Alana and I took off to Ulsan after a great time in Seoul. I was excited to show her where we had been living for the past nine months and she was eggar to see Dennis and Arnold. We had a great night catching up and eating pizza. Arnold was so happy to see Alana and spent a lot of time snuggling with her.
Over the next week we truly took over Ulsan and the surrounding areas. We did some hikes,had a facial, went to Penis Park (more about that in a bit), visited a temple, drove to Busan, had a tour of the industry in Ulsan, and of course ate some amazing food. It was a lot of fun having Alana around. It was hard to say good bye last year to one of my best friends so it was great that we got to spend lots of time together while she was here. We got back up to our old tricks of singing a song about everything that we are going, making sarcastic comments, and laughing about all our inside jokes while poor Dennis just shook his head.
Ok so here a bit more on the famous Penis Park! Back before we left for Korea we were reading out Lonely Planet book and one of the spots they said not to miss was this Penis Park so it has been something we have been talking about doing since then. We agreed that the best time to do it was when Alana was visiting because we knew she would appreciate it as much as we would. So the story is that a young virgin drowned in this small fishing village. All of the fish seemed to vanish from the fishing village after this. In order to please the virgin they "erected" (pun intended) several penis totem poles and the fish came back! Since then they have been adding more and more! It was a great time walking around and giggling at all the totem poles. The rain and snow couldn't have kept us away! Here are some of the best pics from the park
The other thing that we have been talking about doing since we arrived was going on the Hyundai tour. The tour takes you to the auto plant and the ship yard. The only tour that I could get us on though was for Koreans so it was all in Korean, so Alana and I made up our own facts. We were told not to take pictures but of course Alana and I couldn't understand so we took a couple snaps before we were told off.
This is the car plant, this is where we were told off, but not before I snapped this one!
This is in the Hyundai car museum they have at the plant, nice Pony. Hyundai sure has come a long way from those days!
So that is that. Alana took off last week and the apartment now feels empty. We are in the process of packing up our apartment since we were recently told that the woman that owns our place is selling it so we have to move downtown. The apartment we are moving to is really nice and it is right on the river so I can slip out easy for runs. I am training for a half marathon here on April 9th so I am running lots! We are also getting ready for our last visitors to come visit, Dustin and Ashley. They are off to two beautiful weeks in Vietnam before coming here for a week. We can't wait to see them! I am also in my final countdown to come home to Canada. I am really starting to look forward to it. I can't wait to see friends and family on a regular basis! So there is no lack of things to do around here.
Stay safe and keep in touch!
J
I think, more than anything, Penis Park captures the "whoa, we are not in North America here."
ReplyDeleteI would note, as well, that many of the photos involve celebratory libations and viands. Excellent!