April 13th 2008 - Bye Henrik

April 13th 2008

Company tours and farewell party

Back again after a fantastic holiday in Australia. For those of you who are interested in seeing the photos from our trip, go to the Travels section of this page or go to www.peder.biz for the diving related photos and videos. I have always wondered how interactive web pages were made, so this winters project was to make one and learn it that way. The result is www.peder.biz and it is pretty much finished now. All I need is a few corrections here and there. And then to fill it with interesting stories and photos of course. Anyway - I managed to finish before spring time, which is a bonus.

This week we were a little bleary-eyed. Not jetlagged ... just tired. Wednesday was election day here in Korea, so I got half a day off. It should really have been the whole day, but the shipyard kept working as normal, even though it was supposed to be a holiday. Thursday we closed the office and went for a tour of both HHI (the giant shipyard here in Ulsan) and the Hyundai Motor Company. It was pretty impressive to see how the cars were assembled. And surprising to see how much manpower was involved. I had an idea that it would be more or less all be done by robots, but that was not the case. Apparently the robots do the body parts only and the assembly is done by hand. It was also surprising that each assembly line was working on several different models at the same time. Effective nonetheless ! 4600 cars are manufactured every day in this factory.

Saturday was the farewell party for Henrik, my colleague. It is always funny to go to a party with both foreigners and Koreans. Us foreigners are normally not too comfortable at their parties and they are obviously not very comfortable at ours ! The way we party is very different. All credit to the two Koreans from our office, who either have gotten used to our parties or hide it well !

Peder and some of the yard people with whom we work

Pre-dinner drinks at the Ocean View. Kim and Henrik in the middle.

Oliver, Flemming, Marilyn, Natasha and Sergei

Our present to Henrik were two hand-made ceramic plates. He seemed pleased !

Post-dinner drinks at the Ocean View !

We managed to get away without too much of a hangover, and have spent the afternoon walking up to Ulgi Lighthouse - a nice park in our neighborhood - and then went for lunch at our favorite shusi restaurant by the beach.

Paula at our small Sunday Walk

The women free-divers having a break

The women free-divers at their "Restaurants" on the beach. Guaranteed fresh sea food !

Ulgi Light house is somewhere behind the trees. There is a very pretty and popular rocky point in the park - a nice place for a Sunday stroll

Paula proud to have overcome her vertigo and crossed the bridge !

Our favorite Japanese restaurant on Ilsan Beach. A sushi buffet for US$16 with coffee, desserts and ice cream!

In a few minutes I will go for a mountainbike ride with Geoff while Paula has a couple of phone-dates with her friends back in Sweden.

---- A few hours later ---- Just back from the ride with Geoff. We got SOOOO lost ! And I was bust .. I felt good at the beginning of the ride but on the first hill I was already suffering. No need to tell you how I felt two hours later !! I'm ready for bed now (8pm !) ....