Ulsan, a Town Full of Legendary Stories

Our First Day - Ulsan (Oct. 25, 2013)

After spending more than eight months in Seoul, I got the chance to travel to Ulsan and Busan (for the second time). Being one of the supporters of Wow Korea, a program initiated by the Korea Tourism Organization, I was able to travel in many places around Korea.  Part of our task is having a group mission as well as individual mission, which made this trip more exciting.  

We traveled via the KTX which took about 2 and a half hours journey to our first destination, the town of Ulsan.  Since we arrived at the town at exactly lunchtime, definitely our first mission would be to find a restaurant wherein we can eat to our heart’s content. It’s a good thing that we were provided with a shuttle bus, which made the trip much easier since we did a lot of missions for three days. 

After having our lunch, we headed to Daewangam Park wherein you can have a glimpse of Ulsan Beach.  Legend has it, that the name of the park was derived from Daewangam, the queen of King Munmu who was then the 30^th king of Silla dynasty.  According to history, the king was buried in the East Sea under the rock.  In his desire to protect his kingdom from enemies, it is said that he became a guardian dragon. When Queen Daewangam, she also decided to become a guardian dragon like the king and so she became Daewangam rock.

It is such an amazing place wherein you can see a lot of rock formations which has its own names e.g., zasal, namgeum, tanggen, bubusong and others. 

Rock formations that you can find at Daewangam Park namely tanggeon, namgeum, bubusong and zasal.

After enjoying the breeze at Daewangam Park, we headed to our next destinations, Hyundai Heavy Industries, their branch in Ulsan and the Oegosan Onggi Village.  I was truly impressed at the occupational safety being imposed at the Hyundai Heavy Industries.  It is so modern and everything is organized. We were able to tour around their Hyundai hall wherein it showcased the different ships they are producing.  We also got the chance to see the shipbuilding process, but taking pictures is restricted.

In Ulsan Onggi Museum, we were fascinated by the different pot designs.  It also houses the different countries’ contributions to the museum.  Though it’s quite a small museum compared to others I have seen, you will still enjoy the scenery and statues that can be seen around the place. 

After a tiring but enjoyable day, we cannot pass up for dinner, of course!  We had such a wonderful dinner that night.  Even the preparations were too artistic that makes it so tempting.  Everything is so delicious, but this one, the bulgogi in a pumpkin truly caught my attention.  We had fish, vegetables, meat, fruit and even the side dishes made our table set into festive mood.

Since we already satisfy our stomach, we traveled from Ulsan to Busan after dinner and checked-in at the Dongbusan Hotel.  

I thought it's the end of the day, but knowing our leader, Cho Sumin, he wouldn't end the day without any games and a little party in order to promote friendship and togetherness among each supporters.  We had so much fun on our first day and on my next blog, I will tell you the rest of the activity that we've done in Busan. See you!