Lost in Ulsan

Ulsan river (3 mins walk from Rachs place) and examples of apartment buildings
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Here I am in Ulsan, where my friend Rachael has been living for almost a year now.  Rach was there to pick me up from the bus station, it was so great seeing her again after so long.

The bus ride to Ulsan seemed to take a long time, but it was a good way to see the country.  The first thing I noticed about Korea was the lack of colour - no green grass at all, it is all yellow-brown like hay, strange for someone who is used to the lush green winters of NZ. This wasn't helped by the large percentage of deciduous trees, making the country side to be not as pretty as I was expecting.  Rach tells me though it is very pretty in summer.

and the bus drivers must of really thought I was crazy!

The beach that isnt Ilsan beach. I counted 22 big ships off the shore
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My next impressions were of rows and rows of homogenous apartment blocks - clearly built as a way to house lots of people in minimal space, without a thought for aethesics.  Korea also has tunnels through hills in the middle of nowhere, and the road was the equivalent of the Wellington motorway nearly the whole way here.

We walked the 15 mins to her little apartment in Ulsan - me with my big pack on my back just so I could prove I could do it!  Rachs apartment is so cute - under floor heating and very warm.  There is no shower box - so you have to be careful not to get the toilet paper wet when showering.  Also she has a weird pink, glittery padded toilet seat - luxurious!

Me happy to be at Ilsan beach
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Yesterday was spent wandering around Ulsan. Before Rach went to work at 1.30 she pointed me in the direction of some shops across the river where cheap clothes are to be found (yes, clothes shopping already - it is very warm here and i was expecting to be wearing T shirts under merino, under jerseys, under my fleece jacket when actually i am just wearing a tshirt - and i didn't bring any that adequately cover my tummy! Ulsan- another place that is warmer in winter than wellington is in summer).  After i didn't find any clothes that would fit me or weren't too frilly (Korean girls are always very chic) i walked back to the main area of town to make sure I could find it again.  I could find it, I just couldn't find my way back to Rachaels place after wards.  Never fear, her tip of looking for the only blue apartment blocks in Ulsan which are beside her place saved me from wandering around all night.

In the park. I took this picture because I thought it was weird to build a bridge just to a rock.
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Today I decided to be a bit more adventurous and took a bus to see one of the "12 scenic sites of Ulsan" - Daewangam park.  This park is famous for its beautiful rocks that jut out into the sea.  It was supposed to be a 20 min bus ride, and I was to keep an eye out for the sign to Ilsen beach, as this is where to get out.  I didn't see a sign, and soon I was the only passenger on the bus, and it  stopped at a terminal and the driver opened the back door as if to say "get out you crazy white girl", so I did.  And thought - where the hell am I?

I thought that I must have missed the stop, but was a bit worried that I had got on the bus back in Ulsan city at the wrong side of the road, and so could be anywhere, seeing as the sign to one of the 12 scenic sites of Ulsan must be quite big right?  I started to walk back the way i had come, and I asked a lady where I was, by saying "obi" (where) and gesturing at my (all English) map of the Ulsan area.  She pointed in the general area where I wanted to be so that wasn't too bad, but that was as helpful as she could be with our communication difficulties.

At this stage I noticed that the bus terminal was at the end of a peninsula type land mass, with the sea on one side and a big bay on the other.  So I thought that maybe I was on the wrong side of the peninsula, and should have stayed on the bus.  So, I tried to work out whether I was facing east or west by the position of the sun (really),  this didn't work out so well, even after I remembered that I was in the northern hemisphere and so the sun would be in the southern part of the sky in winter, not the northern part like at home. I also remembered scoffing at the idea of bringing a compass with me overseas.  So then I decided to walk back past the bus terminal to see if the bus goes past it, it didn't but I saw another bus that the guide said I could catch to the park, and two minutes down the road there it was.  Success!  this whole thing took about 1.5 hours.

The beach was ok, people would be lying on it in bikinis with this type of weather in Wellington, but it was deserted.  After having some lunch in my first sit-on-a-cushion eatery, after giving the waitress the phrase book so she could point at what they served and hoping for the best, I walked to the park.  It was lovely, I had a nice walk that was quite strenuous at times clambering over rocks which I think were a bit off where I was supposed to be.  For Sean and Adro - I also had my first squattie experience at the park, and it was a long drop squattie as well for extra intrepid points!

On the way back to town I got kicked off at the terminal again, changed buses to the same number as my original bus, and passed through Ilsen beach which I now recognised, so I had missed it the first time - there was no big signs, just a road sign above the road which I missed looking for the signs beside the road. That bus must of zig zaged the peninsula, and the bus drivers must of really thought I was crazy!