Where-san?, Why in ULSAN of course!

Over the Chinese New Year (Happy Rabbit Year to everyone) I took a trip a little closer to the coast, to Ulsan where good friends, Lauren and Andreya, reside. It is a big costal city with a small population. It had a bit of a PE or False Bay feel to it. I liked it. The day I arrived I met Cristy (Excuse the spelling if incorrect) (from The States) a friend of Lauren’s and Yepu – the Maltese puppy that the two ladies were looking after for a friend. Sweet dog, though I am still a big dog kind of guy. We went out for Korean Sushi which was fantasmagorical! Following that Lauren and I went back to her place where I dropped my stuff and we chilled until going to Namaskar (An awesome Indian restaurant) for supper with Andreya. While at Lauren’s I was introduced to a brain teaser puzzle that is used in Japan. The Idea is to get all 6 people across the river. The catches are: The robber can only be without the policeman when she is on her own, the 2 boys can not travel with the mother or be alone with the mother and the 2 girls cannot travel or be alone with the father. Give it a go:

http://freeweb.siol.net/danej/riverIQGame.swf

So Namaskar…It was here that I had my 1^st encounter with Lamb for 6 months and what a great dinner it way. Lamb kalla with Buttered Naan. Mmmmmm…

Let me stop you right there and state categorically – the 3 days I spent in Ulsan were very probably the greatest 3 food days I have had in Korea (from a “Food I miss” perspective)

Oh and I had a Mango Lassi to drink - *wipes the drool away from the side of his mouth*

Dinner was followed swiftly by an early night, as we were both dog tired, and that early night turned into a late morning as we rolled out of bed at around 10:30. This was the day that Lauren suggested taking me to Old Downtown Ulsan too see the market and we could go to the Cat Café (which I had hear about and Sandy went to one in Seoul, but I wanted to check it out for myself). With it being one of 2 major holiday in Korea, the place was pretty deserted, which all told, I quite liked as it gave me a feel for Ulsan without all the hustle and bustle. We had lunch a deliciously cute … urm… *drops voice an octave or two* cute, I-talian place where I had the seafood Risotto and Lauren some creamy chicken pasta. After wondering around the market for a while we eventually went to the Cat Café and hung out there for a couple of hours before we met up with Andreya for supper.

The Cat Café was interesting. About 10-15 cats just wondering around, sleeping, running crazy like from one end of the room to the other, and just sitting, staring as if trying to take control of your mind and make you there servants. All the cats were very well cared for and groomed. We were asked when we got out coffee and flap-jack to not feed the cats. This proved a challenge when they are all over you trying to get the cream off of the flap-jack. I had lifted a piece up to my mouth and suddenly *SWIPE* the cream was gone. It appeared that the cat had actually got the cream (I hand credit to the clever yet obvious pun, to Lauren). Overall it was nice to be among “domestic” animals for the 1^st time in 6 months, though as was pointed out to me, the cats are probably a little feral. This was evidenced by an incident where I was given some fish to give the cats several cats were literally walking all over me and one took it on themselves to leap and try and snatch the fish out of my hand, getting 2 of it’s claws hooked in my thumb in the process.


Some fun for Cat Lovers everywhere - enjoy this little animated short film that explains cats perfectly:

At some point during this day I was exposed to the 1^st of 3 enduring memories of my 1^st visit to Ulsan; that being: Lauren taking me up on my offer to tie her shoe laces because they were CONSTANTLY coming undone.

Supper on this night was meant to be Vietnamese and then Thai but both places were closed so we wondered the streets and eventually followed a few Koreans to what looked like a Japanese restaurant. “Bugger! It only opens at 19:00. What are we going to do for an hour?” What we did was head to Andreya’s home away from home – Starbucks – and had some coffee while we chatted about our Korean futures and waited for the place to open. When we did go and eat, boy did we eat! Between the 3 of us we ordered a giant bowl of flavoured 2minute kind of noodle, 8 croquettes, and a salmon dish for mains.

Normal fish, not prawns, shrimp, octi, squid or muscles, is something that I have not at all much of in Korea. In fact, it is a popular dish at one of my schools but I choose ot to eat it because I struggle with the amount of bones in the fish. When I saw Salmon on the menu of this place I got very excited because it was fish that I was more familiar with. Together, we 3, travelers of Asia, decided to share it and boy was it good! ZERO bones and superbly cooked! It was a great day.

Endearing memory number 2: When it was time for the bill for our meal, Andreya took over. Her attempt at asking for the bill brought 1^st smiles, then giggles and then laughter between the 3 of us. In Korea the students are know to say “finishee” when they have completed something. Andreya did the same when it came time to trying to tell our waitress we were “finishee” and wanted the bill.

Stocked up on food and ready to go, we went to one of those trick photo booths and this was the result – good fun :-D

Day 3 was a visit to the beach which was unimpressive and flat-DO NOT LET THE PICTURES FOOL YOU. Up high it was pretty to look at but not much from the ground. This beach – Ilsan Beach – was located in Andreya’s area and for the afternoon was walked around the point taking photo’s – it was a really nice day and a nice setting for photo’s. Here is what I mean:

Enduring memory number 3: Every family, couple, group of friends that was talking a photo, Andreya offered her services to take a photo of the whole group – no matter how big or small. She was Ilsan point’s unofficial photographer. Her reasoning was based on sound principles of Karma: “When I am in Spain and want photo’s with me in them, this will come back to me and people will offer their services to be my photographer”

That evening we went to a Duck barbecue place and again a picture speaks a thousand words or rather a thousand mouthfuls:

Great food + great wine + great friends = great fun

Food was followed by some festival games where I scored 814 where the top score was 874 on the Hammer machine. Andreya proved to have skills as an assassin with the target shooting and Lauren found a new friend in “Jin-Ho” following her dart throwing exploits. I also had a swing or 3 in the batting cages.

…and yet THE EVENING WAS NOT OVER!

Lauren and I went back to her place for a bit of a breather and then met Cristy and the very cheery and stereotypically gay man I have ever met – A Korean chap who asked me to call him Cherry. Really nice guy and we all tried to party it up until about 01:15 when we realized most places were just filled with drunk foreign and Korean guys just trying to pick up Korean girls, so we went home and I traveled back to Yeongcheon the next afternoon. It was a thoroughly enjoyable 3 and half odd days with some really god friends.

Stay tuned for my next installment on Geoff’s Asian Adventure