Football Stadium

Drove to Ulsan 울산 to attend cousin's wedding ceremony on the 3rd Saturday in December. It's been quite a while since I was there. Ulsan is located on the southeastern coast of the Korean peninsula, which is the largest industrial city in South Korea. It has a famous football stadium named Munsu 문수 and opened in 2001, where several 2002 FIFA World Cup matches were hosted. 

The wedding hall is inside the stadium, just below stands. The stadium has a subsidiary park around, which offers views of the western outskirts of Ulsan from the hill. 

Autumn Streets

Street scenes last weekend in the Seongseo Industrial complex on the eastern Daegu. Lots of gingko and plane tree leaves falling on the streets in front of many different kinds of factories showed that this autumn has deepened. Nature is preparing for winter, which is just around the corner.

Autumn Park

Hwangseong Park 황성공원 is a wooden park in the middle of Gyeongju city. The forest consists of pine and oak trees. It used to be a military training camp for the elite youth during Silla dynasty. 

This area has been well conserved for a long time, whose trees also remain intact. The park is located next to Bukcheon 북천, the northern river penetrating the northern Gyeongju. To the north of the park, paddy field, orchards and some small villages scattered here and there a couple of decades ago. There used to be also a gravel runway for small airplanes between Bukcheon and the park. Then Bukcheon was so clean that it turned into a big swimming pool for kids in the hot summer.

The urbanization around the park, especially to the north, had started earlier. Now the park faces a line of commercial buildings and apartment complex to the north. After a new dam was constructed in the upper river about 40 years ago, Bukcheon has been polluted and not suitable for swimming in Summer any longer.  Hwangseong Park still remains like a jewel for all though.

Autumn Tints

Went for a hike to enjoy the deepening autumn around the skirt and took some random photos. The above is a view from the observation tower in Hwawon resort 화원 유원지 on the eastern Daegu.

Hwawon resort 화원 유원지 is set just by the confluence of two rivers, the Nakdong river 낙동강 and the Geumho river 금호강. The photo on the left is about the two rivers, the bigger one on the left is Nakdong and the other on the right Geumho. The photo on the right is the trail up the observation tower on the top of the resort.

Sizzling Summer

Just after mid-August, it gets cooler and cooler. The scorching summer seems final to be over. Koreans are eventually relieved from the terrible heat and humidity. Actually, every time summer comes, many people like me sensitive to the heat and sweating a lot worry about how to spend the summer. Summer 2016 in Korea felt even hotter than last. The tropical nights and heat wave hit the country and people seriously struggled to cope with the heat day and night. Took some pics to memory the unprecedented heat in the summer of 2016. The temperature rose up to 42℃ outdoors on Aug. 14, as shown the above. 

Headed for Gyeongju on Aug. 12 to spend the summer holiday. It happened that the hottest area across the country on that day was just the ancient city, whose temperature was 39.4℃. The cool places downtown like air-conditioned coffee shops were packed with people to avoid the intolerable heat. Took a photo in front of Cheomseongdae 첨성대, an ancient astronomical observatory built in Shilla dynasty.

An American recalled his childhood in Korea about 50 years ago when he had visited Cheomseongdae. He left a comment on Youtube: 

"Wow does that take me back Steve!  I saw Cheomseongdae when I was 12, back in 1965!

My family went with another military family from Daegu in their van.  As I remember, the road was gravel all the way there.  Also funny - people constantly were trying to flag us down as they mistook the big American van for a local bus. Imagine their surprise when the "bus" stopped and it was full of Americans!"

Two US military camps have been located in Daegu. In the past, most of the roads in Korea just as the same one the American child saw were made of gravel, so they were so bumpy and rough. I also remember the bumpy and dusty road from Daegu to Gyeongju.

Hitting the Trail

Spent last weekend hiking around the western outskirts... In the morning I left home to head out for a short hike just outside Seongseo Industrial Complex on the western Daegu. It was cloudy in the morning and cool, but getting hotter when the sun started to shine. The trail goes straight on the bank of the Geumho river. Hiked to the nearby mountain where the trail disappears over the horizon as shown photo above. People named that Gungsan 궁산 meaning a bow-shaped mountain. Sometimes a few walkers, cyclists on bikes, runners and dogs with their owners pass by.

A traditional building at the bottom of the mountain comes into view if you keep walking north and pass under Gangchang bridge. The river flows past the rocky cliff on the left. People usually take the trail by the building to start hiking right up to the mountain and should go uphill from the start. Once you walk up, the trees block the sun's heat and the cool breeze blows through them. The left photo shows the view of the top and the other one the scene from the top overlooking the southern area, from which the trail in the photo at the top is dimly visible in the distance.

pro baseball in Daegu

Last Saturday, there was a pro baseball match between Samsung Lions and Lotte Giants at the brand new Samsung Lions Park to the east of Daegu. The second match between Lions and Giants started at 5: 00 p.m. during three consecutive home matches. The stadium was filled with enthusiastic singing and chanting by the fans, which is most likely to be the cultural difference in baseball fans between Koreans and Americans. Major league baseball fans from North America have begun to take an interest in Korean baseball and enjoy the exotic and unique atmosphere together.

Pro baseball has become the most popular sports in Korea since its inception in 1982. We currently have 10 pro baseball teams in Korea. Daegu is the hometown of Lions, while Busan Giants. The infrastructure has improved hugely as well. Samsung Lions Park is the long-awaited new stadium for the baseball fans in Daegu.