ulsan for you

went to ulsan this weekend to hang out with kat and the hogye crew for a change. i got to ulsan around 8:30 on friday night and met Kat and Rachel at benchwarmers - a foreigner sports bar - under the auspices of watching the stanley cup finals. we weren't allowed to talk about who won or not, but it was pretty obvious, even if you hadn't seen it on the news sites. anyway, we chilled there until around 3 am and headed back to hogye. it was a good time.

kat, rachel, and me.

i met this guy from montreal who knows almost ALL of my J-school friends and i'm almost certain that i've met him before. it was nice to talk about home with someone who knows the city as well as i do.

Ryan - the korean bartender kat exchanges language lessons with.

on saturday kat had her korean study group in the morning, so i slept in and made my way downtown to do some shopping. BIG mistake! i spent way too much money but i have some new clothes (that fit properly, if not a little tightly - in anticipation - i actually bought a SMALL and it fits!!!) and i got a couple of prezzies for people back home. starting to think of that now so i don't end up rushing it in the last week! (cherry - there's something from korea just for you!!! finally found something that screamed your name to me!)

after shopping downtown, i went shopping in the "new" downtown with kat. then we sat and had coffee for a few hours on a terrace. it was great.

saturday night was Darragh's going home party. he's back to ireland on tuesday :( so we ended up staying out late again. i went home at about 4 while kat kept going.

darragh hearts ajumas!

darragh and martin... joined at the hip... whatever will martin do?!?!??

today i went to the homever (kats version of homeplus) and got some whole wheat pasta. yay! i was running low and have only ever seen it in ulsan... but they didn't have any at the lotte which is where i bought it last time... so, happy to find some. then i headed home.

good weekend, with good friends, good food, good beer, and good times. thanks guys!

goodbyes in ulsan

went to ulsan yesterday to visit with kat and say goodbye to chris. he's leaving korea on thursday to begin a new adventure with the peace corps. i met chris in september while i was visiting kat. we were at the local WA bar having a beer. i felt a presence next to me, looked up and there was chris. he looked like a deer caught in the headlights - we were the first foreigners he'd seen in two weeks! i knew that feeling... so i asked him if he'd like to sit down... the rest as they say...

the night we met chris... so happy to see other waegooks!!!

so, last night was the big "leaving party" in hogye, ulsan. i took the bus there in the afternoon - standing room only, so i sat for a lot of the trip on the front step of the bus!

me on the floor of the bus.

the crazy part is that one of the teachers from school 2 was sitting in the front seat! so i had someone to talk to for the hour and a half long journey. when we got to ulsan, he drove me to kats house too, so i didn't have to take the bus for another 45 minutes! sweet!

the party was being hosted by an irish guy named dara. he lives in a three room house! it was really cool. sorry no pics of the house, it was night and i didn't get any good shots. to make things interesting he bought ten brightly coloured balls that we were all playing with all night. it was kind of weird at first but turned out to be really fun just kicking them around the living room.

chris and dara

me with a ball

chris and rachel

me and chris

overall it was a great night. i met a lot of new people and had the chance to see my buddy chris one last time. he's off to mongolia for two years, so who knows when i'll see him again! anyway, adieu chris, you may be gone, but you certainly won't be forgotten!

miscellaneous

in keeping with the posting madness that has been going on here of late, i feel that i need to write something today. i hope you all enjoyed my trip to seoul... it already feels like a million years ago. since then i have been to ulsan and back, climbed a mountain, done a major clean up of my apartment, and started back at school. i'll make this quick.

thursday i went to visit kat in ulsan. we had some good foreign food, some good korean food, and some good times at the noraebang... nothing too crazy happened, except that i saw rachel from orientation - hadn't seen her since way back in august - and we met a guy from athens named panos... which freaked me out a bit since my best friends' boyfriend goes by the same description.

like i said, i'm making this quick... so here are a couple of pics to tide you over...

me in my new hat - hand made by kat
more korean errors... wapple? or waFFle??
gotta go! gotta go! gotta go! (on the ladies room door at the WA Bar in Ulsan)
on the wall next to the ladies room at the WA Bar in Ulsan.
the awesome necklace i bought in seoul for 4$...

after finally giving up the hunt for merrells' i settled on these babies made by the north face. they're cute and comfy and made of gore-tex... what more could you want in a hiking shoe??? i'm disappointed about the merrells...but there will be lots of time in my life to get another pair of them... so for now, here's to the north face!!!

i'll post soon... i've been tagged by kassandra... so will get on it asap.

ilsan beach or sorry for the serial posting... hope you find time to read it all!

so wednesday night we headed out to the Ilsan Beach area to check out this foreigner bar that Kat had heard about...hmmm... what was it called? the Korean Union... but the directions we had were really sketchy and we got off the bus way to far to find it... so we wandered around the beach area for a while. this was one of the first things i saw, and couldn't resist getting a shot. the t-shirts here are hilarious, i can't usually take a picture, but i'm compiling a written list of the crazy things i've seen on shirts. those of you who spent halloween 2003 with me will find this even funnier...

the korean got milk guy.found at a video arcade on the street... i really should have tried it, but we were hungry and looking for somewhere to eat... maybe i'll get back to them one day.

Kat trying to get in the giant robot kiddie ride at the arcade... she's crazy. for a minute we weren't sure she'd make it out!

the first Subway i've seen in Korea... i debated eating there, but only bought a Dr. Pepper which is still in my fridge waiting until i can wait no longer. Kat and i decided we must be korean now since we stared western food in the eye and then crossed the street to eat korean! i couldn't believe it either...

after dinner we wandered around the beach and found the "Uper Bounty" - a pirate ship ride. it cost us 3 bucks each to get on, but it was worth it - we had the ride to ourselves. (it's supposed to be the Super Bounty.)

the Greece Motel of Ilsan Beach... this one is for you, Ranya.

just thought this was cool... a lit up glowing neon palm tree - this is what the koreans think is american... anyway, after we left Ilsan Beach, we continued on the hunt for the Korean Union Bar... but again, the directions were really sketchy and we just ended up wandering around looking for the bar that as far as we know doesn't actually exist... maybe one day we'll find it. we did however, find these:

the no smoking socks. i was so close to buying them "just because", but i showed restraint.
but we didn't show any restraint when we found this kiddie park with this crazy slide... we climbed right up and slid right down. the kiddie parks in korea are WAY cooler than any i've seen in North America...

of course, i managed to get a shot of kat coming out of it...

so, after not finding the bar, we just headed back to hogye, we wer tired anyway from our day of hiking... so we just got a good night's sleep, getting ready for the trek back to gimhae on thursday. i still have a bunch of posts before i'm caught up, but i'll hold off on them for a bit and let you all catch up with me... keep reading... the next post is liz and kat hit gimhae like a typhoon!!!

the long awaited post on climbing a mountain

i'm not sure why i pumped up this post so much... i mean, i just hiked up a mountain... it's not like i was rock climbing or anything... but i guess it's because i haven't climbed a mountain in a long long time... i used to do it all the time when i was a teenager... it wasn't easy (read-out of shape) but well worth it. i don't know the name of the mountain - there are so many in korea that they don't put them all on the map... if they did, it would be the only things on there! but i'll find out from kat and edit this post later... to the right is the first view of it that i saw... unless you count looking out kat's bathroom window! but before we got to the mountain we had to go through these rice paddies, which were beautiful. it was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny, with a nice breeze. the rice was almost glowing, and on our way back at the end of the day, it was.this is the path through the rice fields.
a shot of some plant... i just like it, so here it is.a korean scare crow.
the path through the woods up to the mountain.some tombs at the base of the mountain... rich koreans pay a lot of money to have their burial mounds up in the mountains, and they were all over the one we climbed... more pictures of them on the way...

the bottom of the mountain was easy...

me and chris on one of the "work out machines" that was at the first work out station that we found up the mountain... these things are all over the place in korea... i saw one in front of a KFC in Cheongju... apparently climbing the mountain isn't enough though, you ahve to use these funny machines to get a good workout! this one is for your hips (i guess)and you just hold on and swivel your hips back and forth... it's nice for stretching your midsection, but i don't see how it's really exercise.

the giant hoolahoop at the station...
...and chris trying to use it! this was hilarious, i kept thinking that he was going to take a dive, but he managed to stay on his two feet...
this little guy was on a pile of rocks at one of the workout stations... he had lots of little friends all around the rocks, but this is my favourite shot.

this is where it started getting really hard. well, okay maybe it was before this, but i was lagging... i figured it didn't matter if i went slowly, we'd all get to the same place eventually, and why kill myself over trying to keep up... besides, my legs are shorter!

almost there... this was actually harder to come down than it was to go up!

again, almost at the top, what a view. it was pretty hazy, we are still undecided on whether or not it's haze or pollution. Ulsan is the most polluted city in South Korea - Hyundai heavy industries is based there.

another nice view of Hogye-dong - the buildings in the middle of the shot in the back are the ones that we walked around the day before.
This port-o-potty look alike was sitting on the top of the mountain. no idea what it's there for, it's locked, so you can't get in, but there are magazines, and a spot to sit inside. very odd... i'm starting to think that there are a lot of really weird things in korea... well, if i had any doubt about it, i don't now.
a shot of the rice paddies we walked through to get to the mountain.
this is my favourite shot of the rice... see what i said about it glowing? it was gorgeous.

after climbing the mountain we went home and showered and changed and hit the town... next post - ilsan beach and the hunt for the westerner bar...

the WA Bar

The WA Bar is a "western ice bar"... you may recall it from the last time i visited Kat in Ulsan... it's where we met chris... anyway, we went out for a few pints and of course, every foreigner (okay there were only two) that passed by had to come talk to us... why is it always the sleazy ones? they kept grabbing at my camera so i took a picture of them and put it away... these russian guys were really slimy... one (blue jacket) had all gold teethe except the front four. not the kind of people that i want to associate with. they tried to sit with us, but i told them no... and then said "bye, bye" - they got the hint and left...

we finally got hungry (after that big lunch, it took a while...) and decided to get some "western food" - read fries and wings... way too expensive, but we were comfortable... these are the menu shots... i thought it would be neat to compare them with the real thing...

this is what came to our table. we even got mayonnaise for the fries!!! talk about a fatening day! good thing we climbed that mountain the next day! (promise it's coming up! next actually - or maybe you're reading these backwards and have already read that bit...)

me and kat at the WA Bar:chris had to work until around ten but came and met up with us after... no pics of him... sorry.... but we did meet Alex (Park Noh Sung)...
looks like he's trying to cop a feel, but his fiance was at the next table over. anyway, he was a riot, and we thought he worked for Hyundai, but now we're not sure... he said that he designed the Sorento but Hyundai doesn't make the Sorento... maybe he designed the engine? anyway, he was way too drunk, but very enthusiatic about speaking english with us. he's been to the States - San Fransisco - and so has Kat so they had a nice chat about it, until he started telling us about the seals... it was the funniest thing i've seen in ages! he was barking like a seal and bouncing up and down on his chair... and kept doing it for way longer than he should have!!! it was great! finally he just got up and walked away... he started walking down the street and his fiance had to go running after him... then he wandered into the street and almost got hit by car... she finally got him into a cab and they were gone... the really surprising part was that he was out with his boss! too much beer can sometimes be a very very bad thing... but we already knew that right?

i'm off now to see king suro again... gotta show kat the sights of gimhae... we're off to the beer and girls for a drink with chris and lois tonight... more to come soon! keep watching for the post on the mountain that nearly killed me....