Before Disneyland there was King Rock

Greetings

We said goodbye to our good friends Tim and Emily tonight. Hopefully you remember them from the numerous blogs in which they made guest appearances. They were definitely two of the nicest people we met this year and saying goodbye to them made our own looming farewell feel so much more real. I can't believe we have less than three weeks left.

Anyway, before I start blubbering all over my keyboard I suppose I'd better start this blog.

About 15 minutes from our house sits this great little park that's home to one of Ulsan's most scenic of sites. The locals refer to it as King Rock (Jo's note: apparently some ancient king turned into a dragon and buried himself under it) and although it's made a few guest appearances, it's never had its own blog (it was featured in the typhoon blog and the one with my dad). So I figured there's no time like the present to change that.

Here's the view from the hill at the beginning of the park. It shows Ilsan Beach which is much more beautiful in the picture than in real life (think too many "beachy" smells and too many nearby petro-chemical plants):



The park also includes a world class amusement park. According to ourreviewssuck.com it's rivaled only by Disneyland and Magic Mountain.

Somehow we managed to get a photo that didn't include any of the wild masses clambering to ride.


A few minutes later we had the same luck with their pirate ship:

My stomach gets queasy just looking at that beast.


Of course, what amusement park would be complete without accompanying culinary delights?

Ahh boiled corn, roasted larvae, chestnuts, and french fries. Haha, actually the fries are really yummy.


Here's a photo of me about to test my luck at the ancient Korean game of throwing darts at balloons:


And here's a shot a few minutes later where I defied all odds and managed to pop a balloon with each of my five darts (those of you who knew me in high school should know that such a thing would have been impossible mere years ago):

As you can see I was awarded with a seashell wind chime for my troubles, complete with neon pink and blue shells.

It only took a few seconds to realise that we had little use for a neon pink and blue wind chime, so Jo decided to sacrifice it to the tree Gods (Jo's note: I wanted to throw it in a trashcan, but Shayne insisted someone might see it and actually want it).



Anyway, the cornerstone of the park is a series of jagged rocks that jut out into the ocean and a nifty bridge that connects them to the mainland.

You can see this here:

and here:
and here:


What makes the place even cooler is that in the surrounding waters you can watch old grandmothers dive for clams and other sea treats.

Here you can see a couple of the grandmothers (Korean name is Har-a-mony) admiring their catch:
It's pretty inspiring to watch aged 60-plus women free-dive for clams. It certainly makes me all the more lazy when I choose to not watch TV when I discover the remote is out of my reach.


Another cool thing about the area is the sheer number of fisherman that you can see at any given time. Some of them go to great lengths to fish (as you remember one poor sap even braved the typhoon waters to do so).

I really liked this photo for some reason:


Anyway, in retrospect we probably should have gone to the park more often as it's so close and it really is a nice change from the bustling city atmosphere that surrounds our apartment. But what can ya do?

Hope this finds all of you well. You should expect a flurry of posts as we try and finish everything off before we leave.

Cheers

Shayne