Exploring the City of Ulsan


The city of Ulsan, in which I live now, is located on the southeastern coast of Korea, about an hour away from Busan. It is the 7th largest city in Korea with a population of over 1.1 million people. Some fun fact according to Wikipedia:

"Ulsan is the industrial powerhouse of South Korea, forming the heart of theUlsan Industrial District, which is home to the world's largest automobileassembly plant operated by the Hyundai Motor Company,[2] the world's largest shipyard operated by Hyundai Heavy Industries[3] and the world'ssecond largest oil refinery, owned by SK Energy.[4] In 2012, Ulsan had a GDP per capita of $79,623, the highest by far in South Korea, substantially higher than the United States and comparable to Luxembourg.[5]"

There are 4 districts in Ulsan: Buk-gu, Jung-gu, Nam-gu, and Dong-gu. I live in the far north of Buk-gu, near the airport. The area labeled "New Downtown" is in Nam-gu as well as Ulsan Grand Park and Ulsan University. "Old Downtown" is located just above the river in Jung-gu. Most of the industrial factories and shipyards are located in the far east section of Nam-gu and most of Dong-gu.

This is the New Downtown area of the city, its called Samsan-dong (삼산동). Here there is Lotte Hotel, Lotte Department Store, Young Plaza, Hyundai Department Store, Upsquare Mall, and more. It is the shopping and eating center of the city, and it's where I often go to meet my friends. We do many things here including shopping, going out to the foreigner's bars, going to language exchanges, seeing movies, and more!
The building above and on the right is part of City Hall. This is where I take a beginner Korea language class every Friday from 6:30-8:00. It is a beautiful building about a 10 minute bus ride west of new downtown and it often has some sort of flower or garden display in the courtyard out front as pictured below.
Around late October, some friends and I took a hike up to one of the small mountains located on the south side of the Taehwa River that tower over the city. From here, we were able to get an amazing view of the river, Nam-gu and even part of Jung-gu.

At the top of one of the peaks was a temple where we rested for a while and enjoyed the view. 



 On our walk back to the bus stop, we decided to cross the bridge next to Taehwa Rotary to get a nice view of the calm river on the gorgeous day.



A few weeks later, we went hiking on a mountain near Ulsan University in the furthest west part of Nam-gu. From here we got another great view of the city from an even further distance on one side. On the other side were the rolling mountains leading out of the city and into the country side of Ulju-gun, a county district that is still considered part of the Ulsan Metropolitan City.


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