Ulsan Trip Mega Post!

Ok so finally got around to editing all the photos from my trip to visit Hi-Jin in Ulsan. Bear with me... Oh man. And I have another post after this with more photos from the Folk Village I went to yetsrday... who knows when I'll do that!

Anyhow, on to Ulsan!


Soo... I went on Sunday the 26th until Tuesday the 28th.



So I arrive in Ulsan after a beautiful 6-7 hour train ride and meet Hi-Jin and her sister at Lotte Department store. Then off to eat... I think there was chicken and Octopus tentacles in there along with some veggies. It was really good! And of course cold buckwheat noodles on the side (the dish I showed before with ice and spicy stuff!) which is becoming one of my favorites here for the summer.



This is Beth, the kind woman that let me couch surf with her! Really cool gal, met her friends and this is actually her boyfriends couch. His place was pretty swanky. She teaches and he's an engineer. That's the dog she was dogsitting for the weekend. Sweet little scragly pup named Chaio that followed us along the city with no leash. She used to be a stray and had puppies right after her friend took her in!



The view from the apartment!

At a famous Chinese restaurant. But apparently it's actually a Koreanized Chinese food that they don't actually eat in China.



The dish is called 짜장면 (Jajangmyeoh). Was weird to eat something not spicey in Korea. It was pretty good!


The guy behind me is making the noodles by hand. I tried to get a better photo but it was hard with the dirty glass window. He stretches them and then spins and stretches and so on!



The steps entering into 울기공원 (Ulgi Park)


So the following photos are odd sites up in an around the park. This one is just a little side street.

The scragly dogs.


Lots of places here were closed down and broken.




Ready for this one??? I have no idea what these are or what they are called but you eat them. They were in the salt water tanks in front of some seafood restaurants that have fish and snails and other such things fresh. The little holes opened and closed like fish mouths only way creepier. I don't think I'm adventurous enough to try these little suckers.

Please. Click it. Have a closer look!

Another side street.


Heading into the most beautiful thing I've seen in Korea so far...


Listen to the Dolphin!



Getting closer....
Wowow. Here we go!






So these women in their wet suits dive into the water and catch things to sell fresh. The one bellow is calling to the people approaching to go check her stuff out... in Korean of course. You can't see in the photo but the 3 people in the front are heading down some stairs. This is right next to the summit like area in the above photos.


Sorting and cleaning I guess?

This woman came up to the top of the stairs to sell up there.



Climbed up some stones to this little summit where the other tourists weren't going. What a view!





Hard to get the best shots just balancing my camera on rocks...



Trying to look serious. The rest I look like a major goofball and I have enough of those photos.





These trees are so cool I had to be a goofball again.




So heading over to that cool place in the above photographs.


What does it look like?


Mostly goofed around with this at the top of that summit cus the view from the other one was better anyway.


The walk back through the park as the sun is beginning to set.


Walking back to the beach we happened upon all this abandoned fair-type stuff!



Possibly the cutest and most patriotic dog in Korea... is it called patriotic here?


So unlike back home. Beachfront property isn't really a thing. At least not here at Ilsan Beach. These are the vegetable gardens of the poor folks that live in front of the water. Their homes were pretty sad to see. I didn't really get a good shot though.



First time in the East Sea! 일산해수욕장 (Ilsan Beach) This was actually right by the park but we did the park first.




So people in Korea don't really do the towel and bathing suit thing. Many bring tents or sit under the ones that are already on the beach like this one on these covered platforms. They wear normal clothes. There is one platform just like this outside my building where the ajimas (older women) sit and hang out together or clean vegetables.


Thinking of Val. Found a bunch of heart shaped rocks...




So after the beach we met up with a few of Hi-Jins friends.

2 of the girls worked at the Hyundai department store. We waited for them to get off work and it was amazing to see how fast they shut the place down. I was just studying my Korean book and I look up and all the products are being covered, employees are scurrying around to get changed and then out the door! It was so crazy. The for dinner we had some chicken that was sooo spicy with 3 of her girlfriends. None of them spoke but the basics in English so the conversation was mostly them talking in Korean and then Hi-Jin trying to get them to ask me questions with what little Korean they knew. Then giggling at what little I knew in Korean. Then one girl said "your face is small". Which isn't the first time this statement has been made by a Korean to a foreigner (happened to my coworker!!) It's really funny how blunt Koreans can be about age and looks.

Then after dinner we met up with this friends boyfriend and had some dessert. He spent a year and a half in Australia so I thought we could talk but he was too shy! She didn't speak much English but tried.




This is what we ate! There is ice on the bottom and a creamy sweet sauce for all of it. I got to mix it up because I was the guest and Hi-Jin's friend helped me. :) It was so yummy. In case you didn't know, those are red beans on the top. They are used in all kinds of desserts here from ice cream to pastries. Depending on how they are made they can be really tasty!



Then the 3 of us girls walked back to Hi-Jin's parents house to have a sleep-over. It took about an hour but didn't feel so long aside from my new shoes killing me. It's amazing that it was 1 am and I felt totally safe. Ahh Korea. I decided they should name me. So my Korean name is 누리 (Nuri) short for 온누리 (Onnuri) which means "whole world". It took a while and many vetos on names I didn't like to get to it but I'm quite pleased. It's a really sweet name. We named Hi-Jin's friend Summer. Which unfortunetely is the only name I can remember though her Korean name does start with an S.. I still have such a hard time remembering Korean names (not to mention I was already bad at names in English).

Came upon this view on the walk home:


So the night was supposed to be a cute girly sleep-over (which it was!) but I got super sick! I threw up 2 times. I'm not really sure why. I was really scared my stomach problems were starting again. Hi-Jin thinks maybe the chicken from dinner was just too spicy. It was pretty spicy, even for me and I kept feeling like I was tasting the gas or propane or something. But I didn't get sick til hours later! In any case I'm totally fine now, was just a little tired and worn the next day. I finally fell to sleep to the sound of them whispering in Korean, thinking about the complexities of language. Realizing it would be the same feeling if I was whispering in English with a friend in front of a foreigner. They would be lost as we communicated in a way they could never understand. I fell asleep in awe despite my wretching stomach, wishing I could conquir so many languages and just have the words of the world flowing from my tongue with the ease of a native...


Didn't take any photos at Hi-Jin's which is a shame cus it was really nice! But I was so out of sorts from getting sick. The next morning she made some breakfast which consisted of fried... squash I think? White corn, and hot cakes. Koreans don't really do breakfast like we do in the states though our breakfast foods are gaining popularity. In class I asked my kids what they ate for breakfast and most of them said rice and kimchi. It took me a second to realize they did know what the word breakfast meant but that its just different here! The hot cakes Hi-Jin made were kind of like pancakes but actually tasted good! (sorry pancake lovers!) They don't use butter or syrup so I was a little skeptical and then I took a bite and was so pleased. No toppings requires. Just so good alone.

So then we headed out to Summer's house. Her mom whipped a lunch in the blink of an eye that was absolutely delicious. Or to use a new vocab word... 짱 (chang) which is slang for "the best" or "really good" or "cool". Speaking of which, Summer and Hi-Jin made me a whole list of slang and curse words and the like on the bus on one of our journeys, can't remember which. Really useful stuff you don't find in books!

Anyhow here is us eating the lunch! The most delicious seaweed snack I've had in Korea is in my hand (and on the table). It was a prepackaged kind. I have to get the brand! They serve them in the bars but they aren't as tasty. Then fried rice with veggies and I think pork? A light egg soup and fresh tea. Afterwards we had a really good coffee that almost tasted like tea and coffee mixed. Really sweet and good! I wanted a photo with her mom but she was too shy! She gave me a couple small gifts. So sweet!




After this I caught the bus back home and crashed out! I was so tired. The bus took less time (4 hours) than the train but the view wasn't much and it didn't have a bathroom. I made the huge mistake of not going to the restroom when we stopped in hour 2 and when we arrived in Seoul frantically ran around trying to find one unsuccessfully in the subway station. Also totally blanked on the Korean word for bathroom when I needed it most and had to pull out my book to ask. Then the lady told me no. So I hopped on the subway to 2 stations down and went up and down a million stares and around in circles (with all my stuff mind tou) to find the further bathroom because the closer one was under construction or something. Ok... It was a pretty close call and I was really really mad and tired and more mad and about to cry. Wow... never going to do that ever again. Between that and getting sick, kind of a downer ending to a beautiful trip! Haha. But I survived!