Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

Saturday was a fairly eventful day for us especially in our new Korean standards. Teaching doesn’t really take up all that much time for me, I only teach from 3-9 and have an hour off every day in that period so I have a lot of free time. This usually means we sleep late, have some lunch, read, go to work and then come home and catch up with news from home. Pretty relaxed really. We’ve been trying to do some sightseeing on the weekends to make up for the lack of excitement through the week.

Yesterday we went for a walk in Ulgi Park.

From a Korean tourist website Ulgi park in Ilsan‐dong, Dong‐ku, Ulsan city, which has a forest for a happy walk and a beach covered strange rocks and bizarre stones, is a rare place for a rest in the city.
Because the area in which Ulgi park is located juts out into the east sea from the southeast, it is very famous for a Ulgi light house, a guidance of the east sea.
Also, tourists can feel cool and coziness in the shade of tall pine trees having grown for 100 years on the 600m road to the light house from the gate.

While we were there we went on a really beautiful walk through the trees and then out along the coast. The scenery was beautiful, but the people were definitely more interesting, as is usually the case in Asia, or Korea at least. Ajumma are Korean women, but more specifically grandmothers. These women are at least 60 and all sit in the very classic ajumma pose, squatting with their knees at their ears. Ajumma however seem to possess some kind of super power – they actually call it Ajumma power. While we were at Ulgi Park, we went down to a “market” there was this woman there selling fresh seafood that she had just fished out of the sea herself. These women put on their wetsuits and then go snorkeling in the rather rough seas with nets to catch their wares. They then either sell them directly on the shore or haul them into city markets.

After a fairly busy day wandering around Ulgi Park we came home and caught a few zzz’s. We were awakened by Zanelle (our new South African friend and fellow teacher) who was looking for a place to host a rugby party. So her and 4 of her SAfrican friends landed at our place where we streamed the Australia vs SAfrica rugby game. After a few drinks, several pizzas we hit the town. We went to a small bar in Samsan-dong with decent music, great pictures and atmosphere and a foose-ball and pool table. Apparently Canadians are much better at fooseball but not quite as proficient at pool.

We ended the night, or early morning by this time in a Noraebang, aka Karaoke room. Nothing in Korea ever closes so we went to the Noreabang at about 4 and stumbled out around daybreak at about 5:30. The noraebang was actually quite a lot of fun, Jacob especially enjoyed it.

It was great to just sit around with new friends, have some laughs and a good time. I think I’m too old to party until the morning now, but it was definitely a Korean experience and quite a lot of fun.

You can check out the pictures on the photo page from both the last couple weeks and the adventures from Saturday.