My First Night in Ulsan

After I went through a very easy customs check at Busan airport in Korea, I only had to wait a few minutes for my luggage to come out, and then went straight out to the pickup area, where my boss Heather and her father were waiting. She said I looked very different from my photo, which I do. The photo I sent was terrible, and I've dyed my hair since then.

It's about an hour's drive from the airport to Ulsan.

That night there was a going-away party for the girl I am replacing, so Heather asked if I wanted to go. Although I was exhausted from travelling for thirty hours, I figured it would be a good idea to experience a Friday night in the city. I did get the opportunity to take a shower at Heather's place, where I stayed for two weeks.

Korean nightlife generally involves multiple places. First you go to a restaurant where you eat a bunch of food and maybe have a couple drinks. Only one person pays, though. Going Dutch is really frowned upon, so people just take turns paying for the whole group. The night we went out it was a Turkish restaurant, I guess because one of the teachers really missed Turkish food. After food, bars are in order. This time we only went to one bar, but I think it's usually a barhopping experience.

At the bar, we took our shoes off before entering the area where we sat down. At Korean restaurants, you usually leave you shoes in an area by the door, but this place was kind of a hybrid, where there were Western-style tables and chairs in one room, where you wore shoes, and Eastern-style tables in another area, outside of which you left your shoes. We actually were sitting on top of an aquarium, with tables on top, and people sitting on cushions on the glass floor. That was cool.

At bars, instead of beer nuts and pretzels, they have what is called "anjoo," which is a huge spread of food, such as fried fish, clams, tofu, soup, noodles, vegetables, boiled eggs, and so on. I think they set it out for every party, but you don't have pay if you don't eat it. That's what one of my guidebooks said, anyway. We ate ours, though. This was where I showed minor ineptitude with chopsticks. I do pretty well with the disposable wooden ones, but with the reusable metal ones, which are flat, I have some trouble. I'm much better at it.

They had me drink this lemony drink that I assume was alcoholic, but it must have been pretty weak. Everyone was drinking from shot glasses, but I got laughed at when I drank it like a shot. They just sipped like a normal drink from a small glass. I swear I've had that drink before, but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I'm just thinking of Mike's Hard Lemonade or something. Anyway, it's supposed to be a common Korean drink at bars.