Ulsan is a coastal city on the southeast famous for its whaling heritage. There is an annual whale festival, held this year at the end of april, and you can take sightseeing trips out to see real whales in the ocean. As part of this years whale festival there will be a competition where teams can compete in rowing boats. I joined with two friends from Daegu and this weekend was our first practice. Last year we had taken an express bus for 11,000w from Daegu and took 1 hr 40 mins to arrive at Ulsan. This year we decided to try the cheaper Munghangwa train, which is the local slower train and takes 2 hours. There is an express KTX train that will reach Ulsan in 20 mins but the station is actually in the country and not in the city itself. The train route will go via the historic city of Gyeongju. As this is peak cherry blossom season we were able to see many tree lined streets in full bloom as the train passed by. Arriving at Taewhagang Station in Ulsan there was a tourist info office outside to get directions to the river practice area. There was also a station vendor making toast sandwiches where we got a bite to eat. Ulsan is an impressive city. From my first visit last year it seemed quite rich, modern, and a showcase city. Taking the bus from the train station we got to explore more of the city. There are many gleaming new highrise buildings and large department stores. Ulsan is also home to Hyundai shipbuilding so there was a large Hyundai dept store also. At the practice area there were many elementary school kids wearing life jackets getting ready to practice. On race day there will be many teams in different leagues. We will be racing in the adult league but there will also be many junior leagues racing in their own divisions. It was nice seeing all the kids going to their practice boats. Some were happy to see foreigners and pose for pics. Others found being out in the deep river quite terrifying. Surprisingly they managed to paddle ok and had a drummer at the front of the boat to coach them on their paddling. I had dragon boat raced before in toronto with on a 16 person boat and thought it would be the same. The difference this time round is that we do not have long oars as we did previously in toronto. This time they are short paddles. The way to row is to treat it like a spade and dig it into the water and push back, not to treat it like an oar and row sideways. We managed to row quite well considering it was the first time we had all met and practiced together. We have a good captain who is co-ordinating and arranging all the rowers which we didnt have on my last time resulting in a bit of mayhem when we all paddled. Also while rowing we noticed fish jumping out of the river about a foot high. At one point one jumped into our boat. One of the rowers stopped to throw it out, which was quite difficult as very slippery and hard to grab in your hands. Eventually we used an oar to throw it back out. We will practice again for a second weekend and will race a minimum of two races on race day in two weeks. You can read about last years Ulsan Whale Festival here http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-e ntries/londone7/1/1306676453/tpod.html There is a lot more to see in Ulsan such as the whale experience centre with skeleton bones and a dolphin show. This is down in the port area of Janseongpo which we visited last year and you can read about in the above blog entry. It also includes and aquarium with a glass tunnel where you can see the dolphins swimming from below.