2013.10.07 - Movie night

Movie night, World Music festival and Gijang MTB.

Further and further between the updates..... can it be that my sister is not updating her blog at all these days and I slack off in the absence of competition ??

In any case, I will try to improve in the future.

After our return from Shanghai I have continued to work late hours and even though we are now into a heavy holiday season in Korea, I have been flat out. Still attempting not to work on weekends but am not always successful. We are well into the construction phase and have lots of work ongoing in three locations in Korea. I am pretty much chained to my chair every day, but I am showed photos of what goes on from time to time :-(

So Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) came and went without much fuss - just noticed the streets nice and quiet for a few days. Saturday I had set up a mountain bike ride with some guys from Busan, who had contacted me through my web page. 2 from Busan and 3 from Ulsan met up in Gijang to try to find the trails that were used for the 2002 World Cup race there. I had received a GPS track from Joey from our local bike shop, so all went well. The riding was good although mainly on fire roads. After a couple of hours we came across the downhill course, so Web and I headed straight for trouble. Not a major disaster as we chickened out on all the ramped jumps, but we both still reached the limits of our bikes and riding abilities. No harm done though. And it was FUN !

Pain ... I love the pain ! Michal - not so much.

Steve and me checking out the terrain

Brian

Web as the point where we were slightly lost.

In the evening the compound clubhouse was alive with a movie night for the kids. As Annelin was in China and Trygve was alone with the kids, we thought that we would come clear on our promise to bring their kids to the movies (i.e. give Trygve a few hours off and give ourselves an excuse to go watch the movie!). So Alexander and Caroline got dressed up in their best clothes, candy and pocket money in hand and joined us and the zillion other kids at the clubhouse. The movie they showed was Despicable me 2 ... a movie Paula and I had been wanting to see for some time. Unfortunately, the zillion kids and the burnt-out popcorn machine prevented us from hearing/seeing/enjoying the movie. But the kids were happy and how could they not be with the candy floss, the sodas, the candy, the pop corn (we got some before the accident) and all their friends there ?!?

Even Honey was there (Cora's dog who has been in the care of friends while waiting to go to Singapore)

Need the sound and the smell of burnt popcorn ....

Next day Dawn turned 29 and had invited us to Bella di Notte - the really nice Italian restaurant in downtown. Old Mr. Swanson had forgotten his heritage (Scot) and went all out on the starters. Would have been pleased with half - now we were just double-pleased !

The Swansons, Szypulskis and the Nielsens

Agnieszka had to help Dawn count to 29 ....

One weekend we finally found the temperature pleasant enough to go on a mystery tour. There are very few places that we don't know around here, but we still managed to find some dusty corners of Ulsan that had eluded our interest so far. And so we ended up in Bulgogi village. It is rare to find cattle in Korea, but in bulgogi (Korean for beef) village, it seemed as if every house had at least 10 cows in their back yard. It was such an unusual place for Korea. We will have to go back for some more exploring. After all we also came past the Penis cafe and the Bus cafe - you may be able to read about them later!

At General somethings memorial near the Bulgogi village

Strange and unexpected with this memorial in the middle of nowhere.

... but even stranger and more unexpected with Cafe Penis in the middle of nowhere. Or anywhere really.

Funny how the weekdays just melt together .... no sports and nothing that springs to mind as I try to recap the last month. I know that I basically just crash on the couch when I get home. I am sure that Paula would have something more interesting to tell. She bought a new phone - Galaxy S4 - and she is very fond of it. Also busy with painting classes and yoga. We met a newcomer in town one night at the clubhouse; Romi from Mexico. She is a friend of Stephanie, who lived here twice while we have been in Ulsan. Yesterday we went out for lunch together with her child Paola and husband Pierre. After two closed restaurants we ended up at the .... Mexican restaurant ! For dinner we had Korean with my bike buddies bart and Mike & his wife Pheobe at the really weird but good shack at the far end of Jujeon beach.

Friday Paula and I attended the annual World Music Festival in downtown. Started off with a kebab from Uzbekistan, a meatless Turkish döner kebab for Paula and then we were ready for the music. First up was Yaya - a much too strange blonde Korean singer/band that had us occupied for 3 minutes. Better luck at the next performance which was Lena Cay - Spanish electro flamenco. We sat through the full performance and even left humming some of the tunes from the concert. Third up was a Celtic band Baebach. Bagpipes, flutes and the lot. Paula liked it a lot. Fourth was Bajofondo - an Argentinian/Uruguayan band playing electro-tango. They have been to Ulsan before and have a large following here. We were still surprised at the enthusiasm ... people of all ages got out of their seat and crowded the front of the concert hall. A shame they were not playing on the outdoor stage, where the atmosphere could have been even better.

Fifth and shortest was a South African/Dutch band Skip & Die .... as strange as the band name but also with quite a following. But not for two old farts like us !

Baebach

Annelin and Caroline came over for lunch while Trygve and Alexander were in Mokpo for the Formula 1

The "traditional" Sunday coffee at Icebean