139 Ulsan, visit factories, Busan, Jinju,

through a few small places and Koksung Festival


Tuesday Ulsan Toured the Hyundai/Kia Motors plant I read that you can visit the large factories in Ulsan. The kind people at the i office gave me the tel numbers
The Hyundai/Kia plant in Ulsan is the largest in the world. They make 4 cars every minute. I was very lucky I telephoned to ask and the PR guy said he had some free time and could drive me around. It was raining so I arrived soaked. It was pretty impressive it seemed very tidy and well organised. It actually produces more cars than any other plant in the world 1.15 million a year. It did not appear so huge, maybe cos it was so neat.
unphoto imagine : Huge ships custom built carry 4000 cars each right on the factory site.
they have to employ 400 drivers




I found a room in a beach fishing vilage.
Wednesday Visited the Hyundai Heavy Industries HHI Plant (Shipbuilding and excavators) : I walked along the seafront through another old fishing village, into a regional park upto an old beacon fire site. From there I could luck down on the huge Hyundai site. Again what a huge contrast from the shacks of the fishing villages to the modern plant. Actually only 30 years ago that area had also been just fishing villages. But large amounts of land had been reclaimed to make the dry docks. I would recommend anyone visiting the site begin by going up to the hill top first
unphoto imagine : the view from the hill down onto the plant
The whole site 10 dry docks and sheds, and the excavator factory and heavy electrical equipment factories next door. To me the plant wasn't so huge as in my hometown the steel plant occupies space of 3Km by 2 Km.
I could look down on the site and then I walked down right into it.

Again I was lucky you are only allowed to visit the plant if you have your own car, but they let me just visit the exhibition centre and watch the video.

The Yangban class lives on - The neat and tidy huge plants contrast strongly with the small scruffy workshops of private business. In Korea there has always been this class of scholars who work as bureaucrats organising everything. It seems to me one day they said "OK our guys are working as farmers and those guys in other countries are earning big money working in factories. OK, let's go out and make some factories", So that's what they did and the organisers made sure everything is neat and tidy. The cars are all designed in Europe and the US. It appears the rest of the population are just workers and they are happy to not have make decisions they just do what they are told and the company looks after them. There is a huge Hyundai Hotel for visitors, Hyundai apartment blocks for the workers to live in and a huge Hyundai department store for them to shop in.

I decided to stay in the fishing port area and I walked out to a lighthouse and rock island where 3 or 4 women were chanting to themselves from prayer books maybe praying for a boy baby.

Thursday I took the bus down to Ulsan ..it was a big city of endless suburbs . I visited the beach and hike around the old mountain fortess walls in another part of town. It was too croded so I took the bus to Jinju a city of much more managable size and found a Yoinsuk there

Friday I spent the day as a tourist in Jinju
I walked around the well preserved fortress right next to my hotel in the centre of town and upto a moutain for a view and through the new part of town and it's strangle designed culture centre with it's roof top view.

Sat 13th I don't like to take the bus from city to city I prefer to stop off at some places so I went from Jinju to Hadong, then Gurye then Koksung I saw a sign advertising the Simcheong festival so I popped into the council offices to ask where it was and I was lucky enough to meet Mr Cho Byoung Tai who showed me around

The festival was about Simcheong a local girl in a Korean legend who was very faithful to her father. because of the different thinking the idea is difficult for western people to comprehend.

Of course it was very similar to the other festivals ..candy sellers dressed as clowns clicking their scissors to the music. .. a lot of eating and soju drinking .., Korean Opera music etc.

But we did meet a few interesting people and did some interesting things I had my nails painted with a special flower the belief is that if the ink is still on your nails at the first snow then you will find true love,

one man played music on a blade of grass and we tried some traditional sports. seesaw throw sticks etc
unphoto imagine : Traditional Sport - lifting the heavy rock
me rolling on my back as I struggled to lift the 100Kg rock
..I couldn't Mr Cho could of course

He dropped me off at a motel and I was surprised to find I was only 12Km from the friend of Mr You and Pun Seok ...so Tuesday I set off to visit Sunchang

<-- * HOME * Korea Index * email * NEXT -->