Ulsan - For You!

"Ulsan - For you"

This is the slogan for Ulsan. Every city in Korea has an English slogan. For a nicely compiled list, check this guys blog out: http://waegukin.com/english-slogans-korean-cities-the-complete-list.html

Is Ulsan for me? Honestly, no, Ulsan is not for me. But the reasons my answer is no are not legitimate. Ulsan is not for me because I do not have a car. Ulsan is not for me because it is too noisy. Ulsan is not for me because I feel very alone too often.

Yet, it is not fair for me to judge a city I have only lived in for two weeks. My reasons are not legit because I can get used to the noise (though I may always wish for the peace of a small town) and I will meet people as time goes on. I will, however, always miss having a car. Ha!

Perhaps the biggest reason I cannot judge this place is because Ulsan is so large....I may live here a year and never see all of it. It is, like you see in the picture, a global city. 1.1 million people crammed into a not-so-large area. What you see in the picture is actually somewhat of a slogan for the district of Ulsan that I live in called Buk-gu (meaning something like "northern part, as it sits in the northern part of Ulsan).

What I do find interesting is that Bukgu itself is big. Where I live is a good hour bus ride to the downtown part of the city of Ulsan. So I just assume stay in Bukgu. I have no need to go to the busiest part of the city. I have seen it several times already (during orientation and during several "business trips" with my co-teacher to get my cellphone working). I have never been a city kind of person. My Korean friends make fun of me for that. In fact, the other day I told one of my co-teacher's that its tough to live in the city because of the noise and the lights. She laughed and said, essentially, "You don't live in the city. Bukgu is the countryside."

I beg to differ, but I do understand. Our versions of "countryside" are entirely different from each other.

I can grow to love Ulsan. I was only in Beijing for 5 weeks, saw maybe less than 50% of the city, and would go back in a heartbeat (in fact, I plan on arranging a trip there during my vacation). So I'll give Ulsan a chance. Or maybe I should say, I'll give Bukgu a chance, though, as it turns out, I'm heading downtown next weekend...