Arriving in Korea

Well this is my first blog entry ever, not really sure what I am suppose to write or if anyone would even find this mildly interesting. I am sitting in my new apartment in Ulsan, South Korea waiting for my family in Vancouver Canada to call me Skype. I have been in Ulsan for about 4 days now, we arrived on June 3^rd and have been running around the city trying to get set up in our new life here. We have moved to Ulsan so that Dennis can work on project that is being built in Ulsan and will eventually move to Fort McMurray Alberta. My work has graciously given me a leave of absence for a year so that I may go with Dennis.

The first few days here have been really great. We haven’t suffered much jet lag which is great. Most of our time here so far has been doing lots of shopping and eating. The apartment that we have moved into is fully furnished but we still need to fill it with food and our own personal touch.

Friday June 4^th we stayed around Ulsan, wandering around our condo complex, the side streets, Hyundai department store, and our local Home Plus store (insert annoying Home Plus jingle here). We also ate some delicious food. We ate bip bim bap, which is bowl full of beef, green onions, cabbage, garlic, chili pepper sauce, and rice. It comes with many side dishes including of course kimchi, spicy cabbage. For dinner we went to Dennis’ favorite shabu shabu restaurant from the last time that he worked in Korea in 2007. Shabu shabu is similar to fondue, where you stick thinly sliced pieces of mean and veggies into a boiling pot of spicy broth that is cooking in the middle of the table. Once all the meat and veggies are eaten you cook the noodles in the broth and then the hostess will come and remove the broth from the pot, and cook rice, seaweed, green onions and egg in the pot and you scoop out the rice and eat it. It is a delicious meal and I know we will become regulars at this restaurant.

Saturday we decided to drive into Busan (second largest city in Korea), which is about 45 minutes away; that is if you don’t get really lost like we did. We wanted to go to Busan to go to the Costco there to find some comforts of home. Going into Costco was like being transported back to Canada, as it was exactly the same including the hot dogs and ice cream, which we of course had to have. It was good to know that we can find lots of great things in Costco. It is a bit of a drive and we can find mostly everything here in Ulsan so I am guessing we will only go monthly or bi-monthly.

Dennis started work this morning leaving the apartment at 5:30am! During the day while he is at work I am hoping to get involved at the club house on the Foreigners compound. On the compound there is a driving range, tennis courts, squash courts, swimming pool, as well as many classes like yoga, pilates, art, cooking and language. It will be great to make some friends here that I can see during the day and go out with their families on the weekend. When you talk to certain people about their experiences in Korea they either love it or they hate it. So far I am loving it and I am going to make the best of our situation and enjoy the time that I have here as I know that Korea has a lot of offer. I also look forward to the boding time Dennis and I have together since most of our relationship he has been away working. I know we will both look back on this year fondly.

More information about Ulsan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulsan

www.ulsanonline.com -Expat webpage

-J