December 16th 2007 - Bye Ole
December 16th 2007
Ole retires ...
So, we are back from our vacations. We went to Vietnam and Cambodia for two weeks and returned back in Ulsan last Sunday. It was an excellent trip, which I will tell you more about under the Travels section of our web page.
Being on vacation, we missed out on my colleague Ole's retirement party. We did get back in time to spend a few days with him before sending him off to Denmark. We'll miss him ! Our way of thanking him for taking care of Peo was to bring him to a "new" Turkish restaurant in town - Kebabistan. It was a nice discovery for us ! Western food is a little scarce here in Ulsan so really nice authentic Turkish food is a treat.
Saturday neither Paula nor I felt 100%. I still struggle a little with my allergy, so we decided to stay in and celebrate my birthday with movies, a good meal and a bottle of wine. Paula had been on a trip to Costco in Daegu with the other foreigner-wives on Friday, so I was spoiled with a REAL steak ! It was sooo good ! Today, Sunday, we went to the whale museum here in Ulsan. Ulsan used to have a whaling station on the river and I suppose it is still the place to go in Korea for whale meat. Around the museum there are plenty of small restaurants serving whale meat. The museum was half about the whales themselves and half about whaling, so the name is a little misguiding, but I still enjoyed the displays.
Tonight we will join Vandy and Jay for a goodbye drink at the old foreigners compound. They are leaving for Houston on Tuesday, after 7 years in Korea ! There goes my squash partner .....
The view from the whale museum towards Hyundai Offshore yard. The big crane is the old Kockums crane from Malmö - bought for US $1. To the left you might see a lot of people fishing. This is one of the great pastimes in Korea. Behind the fishermen, on the other side of the river, you can just make out the FPSO Akpo (it's a little difficult to see, but it is the huge structure to the left of the hill, by the cranes). This is a large oil production plant (a big ship really) being built at the offshore yard. It is absolutely humongous !! Our apartment is just to the right of the hill by the Akpo.
Paula in front of an old whaler and the whale museum