This weekend four of us headed to the Ulsan Whale Festival. Ulsan is on the coast just north of Busan and east of Gyeongju. They have opened a new high speed KTX station in Uslan which would have got us there in 45 mins instead of the 90 min bus. Originally I planned on taking the train until I found out the station is well outside town.

The Ulsan Tourist info office (052-1330) advised there were free shuttle buses from the bus terminal and if we came by train we would have to take two city buses to get to events. Also events were taking place in two locations, Janseongpo and Taehwa, which we would need to take a bus to get to each of them as they were different parts of town.

We decided to take the bus to Ulsan as taking two city buses from the train station would be just as long as taking the longer bus into downtown Ulsan. On the way we passed the train station. I'm not sure why they call it 'Ulsan' as its in countryside outside the city near a smaller town so good job we didnt come by train as we'd waste a lot of time getting back into town.

At the bus station we were surprised, there were no tourist info desks, no shuttle buses, and nobody else arrived for the festival. We found a foreigner that lived in Ulsan and she told us to try the bus station across the road which had a tourist info office. When we got there the office was closed with a sign it had moved to the Lotte Dept store nearby, and still no signs, shuttle buses, or people for the festival. Were we the only ones that had come or had they cancelled the festival?

I called the tourist info line and she told me to go outside the Lotte Dept store. Eventually we found a small minibus which had 'shuttle bus' written in hangul on the windscreen. We were the only foreigners and a couple of pensioners.

So the bus took us first to Janseongpo which is the port where the small festival was taking place. Here is the Whale History Museum, Whale Experience Centre, and 4D Cinema. You can get a combo ticket to all for 9000w ($8). The whale history museum had whale skeletol remains and skulls, as well as displays on the history of whale fishing.

Outside in the harbour you could go on whale sightseeing tours if we had more time. Next door was the whale experience centre. Here they had a glass aquarium where three dolphins were swimming. You could look thru the window or on the other side was a glass tunnel you could walk thru and see them from above. On the above floor was the open pool where we could see the dolphins from the top.

The second floor also had the 4D theatre. This was a short 10 min movie about a underwater expedition that tracks sharks and then is attacked by a giant octopus. It was good as the seats were timed to move and there were air jets on the floor and behind the seats on your necks to try to make it lifelike.

As we left the 4D theatre a crowd had gathered by the top of the aquarium pool for a dolphin show. They did the usual being patted on the head and jumping up and eating fish. They also jumped in the air and did flips by I was in the wrong spot to get any pics. As we went down there was also another smaller aquarium with different types of fish and baby shark.

After that we took the shuttle bus again to the larger main festival site at Taehwa further in town along the river bank. We made it in time to catch the 2pm whale hunting performance show. In the river was a large whale being hunted by two long boats and fishermen with spears. The whale snorted a fountain of water. It was quite a short show.

In previous years I had seen a video on youtube where this was done on land. A large whale on wheels was hunted by two fishing boats on wheels. They chased it around in a field, harpooned it, lassooed it, and dragged in their catch. I think the land version seemed more fun and what I was looking for as there was more action. In water its more lifelike but a slower pace navigating water.

For lunch we had guksu (noodle soup). They had whale meat for $30 but this was too steep for all our budgets, but interesting to see what it looks like. Whaling was officially banned in korea in the 1980s but there still appears to be meat on the table??

In the field they had a prehistoric village setup with straw teepees. Inside were different actors in make up and costume re-enacting daily life. There were different stages at different ends. One was doing modern rock music, the other end was doing traditional korean and dancing.

There was an interesting bridge that goes to the other side of the river where we could see another stage with more costume dancers but we didnt want to walk all the way there and back. There were two tv crews filming we think the mayor and first lady of Ulsan and he gave us his business card!

Overall I was very impressed with Ulsan. I thought it would be just another korean town but it was very well kept. It seems very affluent and well manicured, Daegu seems run down in comparison. All the buildings were in immaculate condition, the river bank was well looked after with bike paths and many roses along the banks. Our Daegu river is nowhere as nice in comparison.

Ulsan is the base of Hyundai heavy industries (shipping, cars, oil, and petroleum) so I think a lot of that wealth is being invested back into the city. They even had a Hyundai Dept Store downtown. Almost reminded me of Scandinavia how well kept, clean, and modern Ulsan was. I think if korea needed showcase city outside Seoul I would choose Ulsan.

There was a lot to do in this neighbouring town which I had overlooked till now. There are also several nice temples we passed on the bus, petroglyphs from ancient times in some nearby mountains, and a waterfall.

Coming back to Daegu we were at a bus terminal I had never seen before and had no idea where we were. After intially panicking we were on the completely wrong side of town, I remembered there is another bus terminal on the map near dongdaegu and maybe this was it as I recognized the route we came. We saw a local bus I recognized and on the bus stop saw that dongdaegu was two stops back so we followed the bus route.

So we found the secret fifth bus terminal at dongdaegu a few blocks away from the other four!! I read in the paper they plan to build a big shopping centre at the train station with the metro and bus stations all rolled into one in a few years time.

Next weekend is a holiday weekend so back to Busan for the Haeundae Beach Sand Sculpture festival and on Sunday travelling the southern coast for a 16th century turtleship and Japanese undersea tunnel from the 1930s.