First Adventure in Ulsan

So Friday, Sept. 11th, at work, I decided that Saturday was going to be a day of exploration. So I looked up which bus would take me to the beach! I just wanted to walk around it, it wasn't hot enough to actually get in the water.

Saturday, with my bus list in hand, Andrew and I rode bus 127 for about 45 min. We got off when we thought we could see water. We guessed right and walked a little to get to Ilsan beach and the East Sea. The beach was small, kind of dirty and not really much to see. We were a bit disappointed and it was early in the day. We began just waling around and saw a steep set of stairs so we decided to climb up. Halfway through that climb we told each other that this had better be worth it. And it definitely was. At the top were several different paths to take depending on where you wanted to view the water.

We found out that we were in Daewangam Songrim (Pine Forest) and they say it's considered the second most magnificent spot on the East Coast after Haegeumgang. We began walking on a rocky path to see the famous Ulgi Lighthouse. It was beautiful and the views were breath taking.

From the lighthouse we took another path and found out that we were on the Daewangham Rock. "As legend has it, King Munmu, the 30th King of the Silla Dynasty achieved the Unification of the Countries of the Korean peninsula in AD 668. King Munmu use to express his desire to become a dragon after his death that would protect his kingdom from the enemies. When the king died he was buried under a great rock in the East Sea in accordance with his will and sublimated into the guardian dragon of the kingdom. People, therefore, call the rock 'Dae-Wang Am', which means 'The Rock of the Great King' and it is located in Yangbuk-myun, Kyongju. Meanwhile, the spirit of the Queen also became a guardian dragon of the Kingdom after she died since she could not forget her husbands noble will. Later the dragon flew to Ulsan and submerged herself under this rock right here to protect the East Sea. It is told that seaweed does not grow around this rock because of the dragon."

These rocks were so beautiful and the view was amazing! These pictures don't really do them justice but they are still pretty. We hope to get back there soon around sunset! We spent a few hours just exploring the area and all the different views and we didn't have a chance to go down all of the paths. It was a good day for sightseeing that we sorta just lucked into.

I have included just few other shots. One of them I thought was pretty cool. It's part of the rock formation with the Hyundai port in the background. As you have probably already guessed, Korea manufactures Hyundai cars as well as Kia right here in Ulsan. Every other car seems to be either a Kia or a Hyundai and I have seen some very cool looking Hyundai's that are not sold in the USA yet.

The picture to the left I thought was a very cool shot of a mini waterfall between the rocks. It's kind of hard to tell because the picture is so small. You could venture off the bridge and walk down the rocks to the water but it looked a little to unsafe for my liking. We ended up climbing some of the rocks to the left that weren't as steep and had a few more places for us to grip with our feet and hands.