So I'm finally getting around to writing this post after my wife, family, and friends have bugged me for about a week to do so. On October 25 the Fulbright office/ administration hosted their annual researcher fall dinner. It was up in Seoul so that meant that it was a full day and possible nighttime journey. Getting there was simple enough: take a bus to the KTX station and get a ticket to Seoul. I had to stop by my lab at UNIST to take a sample out of the furnace, but fortunately the university is on the way to the KTX station (quite possibly one of the greatest benefits of living near the edge of Ulsan).
As for the KTX ride I used what is known as a KR Pass to purchase my ticket. You go online to the english Korail website, reserve your KR Pass (foreigners only), and print out the e-ticket after completing the checkout process. KR Passes can be purchased to last various lengths of time, from 1 day up to 10 days. The pass allows for unlimited travel on any Korail train for the time the pass is active. You'd have to take the train quite a few times to make it worth the cost, but it can be very cost effective if used properly. For example since I was going to Seoul and coming back in the same day it would normally cost about 95,000 won for the round trip. The KR Pass I bought was only 46,600 won (ya being a youth, normal passes cost 58,200). As one can see I paid about half the price of a full round trip ticket, which was awesome (although I've never tried getting round trip tickets so I don't know if you can). So after deciding on the length of time you want your pass for and buying the e-ticket (this doesn't charge your credit card btw, only when you exchange it for your actual pass at the station), you take the ticket to the clerk at the station and they'll print you out a cool card that has your KR Pass info on it. However you still must buy an actual ticket from the ticket desk if you want to have a seat (unless you don't mind standing) *spoiler this is foreshadowing*. It's just free with your pass. So when I was purchasing my ticket to Seoul the clerk mentioned that while I could get a seat TO Seoul all the return trains that night FROM Seoul were full, which didn't at the time didn't necessarily bother me too much.
The train ride there was rather uneventful, though I noticed the interesting phenomenon that the cities in Korea (at least the larger ones) are built in the valleys and plains between the mountains (valley basin?):
Imagine with a city
Everything else is just kinda crammed in the valleys where the buildings almost don't fit:
Actually about this cramped
Maybe this only holds true for Daegu and the southern cities, but as most of Korea is very mountainous I can imagine it is most likely similar everywhere. It is just interesting to see very clearly how the cities shape themselves to the geography.
After arriving in Seoul my first order of business was to find a KT Global store and finally switch over my prepaid SIM card to my ARC instead of my passport. After finding said store, however, it quickly became clear that they had no clue what I was talking about. Fortunately I figured out the nifty fact that the ktexpatblog website comes in English as well as Korean with exactly the same layout for once (instead of dumbed down English site with 2 of the 100 options of the Korean one). So I showed them the relevant section that says that plans activated with a passport (like Jess and my prepaid plans) expire in 90 days while ones activated with an ARC last for as long as the ARC. This was news to them so the customer rep called and then informed me that for prepaid plans it didn't matter. So much for all the scheming and time to try and get our plans on our ARCs (>_>).
Afterward I headed to the Fulbright building. Along the way to and from the cell phone store I believe I saw more Caucasians than I have the entire time I've been in Ulsan. It was actually rather amazing how many there were, if one can count like 10 being a large number. Tells you how many we see wandering around Ulsan. I was going to be remarkably early for the meeting so I killed some time in one of the local coffee shops called Tom n' Tom's Coffee. They had a bright electric blue lemonade that I tried that was very good:
It was delicious
The office itself was only a 5 minute walk away and I ended up being the first one there. As all of the Fulbright researchers, both junior and senior, starting showing up we all gathered in the conference room. The Fulbright offices aren't actually very big so this was really the only place that would fit all of us. We all started chatting with each other about our experiences thus far and what we are doing, etc. Interestingly there were grantees that hadn't actually started their grants yet, or had only been here for a week or two. It seems really late in the year to just be starting your grant but there wasn't anything that said you couldn't in the contract. Too bad it's already starting to get cold.
Pretty much everyone was based somewhere in Seoul, and those who didn't know the layout of Korea or Seoul itself very well thought that Ulsan was just an area of Seoul. If only. There were also some Ph.D. students that were researchers, though they were in the minority. They would be much older than the rest of us, which would be a different perspective on the whole thing. I don't think any of them were married, but I don't quite remember. The senior researchers were professors who were teaching or doing research at one of the local universities for either a semester or a year.
After chatting for awhile waiting for everyone to show up we started on our journey to the restaurant. The place was actually quite some distance from the Fulbright building. The Fulbright had two vans that could fit like 14 people between them, while the rest of us had to travel by subway. All of the senior researchers rode in the vans, as well as almost all of the girls except one. I noticed as she was the only one left, but she was deep in conversation and I didn't feel like interrupting her. Not sure she could have fit in the van anyway. The subway ride was very simple: hop on and go until you can't go no more. That meant about a 50 minute subway ride. All of us continued to chat along the way there, mostly about things related to what we were researching or for most of the people various things they've experienced in Seoul. I have to say it was nice having a subway system again (also the subways are incredibly smooth, so much so that when they aren't people tend to go flying a few steps cause they are so unprepared). Otherwise the ride wasn't very eventful and we got off at the end of the line.
The vans had to pick us up and drive us the rest of the way from the subway station to the restaurant, as the restaurant was really out of the way. The vans had already dropped off their first load of passengers and had come back to get us. Now when we first arrived at the place one is immediately struck with how fancy it is:
Front Gate
Part of the building (we weren't in that part)
Up the stairs to the front door
The front door
The lawn across from the front door
This was apparently going to be quite the dinner. When you walk inside you are greeted by hostesses in transitional hanboks (navy blue and white). We were lead into a rather large room that spanned all of one side of the building:
I sat against the wall at empty table closest to the people
Half of the room was full by the time we arrived, so we sat down at the nearest available spots. It turns out a lot of the guys have trouble sitting in a cross legged position, as their knees and/or hips (I think) aren't flexible enough to allow their legs to lie near the floor. This makes it difficult to fit your legs under the low tables, so all of those guys had to stretch their legs out fully to fit. The tragedies of inflexibility.
Dinner was a multi-course traditional Korean affair that lasted for quite some time. The hostesses just kept bringing out food. People were getting rather full near the end of the dinner, but the food just kept coming. It was all very good, though of course I had a few particular favorites, including a chicken salady type thing and mini burger patties which you may be able to see in the picture. After dinner we had a bit of history of the Fulbright Korea program and then everyone introduced themselves and what they were doing:
The director giving a history lesson
As far as I could tell I was the only one outside of Seoul to attend. After the introductions we all went in the backyard around a bonfire and had tea or coffee. The fire was built with a ridiculously big log that needed to be cut into about 4 normal sized ones, and sadly contributed to the fire dying down sooner than I would have liked. Nevertheless we left around 8:30ish from the place, which in a way was a better thing than the predicted 9:30.
The ride back on the subway was better as we got to sit instead of stand the whole time (being the first on the subway has its benefits). We all very quickly parted ways and I kinda rushed to the KTX station as fast as possible. The trains leave every hour late at night, and as it was 9:55 by the time I got to the ticket counter I was cutting it a little tight. Now starts the tragedy that was the rest of my evening. I was told there was only standing room left on the train. Standing. For the 2.5 hour train ride to Ulsan. However, I didn't have any choice if I wanted to get back that night. I found a space to stand in between cars 16 and 17 and was there for quite a long time until we were a long distance from Seoul. Sadly I discovered the train was quite full on Friday nights. I guess everyone wants to visit their family every weekend <_<.
It was late at night that my self inflicted tragedy began. I was in the baby changing room sleeping when my alarm went off for about when we should be there. I saw on my phone that we had passed Daegu and though the cursor wasn't quite at Ulsan I figured my phone just wasn't getting enough signal. Therefore I prepared to get off at the next stop, because I didn't remember making a stop between Ulsan and Daegu. Turns out I was mistaken. I got off and headed down the escalator only to realize that the terminal I came out at wasn't Ulsan. The realization struck me like a lightning bolt and I rushed back up the stairs to get back on the train...to find the train pulling out. "Well" I said to myself, "I'll just sit here for an hour and catch the next train. It sucks but oh well."
Turns out that wasn't possible. The station was too small and I'm guessing only certain trains stopped at it. The station was actually closing for the night. It was a bit of an effort to explain that I was going to Ulsan but had accidentally gotten off the train. The guard told me that I was free to stay until the morning, but that he was shutting everything off. So I was quickly looking up on my phone if there was an intercity bus that went to Ulsan, as I remembered that there was such a thing from Busan to Ulsan and that it ran late at night. Fortunately Naver got me the directions and I managed to convey to the taxi driver where I wanted to go. He kept telling me there weren't any buses or taxis going to Ulsan but I kept telling him it was fine. He got me to the bus terminal around 12:20. Sadly the last bus left at 11:20 and the earliest bus wasn't until 6:30. That left me with quite a bit of time to kill.
This is the bus station in the morning.
Fortunately there was a GS25 across from the bus station. They are open 24-hours a day and as they sell meals to eat (ramen mostly) there were a few tables to sit at. So I sat there and read and slept for a few hours. It wasn't as awkward as it sounds since there was actual a fair number of people coming in and out throughout the night. But it was still sad.
Across from the bus station
My hangout for a few hours
At the appropriate time around 6 I went over to the bus station and bought a ticket to Ulsan. At 6:30 I hopped on the bus and don't really remember much till I got to Ulsan.
Me outside the bus station
The bay for the Ulsan bus
Inside of the bus station
Inside the intercity bus. It was cozy and uncrowded.
I had no idea where I was (it was downtown somewhere) and my phone was dead. All I knew is that I needed to find a street that ran east-west as that would probably have a bus that would run to my house. Ya for using the sun to find a cardinal directions. It helped that I recognized the Lotte department store, though I was viewing it from the other side. The bus came rather quickly, but it didn't really matter as the sun had come up and so it wasn't freezing anymore. I got back home around 8ish and promptly passed out after saying good morning to Jess.
So overall I enjoyed the night out that I had. I met new people, had good food, and visited a new place while exercising my "find my way" skills. Though next time I might prefer finding out about different places in a more planned fashion. I only spent 6000 more won than I would have if I had gotten off the train properly (which is almost a miracle). Everything turned out just fine. Pictures of the valleys and the blue lemonade were taken from Google in case someone cares.
Throughout the week, we had a great mixture of rest and excitement. We took a helicopter tour around the island and saw some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen. 
The Filer men and I rented bikes one of the days and we took a long bike ride to a remote beach. 
Alan and I took a kayak/hiking trip down the Wailua River. We were the first ones out on the river that morning and we got to be the first ones to hike to the "Secret Falls". The way there was long, hard to follow at times, and as dry as it could be. 
