A memorable fam tour for foreign students in Nam-gu, Ulsan (2017.05.12-13)

Namgu office in Ulsan organized a tour for us to visit several famous places in Ulsan such as whale museum, Ulsanham warship, whale experience hall, whale culture village, Ulsan bridge observatory, Taewha-river grand park, and whale watching ferry. These places contain valuable information of specific culture, history, and development of Ulsan metropolitan city.

Nowadays, Ulsan is well-known as industrial power house of South Korea where includes the world’s largest automobile assembly plant operated by the Hyundai Motor company, the world’s largest shipyard operated by Hyundai Heavy industries, and the world’s second largest oil refinery owned by SK energy [1]. However, not many people know that Ulsan city also owns many unique attractions.

In the first day of the tour, we visited the unique attractions related to whale (whale museum, Ulsanham warship, whale experience hall, whale culture village). Only in Korea, the whales can be found in Jangsaengpo in Ulsan. In the late 1970s, when the whaling was at its zenith, Jangsaengpo in Ulsan had many whaling ships (20 ships) with participation of many residents (10,000 people) [2]. However, the massive whaling had made number of whales reduce and some species were even in danger of extinction by 1980. To conserve and take care whale better, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling in 1986, and eventually the whaling industry was stopped. After that, in 2005, the Jangsaengpo whale museum and whale ecological experience hall were established as the only whale museum in Korea [3]. The (a) and (b) in image below show the bone of whale. The bone of Killer whale (7.4 m of length and 9 ton of weight) and of Bryde’s whale (12.41 m of length and 14.6 ton of weight) are displayed. While the Bryde’s whales are huge and eat only fish, planktonic crustaceans, and cephalopods; the Killer whales with smaller size are interested in hunting marine mammals such as seals and dolphins. Dolphin is known as similar shape of whales but in the smaller size (1.2 to 9 m of length). Dolphin is friendly to human. Commonly, the Whales and dolphins travel alone or in groups, called pods. Larger groups of pods are referred to as a school. The (c) in figure below shows the gray whale with its gray-white patterns, scars left by parasites. Each gray whale has unique gray-white pattern to define itself as human fingerprint. The (d) in figure below shows the best cutting-whale-meat person in Korea at the time when the whaling was at its zenith. We also visited Ulsanham warship.

After visiting the museum, we enjoyed lunch near there at Jinwhyang restaurant (진향식당). Then, we visited whale culture village, and whale experience hall. Especially, at whale experience, we enjoyed the dolphin show as well as watched the 4D movie.

After visiting these places, we went to the Ulsan bridge observatory to observe the Ulsan harbor bridge and part of Ulsan city. The Ulsan harbor bridge is completed in 2015 with single-span suspension structure. This is the longest bridge in Korea (1,150 m) and the fourth-longest bridge in the world following Runyang Bridge (1,490 m), Jangyin Bridge (1,385 m) and Yangluo Bridge (1,280 m) [4]. The first day finished with many memories. However, we could not take many photos because of the heavy rain.

To take rest before the next day, we enjoyed the delicious buffet dinner with beef at Gyejeul babsang (계절밥상). Then, we stayed in Shilla Stay hotel in Ulsan (4 stars hotel as information in Google). The gym at hotel is quite good with many modern equipment. I can do exercise in the early morning. Then, the buffet morning in this hotel is also good with my favorite food.

The plan in the second day was to visit Taewha-river grand park and whale watching ferry. In the past, the Taewha river was polluted seriously because of development of industry in this city. However, with effort of the citizens, the Taewha river becomes an ecological area and an important source of drinking water for the citizens of Ulsan. Along the river, a rich bamboo forest, which is about 4 kilometers long and 20-40 kilometers wide, was created by the villagers in hopes of preventing the frequent flooding [5]. In spring, the flowering plant garden here offers splendid scenery created by over 60 million spring flower blossoms from 7 different species that include poppies, cornflowers, and golden coreopsis. It is the largest single riverside flowering plant garden in the country.

After that, we enjoyed lunch at Chailpum (차일품) with various traditional Korean food. The main component was from vegetables but the food was still delicious.

Finally, we enjoyed in the whale watching ferry. Even we could not see any whales or dolphin (20% probability to see them), this trip was given us many experiences and memories. In the future, I will join this tour again to see the whales and dolphins.

Again, this trip is very interesting and memorable. Thank organizers so much for their supports, their efforts, and their cares. If you visit Korea, you should visit Ulsan to enjoy the unique attractions here and visit my lovely university, University of Ulsan.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulsan

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jangsaengpo

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jangsaengpo_Whale_Museum

[4] https://structurae.net/structures/ulsan-harbor-bridge

[5] http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/ATR/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=1764857

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