X-Mas Day

We spent the better part of X-Mas walking around Ulsan. We started the day out by stopping at Lim & Bok's for a bite to eat. I've taken to the Bi Bum Bop and Sarah's digs on the pork cutlet. This little restaurant is always an experience. This couple, who are somewhere in their upper 60's, seem to really enjoy us stopping in. They get numerous laughs out of our attempts to pronounce Korean and the looks on our faces as we dabble in new tastes and flavors. Overall, the food here is good and becoming a bit a a regular spot for us.

After eating we caught the 1402 into downtown Ulsan. This was our first time hopping on this particular bus and it took us through several new neighborhoods. Initally, it turned in the wrong direction and we just looked at each other-oh well...here we go. But this bus ended up shaving about 20 minutes off our travel time, getting us into downtown in about 40 minutes. Total fare for the trip was 1100 won or a little over $1.25. The buses are a cheap and reliable way to get from "a to b" here, as long as you understand where "b" is and how to get back to "a".

So we arrive in downtown and found a bus stop that lists the 807 bus on its sign. This is what we were hoping to find. Success...or so we thought. We watched the 1402 drive off and the 422 pass by, then 102, the 1401, and so on. After about 30 minutes we see the 807 across the street stop and then hit the gas again. Humm. It was headed away from where we wanted to go. We thought it might spin around and swing back to get us. No luck. So we decided to make a go of it on foot. I didn't want to take a cab, much to Sarah's shagrin. So we took off and weaved our way through city streets, covering what probably equated to about two miles.

As we got further and further away from the city center things began to change a bit. The luxury hotels and department stores faded into the back drop of the skyline and another layer of Korea began to unfold. Streets seemed to narrow and buildings shrink. The amount of debris collected between buildings rose and the number of delapidated structures, sheet metal roofs, and bold aromas increased. I began to gain a sense of exiting all things remotely familar and as though I was walking back in time about 40 years. For some reason, I live for moments like this. When you have no idea what you might see and everything suddenly isn't as I've always know it to be. Iget a sense of amazement at the ways in which other people go about living and how there are these cultural pockets that are trapped in time.

Sarah was a real sport. She wasn't feeling it today...she simply wanted to see the beauty of the bamboo forest and get lost in something just a bit more pleasing to the senses. As we approached a massive concrete wall that marked the end of the road, I spotted a stair case. We crossed the highway and went down the other side to the river. This was nicer. We walked for a while until coming to a bridge which took us over the river and then weaved us through a few more streets...until finding the greenway. This took us directly toward the Simnidaebat Bamboo Forest...and finally a bit of respite from from urbanism.

On the way into the forest I saw a huge congregation of crows. A bit of a Hitchcock scene.

And finally the the Bamboo Forest...

The forest was planted to help mitigate some of the flooding that takes place in the summers and provide the people of Ulsan a retreat from the noise and congestion of the city.