2010.10.31 - APEC House

The APEC House

This week the shipyard workers were back to semi-work again after last weeks full strike and trip to Seoul for a quick demonstration. Semi-work means only 4 hours of strike and 4 hours of work every day. I guess that the Yard has finally tired of the strike so as retaliation they have cut lunch. Take away a Koreans lunch and you are in real trouble !! What now happens is that the workers sit in the lobby and eat their lunch instead. Korean lunch ..... so live fire barbecues on the marble floors where their self-caught fish are sizzled (the four hours a day they work are often spent fishing right next to our unfinished ship!). Need I say that this is quite a spectacle ? Right after lunch three cleaning ladies sweep through the lobby and all that is left from the sit-down lunch is a couple of burnt shadows on the floor from the barbecue.

We have been slowly moving our things to our new apartment in Ulsan every time we drive up there for work, which isa couple of times a week. We will have to move permanently at the end of the next week, but we should be ready then. Paula is looking forward to being a bit closer to other foreigners. But we will miss our fitness training partner Serhiy. We have been going to the fitness center almost every day - only missing out when we go to play squash or have business dinners.

Saturday we were invited over to Øyvind and Annveig for dinner. Øyvind had a big fall on his new bike recently, so we were a little unsure of what kind of sight would meet us .... but no need to worry as there were no visible scars. The girls were in their finest hour and kept us busy while the fish was cooking in the oven. There were several fish over the fire that day as some of their aquarium inhabitants were at the end of their short life and ended up in a pot of boiling water. One of the bigger fish were also given a hot spa as he apparently were too expensive to feed ! That should make the others stick to their diet!!! (Well - I think the real reason was that the biggie was terrorizing the rest of the fish, but I like the other story better!).

Today I headed out for my last MTB ride as a resident Busanian. I decided to do a bit of exploring anyway and I made it almost all the way across to the Democratic Park by Nampo-dong and back. It was a nice ride although I had to walk a bit of the way when the trail turned into steps and stairs. In the afternoon we headed up to Haeundae for Indian lunch at Ganga and then a walk around the Westin Chosun Hotel and the APEC House. This is a really nice stroll which we had not done before.

This picture is more interesting than it seems. To the left you can see the back of the building which burned down a couple of weeks ago in a matchstick like manner. The funnel of the sightseeing ship announces the Busan bid for the 2020 Olympics and the pinkie boat to the right proclaims that Busan is sexy (Sexy Busan) !!! Don't ask me why!

A Womens matchrace cup was held this weekend at Haeundae. As side entertainment there was milk carton ship-building contests and a small concert. Maybe not the best combination - children and rock concerts - but as we saw last weekend at the Formula 1, childrens rights ... not so important here.