in Korea are much much more high tech in terms of their appliances. For example, at home, we still use gas tanks while the Koreans on the other hand uses a central gas system. We also found an interesting thing in Emily's house. Her water tap! There's actually like a hidden button below her sink. All you need to do is to kick that button and water will run (which means you don't have to lift the tap). It was my first time seeing that. AND! they have mini televisions in their kitchen. So like when they cook, they can watch at the same time! Super crazy. The Koreans also recycle their waste accordingly to recyclables & food waste in a specific kind of plastic bag and have to manually bring it down to the main bin chute. There's no the main bin chute where you throw off from 10 storeys high.

The view from the room

By the time we settled down, it was nearly 5PM and we decided to visit the Daewangam Park since Emily herself recommended the place to us. (we already knew of that place through the internet but we were thinking when we should visit it.) She told us that it's beautiful even in the night as it was newly renovated with colorful lights lit off the bridge. She called a taxi for us and it took only 10 mins to reach there. It was quite near to her apartment.

Welcome by this view

On the left, were some cottage looking like buildings with restaurants and cafes. Opposite it, is a playground for children where the dragon is.

Dragon playground

Look at the eye ball, there's a boy in there! 

The map of the park (Click on the picture to enlarge)

Apparently, there are 15 thousand pine trees in the park itself. Crazy or what! But it was so pretty! and it goes well with the weather. Hahah! Its says on the board that noble scholars from the Joseon Dynasty used to visit this park and they named it a second Haegeumgang Island. It was used as a ranch as well.

Blur shot of us while walking...

Beautiful Sunset

"Dae-Wang am is well known because of Kind Munmu's wife, who became a guardian dragon of the kingdom upon her death, flew to Ulsan and submerged herself under this rock right here to protect her country and people. As time past by, people begin to call this place, 'The Rock of the Great King" or "The Rock of Dang (Dae-Wang Am) It is told that seaweed does not grow around this rock because of the dragon" 

(Actually, i saw some seaweed around it, in the sea but not like growing off the rock.)

On the newly built bridge

Walked to the observation tower, the end of the rock

Hyundai industrial

I don't know what Char was doing

That was where we were...

So many coffee places. Should have gone there for a cup of coffee before dinner
(All the cars in white.) Look at how high the ceiling is! I wish i live in there.

We were getting hungry, so we made our way to Ilsan Beach where we found seafood restaurants! There were too many, we just walked into a random one.

The stairway on the right, brought us to Ilsan Beach

So huge.

Bugs for dinner

Chewed this till my jaw hurt

Funny thing was, we ordered blindly and this was what we got. We didn't expect it to be raw fish/squid but we ate it anyways. It was quite yummy. After that, we went to TomNToms for a cuppa coffee to cook those raw things in our tummy. LOL! Walked around the town after before heading home.

We reached home greeted by both Emily and her husband. Chatted for a bit and watched TV together. She even let us taste her home-made fermented pomegranate drink. We stayed up till quite late that night, took a shower and went to bed.

Day 6 - Ulsan Shinhwa Village > Ulsan Museum > Jangsaengpo Whale Museum > Taehwagang Grand Park > Ulsan Youth Street 

Egg & ham & toast & strawberry jam & milk

Woke up to a delicious home-made breakfast by Emily before she went off for swimming. She was having her Korean breakfast as well and we were talking about "Descendants of the Sun". Like how Korean housewives put their work aside just to watch Joongki. LOL! Anyways, i felt so blessed~

After that, we met Jaewoong, a friend whom i've known through a language app. He lives nearby thus decided to meet up and brought us around. We visited the Ulsan Shinhwa Village, almost like Gamcheon Village but much much smaller and deserted. There was no tourists at all but! we managed to see a few cute artworks and came across this Vietnamese man who have lived in Korea for many years. He thought that Char was my mother or i was her mother or something. -.-

There was really nothing much there so we moved on to the next destination which was the Ulsan Museum. Our first visit to a Korean museum. It wasn't that fantastic because the english description of the artwork was not detailed enough to understand. So we just went through really quickly, looking at the artifacts, ceramic pots, metal pots and more pots. Didn't really take much pictures.

Ulsan Museum 

One of the exhibition

The next place we went was the Jangsaengpo Whale Museum. Obviously there were no whales but only dolphins. Got to see baby whales in those kind of preservation bottles. And of course, live dolphins that performed for us. More museum after...

Caught at the right time!

After that, we headed to Taehwagang Grand Park. I remember Char telling me she wanted to visit this place and i was a bit skeptical about it because it's just a park. What so special about it? But when i was there, the bamboo forest was really beautiful. If only there were pandas... Went there just to take pictures and have a stroll. LOL! Really nothing much but i enjoy the scenery and it's nature.

Went to a cafe to chill before heading off to the Youth Street for Mom's Touch! and! Noraebang!

Ulsan's quite boring, isn't it? Even as i blog about this, i have nothing to talk about.

Day 7 - Off to Gyeongju

The next day, we slept in a little. Emily prepared breakfast for us again! So nice of her. Packed our bags and since we had time, we walked around her neighbourhood. It's nothing like Singapore. For example, when we walk down, it's probably just one playground, a coffee shop somewhere and maybe have to walk a little to a wet market. From Emily's place, when you walk down, there's a playground. When you cross the road, there are shophouses. And then there's a market street, ediya cafe, pizza place, supermarket, food stores as well. It was so so so convenient.

Emily came home from her daily swimming exercise and helped us call a taxi and off we went to Ulsan KTX about 40 mins away. We made our way to Gyeongju~~ Ulsan was meh. I don't think i'll ever go back there unless i have like some business to be there. I think the only place worth to go to was the Daewangam. Well, to me.

Stay tuned for the next post!

p.s I need to up my enthusiastic level to continue with the posts. Many many parts to come~