Korean Beaches

For the past couple of weekends, we've been trying out some of Korea's beaches and enjoying the nice Spring weather.

Haeundae Beach- Busan
Last Sunday, we went an hour south into Busan's Haeundae Beach with our coworker Dan. The beach was really nice and reminded us of Ft. Lauderdale. Along the beach, they have an Outback, TGI Fridays, Starbucks, Bennigans, Dunkin Donuts, Papa Johns, Baskin Robins and KFC! It was unbelievable! We ate lunch at Fridays, which was incredibly expensive, but good.

Having a drink on the beach.

The beach is actually a cove and is quite small for being the most popular beach in S. Korea, only a mile long. The town in the distance on the mountain was really beautiful.

Large apartments and hotels are along the shore...pretty upscale and very Western.

Frank and Dan

Dan taking it all in and wishing he lived in Busan.

Jujeon Black Pebble Beach- Ulsan

Yesterday we went with Ramin, Tahereh, and John to check out another beach. Jujeon's shore has no sand, it is completely covered with black rocks. It was pretty and unique, but made it difficult to lay out or walk along the beach.

Group shot!

John and Frank

Frank and John practicing their Tai Chi moves on the rocks.

Us with Tahereh and Ramin

John found a huge shell among all the rocks.

Fresh seaweed being dried before it's cooked in our food. Mmmmm, appetizing right?

Yuka Comes to Visit!

One of our best friends from Japan, Yuka, came to visit us for a few days last week! She was one of the Japanese teachers that we both worked with. Yuka and her husband, Taka, took us on many hiking and road trip adventures in Japan, so we were really excited to get to take Yuka on somewhat of a Korean "adventure."

The first night we took her around a popular area in our neighborhood, Mu Ga Dong, which is down the street from our apartment. This is a restaurant, shopping, bar area with tons of college students since it is directly in front of Ulsan University. We ate at a delicious Korean BBQ restaurant and had coffee at our favorite coffee shop. We had a lot of catching-up to do...

A Trip to Gyeongju

The next morning, our Korean friend Michelle, picked us up at 8am and took us an hour away to Gyeongju. This city was once the capital of Korea from 57 BC-935 AD. The Silla Dynasty lasted for 992 years and most of the sights Gyeongju has to offer date from the 7th century! Gyeongju is known as 'the museum without walls,' and has more tombs, temples, pagodas, and rock carvings than any other place in South Korea.

First Stop: Seokguram Grotto (a Unesco World Heritage Site)

We began by driving up the side of a mountain, then walking along a path for about 10 minutes to reach a famous Buddha statue that is considered to be one of South Korea's most important national treasures. The Buddha is actually in a cave and is constructed from slabs of carved granite. It's 11.5 feet tall and is supposedly similar to cave temples found in China and India.

This is us walking along the mountain path to reach the Buddha.

Outside the Buddha cave, Yuka took a sip of natural spring water.

A pagoda on the mountain. It was so foggy up there!

Next Stop: Bulguksa Temple

The next stage of our trip took us to South Korea's most famous temple, Bulguksa, which means 'Buddha Land Temple.'

Yuka and Melissa in front of the Bulguksa Temple.

Walking towards the temple, we first passed a couple of lotus ponds on both sides of a bridge.

At the front of the temple complex is a large stairway known as Sokgyemun, it has 33 steps signifying the 33 steps to enlightenment, which symbolically lead to the 'Land of the Buddha'.

We couldn't resist trying some deep-fried corndogs!

Us with Michelle enjoying the Cherry Blossom trees.

At the front of the temple, 4 huge statues were built to guard the entrance of the temple.

A huge drum at the temple.

Inside the Bulguksa Temple.

The three storied stone Dabotap Pagoda, which was built in 751.

A view of the temple complex.

Last Stop: Driving around Gyeongju and the resorts

We ended our trip to Gyeongju by driving around and exploring the city some. We drove through a lot of family resorts where guests can play golf, rent bikes, etc. We also drove past the Gyeongju tower, which is probably one of the coolest buildings we've ever seen. In the middle of the building, a pagoda is carved out where you can actually walk/see through the building.

A Korean Lunch
We ended our time in Gyeongju with a traditional Korean lunch. The funny thing about eating in Korea is the amount of dishes they bring you! We could only eat about 1/2 the food they brought us. The restaurant is famous for it's tofu, so we had a few different varieties of that, plus some veggie dishes, a couple soups, and some kimchi-pork. Oh ya, we can't forget the fish they served us with it's eyeballs protruding out...we passed on that dish!

Bye Yuka!

After a few days with us, Yuka had to head back to Japan. We had a great visit with her and are hoping to see her again before our year here is over!

Shabu Shabu Dinner

Last night we went out to dinner to a Shabu Shabu restaurant downtown with Ramin, Tahereh, Dan, John and Michelle. Shabu Shabu is like a Chinese hot pot where you boil thinly sliced meat and vegetables in a pot on the middle of the table. We also added thick noodles to the mix. It's SO good!

John's only been here for a week...still trying to get used to chopsticks! He's from Oregon and is a forest firefighter.

Dan's new here too. He's been here for 3 weeks and is loving it! He's from Boston.

This little boy and his mom sat next to us...he was so cute!

Dan, John, Michelle, Tahereh, Ramin, Frank, Mel

After dinner, we had Krispy Kreme for dessert! It's the first one we've seen here, so we were pretty excited. It was a nice taste from home!

Snapshots of Ulsan

Well, we've been in Korea for 3 and a 1/2 months now and the time has flown by! We've taken a few random shots around Ulsan that we wanted to share with everyone.

This is the street we live on. Our apartment is a couple of blocks down the street on the right. Our neighborhood actually has a lot of foreigners living in various apartment buildings. Notice the McDonald's? We usually go there a couple times a month.


Around the corner from our apartment is this huge middle school.

Here are some boys at the middle school. It's crazy the hours of school that these kids have...a full day at regular school M-Sat, then various academies (English, math, science, etc) after-school until 11 or 12 at night! The English academy we work at has classes for middle school students until 11:45pm every night!!!!

Here's where we work, ELC. The first floor and part of the second floor are offices, and then classrooms are on the second through fifth floors. The school is one of the biggest in the area with 1,000 students. We have several busses that bring kids to and from ELC, which is nice for the parents. Our school is about a 5 minute bus ride from our apartment.

This is a sign posted-up in front of ELC with the teachers names and degrees.

This is a view from the bus stop in our neighborhood. Our apartment is behind and to the left of the brick building. The big stadium in the background is where the lake is that we walk around every day.

This is another view from the bus stop. Notice the huge church? There are churches everywhere here. S. Korea is about 50% Christian. We actually haven't seen any temples since we've been here.

This is Shinae, which is one of the shopping areas in Ulsan. It has a covered walkway with rows and rows of restaurants and stores.

Us shopping in Shinae with Ramin and Tahereh.

Florida shirt for sale...Go GATORS!!!

This is a bus that they made into a Levi's clothing store!