Exploring Ulsan

The east side of the ROK is not at all familiar to me as I never go there. Most of the places I tend to visit around around the Seoul area or in the south. However, I know someone living in Ulsan so I went down there for the long weekend.

​Ulsan is the 7th largest city in Korea, along the East Sea. With close proximity to Busan and the sea, Ulsan is a great choice for a weekend getaway.

As I researched "things to do in Ulsan", I reverted to my typical itinerary of themed cafes. For the most part my research failed. Ulsan seems to be a more outdoorsy city, probably because it's by the sea and the weather is a lot more mild there than Seoul. Anyways, the first place I went to was Taewhagang Grand Park. From the bus we had to walk across the Taewha bridge (pictured above and below). From the bridge you get beautiful views of the river.

The park is also home to a beautiful bamboo forest. I had never been in a bamboo forest, so I was excited to get some good photos. The forest is quite extensive but is a very nice walk if you are up to do a 4km walk. It is located right next to the Taewha River.

There is also a large field of different types of flowers like poppies and cornflowers. This park has the largest riverside flower field in the country. I thought Gapyeong's Morning Calm Garden was the the most beautiful but a lot of these flowers I have never actually seen before.

The park is extremely scenic and there are events often. It is also a great place to have a picnic. There were a lot of families sitting in their tents eating and some grilling food. Walking around the park you can also get a nice view of the river. There are alot of great restaurants along the promenade. At night the bridge lights up, so you can get some great night shots.

I find this city so interesting because it's extremely mountainous. There are so many hills and elevated streets.

Walking back towards the city there is a pagoda right by the riverside. It's not very big but it's got a nice back drop for photos.

Next was Seongnamdong, an indoor marketplace with tons of alleys. I've never seen so many middle schoolers hanging out in one place. There are a lot of game rooms and noraebangs in this area as well as clothing stores and restaurants.

Lotte Young Plaza is a large mall that is all over Korea. On the rooftop of the mall there is a large Ferris Wheel and other rides, but the other ones look like kids rides. I don't remember the actual price for the Ferris Wheel but it was cheap and you get an amazing view of the downtown core.

While researching things to do in the city I came across a fishing cafe which sounded really cool. Basically, it's a cafe where you actually fish for fish but you don't eat the fish, you just release it back into the water. The objective is to catch a lot of fish; the heavier the better because you get higher points when you have heavy fish. The points are accumulated so that you win a prize!

For one hour it is about 10,000￦ which includes a drink, fishing rides, net, fish food, gloves, cloth and an apron if you want one.
*Tip~ The fish food is very wet, so you need to make sure the pack it on the hook well.

The water is very merky and catching the fish will cause a lot of back splash. Do not wear nice clothes if you don't want to get a little dirty.

At first, I could not catch a fish. I started to get better and kept catching fish one right after the next. You need to be very patient when fishing as the fish will pick the food right off the hook without you knowing.