Eric came up from Busan on saturday afternoon to watch the football. First we went to check out Ulsan's Stadium, Munsu. It was built for the Korea Japan World Cup, so it's pretty big, about 45000 capacity I think.
We wanted to get ourselves inside and see the dugouts and stuff, but weirdly enough all the lights were off in the entrance. It was supposed to be some big shrine to the stadium's importance in the World Cup but everything was in darkness. Kind of weird, we thought. So we wandered around a little, tried to get a little closer to the pitch, but it was all locked. I noticed lots of lights downstairs, so we got the escalator down and sure enough, there were people and lights. Was this the place for tours of the stadium? Maybe for a bit of info? Not in Korea. Hell no. They'd decided to build a wedding hall in the stadium, no joke. This place was kitted out too, with make-up rooms and multiple ceremony halls. It was so, so strange. So there was no stadium tour, not even lights on around the little entrance hall museum, but there was a place to get married?! I'm sure most people who check out the football on a saturday think, 'Damn, if only I could get hitched right here and bring my two loves together!'
Just for a bit of proof on this madness, check it out.
Ulsan World Cup Convention (yey!) ...and Wedding Hall. Oh.
We had to take ourselves to a dirty western bar, which was pretty terrible. This place was built just for the South Africa World Cup in 2010, so it's brand new, but for anyone back in England it's just like walking into a Wetherspoon's. Although the 'British' style had been exaggerated ten-fold. There was a red phone box next to the pool table and everything. I felt dirty being there. When we walked through the door I didn't even see a Korean face, everyone was foreign. There's this huge thing here about frequenting these kinds of bars. I mean, why come 9000 miles across the earth to sit next to a phone box, playing darts and drinking shit overpriced lager every weekend. It makes no sense, so it sucks that this was the only place I knew of showing the game. We just kept our heads down, and sat bang in front of a big TV. We did what we had to do and got the hell out of there. It was like having the idea of a city's Chinatown totally reversed. Weird.
On Sunday we went across to Grand Park. People kept telling me at work that it was awesome and they were not wrong. We rented a couple of bikes (Michelle broke hers, of course) and just cruised around all afternoon in the sun. It was sweet. There was some cool stuff there too. It started out looking like Amsterdam or something with this windmill and river, then we found some fighter jets and this huge war memorial, then loads of awesome little parks to learn how to ride on the road or do tricks. So cool.
There was also this park up by a giant butterfly house with these huge inflatable mounds on the floor, probably about 3m high and a few of them about 15m across. Kids were just going mental on them. I wish I got a picture. They look like the greatest invention of all time. Pretty sure the health and safety man has banned them in England. Anyway, after Grand Park we got some food at a cool little place near us where you wrote messages on the wall. Here was ours:
Oh snap. The food was pretty decent too. Freshly made Korean sushi (Kimbap: 김밥) for 2000W, which is just over £1. Bargain.
So it was nice to stay in Ulsan for once, seeing as though we always seem to be travelling away to places. We're both broke as fuck at the minute actually, so this weekend is kind of the same. Tomorrow a teacher from my school is driving us across to Gyeongju, the most historical city in Korea. They call it 'the museum without walls'. That's pretty deep, I know. I'll let you know how that goes.
The last week of teaching was kind of same-old. We both still think we're terrible at teaching, but it pays the bills at least. We're just hugely looking forward to payday. Dear God do we need it.
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