We have been very impressed with South Korea's emphasis on exercise and a healthy lifestyle. Today's adventure would start with a trail that follows the Taehwa River that runs through Ulsan. There is a walking path, with a separate bike path that runs beside it. At regular intervals we find the ever-present exercise equipment. We had to stop our walking and biking in order to exercise a little.
Cole and Camden rode their bikes, and we were so impressed that they didn't run over even one pedestrian on this ride.
Right along the path is the Taehwaru Pavilion. Its restoration was just completed in 2014, and it includes a yard with traditional Korean games set up.
Of course we had to try all the games, feeling very Asian with the Pavilion in our backyard.
The pavilion was originally built in 643, and stands in stark contrast against the tall apartment complexes in the background.
The pictures from a distance just can't show the intricate painting process that goes into each rafter. Here's a zoomed in version to try to show the details.
We are getting close to the bamboo forest, as we are seeing more and more bamboo shoots along the walking path. We have traveled about 3 kilometers from the car, so these are hardy walkers and bikers in our group.
Walking along the river gives us constant views of the city of Ulsan. The skyscrapers in the picture to the left are not office buildings, but apartment buildings. We will visit one of those later to visit a friend that lives on the 53rd floor.
We finally arrive at the entrance that takes us deep into the bamboo forest. At the entrance is more exercise equipment, including oversized and weighted hula hoops. Two adults are using those, spinning them around their waist with little effort, but the pictures are too blurry to post. The path into the forest is wide enough for three cute kids to stretch across.
The path through the forest is also shady with the tall bamboo making an arch over our heads. We've never walked inside a bamboo forest before, and this is such a fun place in the middle of the city!
Since we are in Asia, Cole, Katrina, and Camden do their best panda bear imitations by trying to climb the bamboo.
There are multiple paths that split off within the forest. As fun as it is to walk in the bamboo forest, Denisa spots a trail that takes us back out into the sunshine. So we investigate that area and find a sea of flowering mums that stretches for close to a mile.
There is also a tunnel that has tall mums climbing up the sides. Not quite in bloom yet, this tunnel should be bursting into color within a week, and we hope to come back for that. The roof of the tunnel is covered by some kind of zucchini plant whose big leaves shade us. The crop of vegetables is dangling down from the bottom of the plants, making for interesting roof ornaments.
Then we spot the bike rentals and check to see if we can get a couple of the surrey bikes. Just as Koreans have lots of free exercise equipment in their parks, they also have free bikes. Our group of six divides between two surrey bikes, and we are literally off to the races. The girls' bike is powered by two adults and the oldest daughter, so we have lots of leg power.
But Mark's surrey could keep up with the girls with a little help from Camden. We stopped the race so Alexia could take this six-person selfie that captured all of us on our two surreys. You can't tell from our smiles, but we are missing Brian who had to work today.
There are more mum-covered sculptures in the park that should be bursting with color in the coming weeks. This is a wonderful time of year to be in South Korea, as the trees along the walking path in the background are also turning into their autumn foliage colors. As you can see in the picture, there are hills encircling the city that are covered by more trees that are changing color for us.
After returning our surrey bicycles, we walk back to the flower sculpture park for a picture in front of the heart that is starting to turn red with mums.
There are a few people riding through the area on segways, but these two guys catch our attention. They are happy to stop and pose for pictures on their one-wheeled electric scooters.
Along our path back to the car we find boxes of more fun things to play with. There were hacky sacks with bright streamers attached, so we get more exercise kicking the sack around. Alexia is clearly the most coordinated sacker around.
The sun is setting as we head towards the car. This was a great adventure to the bamboo forest and another of the great parks that we are experiencing in South Korea. Have we mentioned lately that we are loving our time here with people that we love?
We didn't have to leave the neighborhood to have more international experiences on this trip. Alexia has a friend from France living in the foreigner's compound here. She will be moving back to a suburb of Paris soon, so she wanted to share a favorite French quiche recipe with us before she left. So we got French cooking lessons for the morning!
Mark tried to keep up by washing dirty dishes as we got them dirty, but he also got some time fluting the pastry. We first roasted the tomatoes with garlic and provencal herbs that Evelyn brought from Paris.
That was added to sauteed zucchini, and feta cheese inside a puff pastry crust. A mixture of egg and lots of heavy cream, covered with parmesan infused bread crumbs completed our French quiche. What a delicious lunch and a wonderful French cooking lesson morning!
Another morning we went exploring the area just outside the foreigner's compound. Less than a half mile away is a reservoir, with a path encircling it.
Alexia walked us to the reservoir, then turned us loose on the trails that went up into the hills. We had this handy map to help us find our way, but of course it was useless because we can't read the Korean alphabet. We had to give the paths names based on the first letter of their Hangul names. One of the letters of the Korean alphabet looks a little like a guy wearing a hat, another reminds us of a guy doing the splits, another of a tree. So some of our trail names were very imaginative.
When we saw direction signs on the trails, they weren't very helpful to us. We are finding an occasional English sign, but South Korea isn't as English-speaking tourist friendly as we had hoped. Few Koreans know English, so asking for directions isn't usually an option either.
Even without understanding the signage, we made our way to the summit of the hills surrounding the reservoir. We could barely see the tall apartment complexes that were in the city below.
We could also see a bird's eye view of the ship yard that we toured earlier. It is amazing that the city and the Sea of Japan are so close when we were hiking in a forest.
The trail was surprisingly rugged for an urban park. At times we were scrambling over boulders, while other times it was literally like a stroll in the park.
Also along the path we found an occasional garden. Obviously planted and cared for, it was surrounded by barbed wire and a padlocked gate. We aren't sure of the process whereby individuals can claim public land for a garden, but we find them all over the country.
We also found many of these green tarps covering mysterious piles. The edges were sealed to the ground, so we couldn't lift up the tarp to peek inside. Later we would find that Koreans covered piles of wood from trees that had been infested with pine beetles. The covers were designed to keep the pine beetles from infesting healthy trees, and to keep the wood dry so it could used for fire wood.
We are not surprised to find more exercise areas in the park. We finally got a picture of adult women using the heavy hula hoops on the far left hand side. We also saw many Korean women in typical exercise gear. Because they want full protection from the sun, most will exercise in long sleeves and even gloves on this beautiful fall day. Many of the women also wear cloth masks that completely cover their faces. Our best picture of the face coverings is on the far right hand side of the picture.
We met many hikers in their work clothes, catching some exercise on their lunch break. At the end of the path is an air hose station, designed to remove all the dust from your shoes before returning to work or home.
We took a picture of Denisa's shoes after she cleaned one with the air hose. Obviously that high pressure hose makes a difference because the shoe on the left looks much better.
We headed home through another neighborhood, walking amongst the tall apartment complexes that are everywhere in this city. We calculated that 96 families could live in each building, and it sits on about the same amount of land that our single family house used back in Oklahoma. It makes us a little sad that children raised here have only a tiny playground shared with four different buildings (or almost 400 families). That might be the reason for all the nice public parks that we are enjoying around the city.
We also tried our luck at finding something for lunch. We have been blessed by many of Alexia's home-cooked meals, so we haven't tried Korean food yet. We picked this neighborhood place because it had big pictures of food that we thought we could just point at to order lunch. But the owner noticed our confusion, and handed us a laminated sheet with English titles. We ordered the "pork and rice" dish, and it was more than enough for both of us. We also sampled the side dishes that came with it. The
brown soup was something akin to soggy rice krispies in beef broth. In the three-way divided plate we sampled the top orange dish that tasted a little like fermented rubber bands. The green curly stuff was some sort of fermented sea weed, and the bottom sample was the ever-present fermented cabbage called kimchi. We must not be very Korean, because none of the fermented side dishes were tasty to us. Even thought we tried each one, we could also say that none of the side dishes were edible in our opinion.
We ate most of the pork and rice, but had to leave the side dishes. We headed home by way of the neighborhood market and an ice cream snack that we are happy to report was not fermented.
We always think it is fun to "live" in a new country, rather than just being tourists. So staying with relatives allows us the time to witness more of every day life. It is also wonderful to have their explanations for things that we see and don't understand. For example, we wouldn't have understood the vehicle (in the picture below) with a rotating billboard on top in a language that we couldn't read. But they explained this was a CCTV--closed circuit television--vehicle that was filming traffic offenders. When you are caught on tape breaking a law, you will get a ticket in the mail based on the vehicle tag that was also caught on tape. You can also notice from the picture below that we are driving to downtown Ulsan on a day that the air quality rating is over 160. That should probably be stated as the air un-quality rating, because that high number means that the children at school won't be allowed to go outdoors for recess. This day will also see more adults wearing masks over their noses and mouths while outside. We wouldn't know about this scale if we didn't have resident relatives to explain it. Known as "Yellow Wind," it is caused from winds picking up sand and debris from the Mongolian desert.
Alexia took us shopping--another great activity to learn more about living in South Korea. In the picture below we are in an outdoor shopping area with a roof over it. We try to buy a cross from each country we visit. This can be very difficult in a country that has few Christians. But Alexia knew of a store that was located off a little shopping area, on a winding street, on the second floor . . . With no outdoor sign to guide us, we only knew to walk upstairs under a doorway that read "Dance Sport" beside a wig store. We didn't take a picture, but we would never have found it without our resident guide.
In some ways we see that Korea is more advanced than the United States with CCTV vehicles and automated parking garages that have green lights over open spaces, and red lights over occupied spaces. Then we see that their electrical systems (as shown over Mark's head) seem a little antiquated, and we suspect that their sewage systems are a little behind the times.
Grocery shopping is a great cultural experience in any country. Many of the western products aren't available here, so Brian and Alexia bring suitcases full of things like Velveeta cheese, and favorite brands of cereal and chips when they fly back from the United States. We were in a large grocery store in Ulsan that had an international aisle, and a special section for unique items that Americans hold dear to their hearts. We thought it was interesting to see that this grocery store perceived that Americans like hot sauce, clam chowder, chocolate syrup, and cheese puffs. With such limited shelf space, they even had multiple brands of all of those products. We personally didn't find anything of interest in this American product display.
On this shopping trip and all the driving around town we are super impressed with Alexia's driving skills. This is just one view of a typical South Korean side street with cars parked wherever they can. They call this a "chicken road" because even though it is two-way, there is no way that you can successfully pass by a car going the opposite direction. In this road game of chicken, someone will have to back up and allow the other car to go forward.
Back inside the foreigner's compound, the roads are perhaps a little wider, with designated parking spots. The gardens are well manicured, with roses blooming even in the fall. The traditional white picket fences surround most of the bungalows.
We finally remembered to take a picture of Brian and Alexia's house to include in the blog. With four bedrooms, we even have a room of our own for our extended stay. What deluxe accommodations we are enjoying!
In addition to deluxe accommodations, we are also privileged to have deluxe entertainment. Brian is a first-rate singer and plays multiple instruments. He is raising a family of musicians, so we have spontaneous concerts on a regular basis. Denisa is happy to report that most of their songs make for great two-stepping dance music, and their living room has been transformed to a dance floor.
Also in the foreigner's compound are multiple playgrounds, and we have experienced most of them. Just like in most Korean outdoor areas, there are adult exercise equipment too.
Camden is enjoying his after-school snack while exercising those calories off at the same time he is chewing.
We had this little park to ourselves, and decided to invent new ways to use the exercise equipment. We were pretty imaginative and found some great new ways to burn calories. This one made for the best picture. Instead of one person running while pumping their arms on this elliptical machine, Mark gave Camden and Cole a ride on the foot pedals by pumping the arm levers from the front.
Earlier that day, we got to take the shipyard tour. The entrance to Hyundai Heavy Industries is literally across the street from the entry of the foreigner's compound. They give a monthly English-speaking tour, and Alexia got us reservations. We boarded the bus and rode into the closed shipyard for an hour-long tour.
In 1970, Ulsan was a sleepy fishing village. But then a man called Asan (who had only a primary school education and whose first job was delivering rice on a bicycle) grew the business we toured today. HHI is the largest ship building company in the world. They also build off-shore oil rigs, heavy equipment, industrial plants, and electric systems. The largest ship building yard in the world has transformed the village of Ulsan into a major city, and it's all happening right across the street from us. Mark snapped this picture of Camden studying the 3D map of the shipyard inside the visitor's center right before the tour guide told us that no photos were allowed.
So we don't have any great pictures of the huge ships that were being put together like giant lego structures. It was an awesome drive through the shipyard with a stop at the guest center for a bird's eye view of the entire ship yard. They provided a color brochure of the company's propaganda, which included a picture of what we saw. Since that was a picture that was made public, we decided it would be our best chance of showing a little of what we saw on our tour.
So we are enjoying great entertainment, amazing factory tours, and wonderful family time. We are learning more about South Korea and our city of Ulsan, and having a great time!
