Biking Around Ulsan


One of the best parts about the city of Ulsan that makes it stand out from other cities is it's biking and walking paths. Along both sides of the Taehwa river and a few of it's tributaries,for the bulk part of the city, there are paved and lit paths for biking and walking. (green = walkers, red = bikers) It is complete with signs, water break and toilet stops and exercise park stops to stretch and work out.

Even thought I live very far from the center city, since I bought a bike a month and a half ago, I've been exploring several parts of the 5 main routes and even using it for long distance transport: changing my hour bus ride to city hall into an hour bike ride instead.

On the map below, you can see the colored bike routes. I have done all of A (I live at the northern most tip of it), a third of B, and a small part of D. This weekend, we are going to do all of C!




One weekend in particular, Shane suggested that we ride to Ilsan Beach in Dong-gu (the East District) on Saturday morning. So, on Friday (show in orange on the map below) I rode from my school to city hall for Korean class and then from there to Daun-dong (where Shane lives). It took about an hour and a half and was 14.6 miles in total.

The following morning, we set out on the red path, following the river all the way down and around to Dong-gu's Ilsan Beach. This took about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Then after some lunch and rest, we traveled back along the path towards the main city. At the split of the tributary that leads up to my house in Buk-gu, we parted ways as he continued east and I continued north to my home. This took another hour and 45 minutes and the total ridden that day (in red on the map) was 26.1 miles.

That gives me a total for the weekend of 40.7 miles in 5 hours over the course of 2 days. Not to bad I think for my first time riding a bike for more than 30 minutes. (and within my first time back riding a bike in almost 2 years)



In addition to being well paved a lit, the bike paths in Ulsan have great views of the city since they follow the river. The picture below I took on a different weekend when I was crossing the eastern most bridge in Ulsan. (You can see it in the map above just below and to the right of where the red line turns up).


Dong-gu (where we wrote through/to that Saturday) is filled with factories and many of Ulsan's shipyards (for which Ulsan has the biggest in the world). It's also home to many of Hyundai's car factories (for which Ulsan has the 2nd biggest in the world). We even got to see them test driving a bunch of the cars before parking them to be loaded onto one of the finished ships. Ulsan is an industrial city, but you don't notice it until you go out to the east side here where all the building takes place.


It was incredible to ride along side all of these giant ships at various stages of their building process, but the dust, smog and chemicals in the air were scarily thick here. Thankfully I planned ahead and brought these hairbands to use as face masks so we didn't breathe too much of it.


When we finally reached Ilsan Beach, after several intense hills, we took a well deserved break at a British pub and ate some burgers. Then we hung out in Ilsan for an hour or two to give our legs a rest before posing for a picture with my bike next to the beach (to prove I had made it there) and making the long, extra-tired trip back.
 

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