Happy International Women's Day

March 8th is International Women’s Day here in Russia. On Women’s Day men traditionally shower the women in their lives (mothers, wives, etc.) with flowers. It is similar to Mother’s Day, which they do not celebrate as a separate holiday here, but lucky for us ladies more than just mothers are honored. Many employees have Women’s Day off work and it is seen as a day to relax and be with family, which I certainly did. And in case you were wondering, no, Jeff did not shower me with flowers, but I’ll cut him some slack since there aren’t any flower stores around here. He did however figure out that you can order French Fries in the café at the hotel, so I was as happy as can be!

Men, don’t feel left out, there is also a men’s day of sorts celebrated on February 23rd, which just so happens to be the day we arrived in Russia. Unfortunately for Jeff, he didn’t get showered with my praises since we didn’t know the holiday existed! Its called Protector of the Motherland (or Fatherland depending on the source) Day, and from what I can gather it is similar to a Veteran's Day combined with Father's Day.

The Soul of Korea

The Soul of Korea – that’s the slogan for the city of Seoul. We know this is a little delayed, but we wanted to still post something about our short trip there before leaving Korea back in January. First off, we stayed at the Westin Chosun Hotel, which was awesome. It’s listed as one of the top 100 hotels in the whole world and is the oldest hotel in Korea (as proved by the following plaque on the side of the building).

Seoul was quite different compared to Ulsan. There were a lot more American restaurants and stores (we ate at Subway and Cold Stone – so good!) and in general a lot more Americans.

As we said in previous posts, we were (okay, at least I was) really excited to see the Myeongdong Cathedral, which was the first Catholic Church in Korea, built in 1898. It was really close to our hotel, so as soon as we arrived and unpacked a bit we headed out towards the Cathedral. Unfortunately, when we got there we realized that the whole outside and front of the church were under construction, so we didn’t get to see the tower portion. However, to not disappoint the many tourists who come to visit the Cathedral, the church raised scaffolding all around the Cathedral and hung a canvas that was painted to look like the real Cathedral underneath.
It wasn’t quite as impressive as seeing the real thing, but it was still pretty cool that they tried to give you the effect of what it would look like. There were tons of people milling around the Cathedral, and it was hard to tell if we could go inside with all of the construction. We saw some people going in and out of a construction entrance, so we decided to try and go in. We entered through the side only to realize that we were crashing a wedding. Jeff wanted me to take a picture, but I just felt a little awkward, so we booked it out of there. We came back on our last day and were able to get some pictures of the inside, which was gorgeous.

On the last day we also took some pictures of the statues outside since there weren’t too many people milling around outside. I especially loved the Grotto, which was a shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Something really distinctive about Seoul is all of the ancient sites scattered throughout this completely modern city. In addition to the Cathedral we visited Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was this huge ancient palace and we spent an entire afternoon walking through the grounds. The buildings were all so cool and different, but they all seemed to have these dragons built into the roof for protection.


There were also a bunch of statutes and carvings on all the stairways and scattered throughout the palace grounds.
Jeff loves this little guy and ended up buying a statute of him to take home with us!

Another really unique tourist attraction is the Cheonggyecheon Stream. which was recently reconstructed a few years ago. It is a site of an ancient stream that formed the class-boundary in the city. On one side was the Emperor and the upper class, and on the other side the peasants. Over time, the stream became dirty and a locale for the homeless and other "undesirables." The city then covered the river to eliminate the problem. In an effort to beautify the city and recover a piece of its past, Seoul invested a ton of time and money reconstructing it. They laid down stone and carefully controlled the flow, which starts with a big waterfall on the north side of town. Jeff actually saw an hour long show about the engineering of it on TV (Discovery Channel?) when he was in Saudi Arabia. The grand reopening was just about two years ago. The end result was really cool – basically a man made river through town that looks completely natural. We walked down different parts of it every day we were there and took a ton of pictures.
The final touristy thing we did was taking a tram ride up to Seoul Tower, the highest point in Seoul. It’s basically a spire located on top of a big hill.

We got some gorgeous views from the observation deck of the tower (it wasn't the clearest day, but oh well).
Instead of taking the tram back down the hill, we decided to walk down and got some more great pictures along the way.

I guess the walkway down the hill is quite famous for Koreans. They call it a lover’s trail and its said that any man who proposes along the walk will not be refused. Towards the bottom of the hill there was this bench that I couldn't help but take a picture of.

In case you can’t read the bench, it says “stand on this bench and sing a love song." In case you were wondering, no, Jeff was not singing (but it does look like he might be drawing a tear).

Wow, this has been one heck of a long blog! I guess we really packed a lot into those three short days!

Fun Observations

My favorite thing about traveling is observing all of the little things that make the country we are in unique. We haven’t been here too long, but I thought since we have internet access for the next few days I would post a few of the observations we have made so far. I am sure we will post another blog with more later.

1. We are not sure if it is nation-wide or just in our hotel, but the elevators here are really tiny. The door is about as wide as our suitcase and no more than four people can fit in the car. Also, there’s not an up or a down button, but just one button to call the elevator. Thus when you get in you are taken directly to your floor without stopping (besides, there wouldn’t be room to stop and pick up people on other floors!). It definitely makes the ride a lot quicker!

2. Despite the fact that it’s winter and pretty cold here, people seem to walk a lot more than they drive. Now because it’s winter, there is a lot of snow and ice all over the sidewalks, which makes it really difficult for parents to push children in a stroller or pull a cart with groceries or other goods. The Russians have an awesome solution to this problem: sleds. When you walk down the street you see all kinds of sleds, from the commercially produced to the cleverly homemade. I don’t know why, but every time I see them it makes me smile, especially when there are children aboard because they just look so happy.

3. Whereas Americans line up behind the person in front of them, Jeff and I have noticed a lot of people here line up next to you instead of behind you.

4. When exchanging dollars into rubles, Russian banks will not take dollars unless they are perfectly crisp and free of any defects. This makes perfect sense, because if you don’t deal in the currency often, you might not know the difference between real and counterfeit, so to avoid problems, you just take ones you know are perfect. Jeff and I learned this when several of our dollar bills were rejected at the bank for defects. We then decided to look at every bill we had and realized how many of them had writing or other ink blotches on them! It’s really funny, because it’s something that you rarely recognize when you’re in America, but I guess we have dirty money! Seriously, look in your wallet and compare the number of perfect bills to the number of bills with writing or ink or tears, etc. I think you’ll be surprised. In conclusion . . . stop writing on your money!

5. At the hotel here there is no such thing as a room tab. You pay for your room in advance, so every couple of days you go downstairs and pay for a few more days. Also, when you go to the café you can’t just charge something to your room. That’s definitely one way to make sure people don’t run off without paying their bill!

6. Before we left everyone asked us to see if the “traditional Russian hats” (you know, the big furry ones with the earflaps that tie on top of your head) are actually worn in Russia. Now it has been relatively warm here (nothing close to below zero Fahrenheit), so we can’t say for sure, but walking around I would say that about 1/3 to 1/2 of the people we saw were wearing the hats. They are so fun and Jeff and I definitely want to try and pick some up before we leave!

Musical Rooms

When we switched rooms last week the hotel forgot to note that the larger rooms were all booked this week for a children’s musical festival. What did that mean for Jeff and I? That we got to switch rooms again . . . back to the smaller room we started in. We are only here for two nights, so it’s totally not that big of a deal. Plus, this room is actually a little better than the first room we were in because it has two twin beds, so we can store our luggage on one bed during the day and it does not seem quite as cramped. However, the best thing about this room is that we are just below the café and we can get wireless internet access in our room (though the signal strength isn’t the best)!!! It is still really expensive, but at least I can spend a little time over the next two days keeping in touch with people back home and posting new blogs (I have been writing them offline so I can just copy and paste as soon as I get online). After that we are back to a larger room (probably without internet access) hopefully for the rest of our stay here. With all of this moving Jeff and I were really happy that we were able to cut out one suitcase from our last trip!

We're Here!

Greetings from Ryazan, Russia! We left on Thursday afternoon Chicago time, and after a 8 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany, a three hour flight to Moscow, and a three hour car ride to Ryazan we arrived late Friday night Russian time. We had initially thought that we would be able to spend a few days in Moscow on our way in, but as things tend to go with Jeff’s job we had to skip Moscow and head straight here. I guess we’ll just have to try and check out Moscow on our way out instead!

The hotel we are staying at is nice, though not quite as luxurious as the Lotte in Korea. It has a security guard (which is nice), a little breakfast restaurant, a small bar, and a café/bar on the top floor. When we first checked in, they gave us a room that was, well . . . tiny - there’s really no other way to say it! It had no closet or dresser, and barely enough room to fit all of our luggage on the floor (not to mention that we couldn’t walk since our luggage took up all the floor space). I snapped a few pictures, but they aren't loading for some reason here, so I will try to post them later.

Jeff had to go to work first thing Saturday morning, but when he got back around noon he talked to the front desk and they had a much nicer room available for us (and the price is really not all that much more), so we moved right away. Our room now is perfect! We have a huge closet with plenty of room for all of our stuff, a big desk for the computer (and for scrapbooking!), a refrigerator, and a luggage bench. We also get cable TV, but the only all English channel we get is CNN World. There are a few movie channels that play American movies, but unlike in Korea where we were spoiled by subtitles, the movies here are all dubbed in Russian.

Since we arrived on the weekend, Jeff worked only half a day, so we spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons exploring Ryazan. We don’t have a car here, so we made sure to bundle up for our walking. The weather here isn’t as bad as I had expected (thought I heard they are having a warm streak right now, so that may change), but it was certainly cold! There was an employee from the office in Moscow here for the first three days we were here and he told us where we could find the Kremlin here in Ryazan. We walked over there on Sunday afternoon, and it was really cool. It was made up of about 8 different buildings, all of which were really different and unique. Again, I will try to post pictures when the upload feature is back and working.

Finally, internet is only available in the lobby and the café at the hotel (and is really expensive), so we definitely won’t be online nearly as often as we were in Korea. We will try to post as much as possible, but don’t be worried if you don’t hear from us!

The Wery's Are Going to Russia!

Jeff found out a few days ago that we are heading out to Ryazan, Russia. We will be leaving on Thursday and are scheduled to be there for about three or four weeks. It's been awesome being at home, but we are really excited to go! We should be staying near the Red Square in Moscow for a night on the way in, so we'll definitely post more when we get there!

We're Home!

Jeff and I are finally back from Korea! It was an awesome time, but we are definitely glad to be back home to celebrate the (belated) holidays with our families. We were able to spend three days in Seoul before we left Korea, and when we have a little bit more time we will definitely post a blog and some pictures from the trip. I just wanted to put up a quick post so you know we are home and that we may not put up any more posts for a little while! We aren't sure where or when we will be leaving again, but Jeff is on vacation for the next week, so at least not until early February. We will definitely post when we know more!

On a completely unrelated note, we finally have our wedding photos and we posted all of the professional pictures on our yahoo photo site. Enjoy!

Ganjeolgot Point

About 30 minutes southeast of Ulsan is Ganjeolgot Point, where the earliest sunrise on the entire Northeast Asian continent can be seen. I guess this is a really popular place to go on New Year's Eve, as you can see the first sunrise of the new year. We got up really early a few days ago and drove down to the point to see the sunset. It was an incredible view (though it was also FREEZING outside).


We got there just before dawn, and the lighthouse light up the sky. We aren't sure if this statue is hailing the arrival of the new sun, or giving a angry fist to the Japanese (snicker, snicker).

We watched a few locals place fruit and other food on a blanket, and then gather around and pray during the sunrise. The explanation was that it was an offering to the Dragon God.

Many statues are placed upon the point. This turtle was pretty cool, with a fiersome snake sitting atop the pyramid coming out of his back.

What was really interesting was the statue of the Golden Pig. The year 2007, in the Chinese Zodiac, is the year of the pig. But that is not the end of the story, it is more specifically the Year of the Golden Pig, which occurs once every 600 years. The golden pig symbolizes prosperity and wealth, and they say any child born during the Year of the Golden Pig will enjoy a prosperous and wealthy life. For this reason, the Korean birth rate is expected to increase by 10% for 2007. The festivies on Ganjeolgot point for New Year's were more popular this year due to the coming of the Golden Pig. You find references to the golden pig everywhere, as street vendors try to sell cheap plastic pigs to Jeff on his way to work as well as the golden pig adorning numerous store signs and billboards.

I Found Another Catholic Church!

So one thing that I really find cool about traveling is searching for Catholic Churches. I just think its really interesting to see the different architecture and the cultural influences. I previously posted about the Catholic Church near our hotel (see "Jesus Is Korean" post), but the other day I decided to take a really long walk to another church that I found on the map.

Here are a few of the pictures:

I wasn't able to go inside the church or get too close to it because it was a weekday and school was in session. The security guard standing outside was giving me some dirty looks, so I didn't want to push my luck! When Jeff and I leave here we are planning on spending some time in Seoul (just a few days). The hotel we are looking at staying in is really close to a historic Cathedral (in fact its the first Catholic Church in Korea), so I am sure there will be more pictures to come!

Korean Basketball League

Ulsan is not a very large city, but one thing they do have is a professional basketball team, the Mobis Phoebus. We just realized this yesterday (after being here over two months!), and here's how. First off, KBL (Korean Basketball League - the Korean equivalent of the NBA) games are on TV all the time, but they are never in English, so we have never heard or seen the word Ulsan associated with the KBL. Also, since Ulsan is such a small city, we never really thought about it having a KBL franchise.

On numerous occasions we have seen large buses painted with team names and logos outside of our hotel, but weren't sure what sport they represented. While these buses were outside, we also noticed that there were some of the tallest Koreans we have ever seen milling around the hotel (as a complete tangent, its funny to go down to breakfast when these teams are eating, because they empty the buffet of pretty much all food). We aren't geniuses, but we put two and two together and figured they were probably basketball players. I asked Jeff if he thought they were professional players, but since we were convinced Ulsan wouldn't have a team we just decided they were either University players or some sort of lower league team (like the CBA in the US).

Before continuing, there's one thing you should know about the KBL. There are very strict rules about having non-Koreans on a team. Each team is allowed a few foreigners, and only two non-Koreans may be on the court at a time. In practice this has meant that each team has picked up a few African American players. Jeff and I figured out these rules quickly when watching the games as there would be 6 Koreans and then 4 much taller African Americans on the court.

Last night, we took the elevator downstairs to get dinner and barely fit in with the 7 or 8 other basketball players in the elevator. The last guy to get on the elevator was an African American wearing all Memphis Grizzlies gear. At that point I decided I would do some research to try and find out if in fact these were professional players. A few internet searches later I found our mystery man in the Grizzlies gear and discovered that the Ulsan Mobis Phoebus were actually a professional KBL team. In case you are curious, our mystery man was Kimani Ffriend, who played his college ball at Nebraska from 1999-2001 and was drafted by the Grizzlies in 2006 (not sure where he was in the five years in between). Apparently that didn't work out long, because now he is over here in Korea playing for the Incheon Etland Black Slamers.

Signs We've Been Here Too Long

1. Though there are many people who work at the front desk, when we go up there they know our room number immediately (same thing in the gym).

2. Mr. Pizza now gives us a 10% discount because of our frequent visits.

3. The Pyung Chang Laundry Shop now also gives us a discount because of our frequent visits.

4. We walked into the liquor store yesterday and the first thing the owner said to us is that they were out of our favorite Finlandia Vodka.

Touch of America in Korea

When traveling I always find it interesting what American stores and restaurants make their way into other countries. I thought other people might be curious too, so here's what we have seen in Korea:

Stores (not too many)
The Body Shop
Wal-Mart

Restaurants (far more!)
Baskin Robbins
Bennigan's
Dominos
KFC
McDonald's (is there any country that doesn't have a McDonald's?!?!?)
Outback Steakhouse
Pizza Hut
Starbucks
TGI Fridays (we haven't checked to see if they do Tuesday night karaoke like at home!)

Korean Chaebols

Having been here for 9 weeks, we have learned that chaebols (conglomerate corporations) impact almost all areas of our daily lives here in Korea. The most prevalent that we have seen here are Hyundai, LG, SK, and Lotte.

Though it is only the seventh largest chaebol in Korea, Lotte is by far the biggest chaebol here in Ulsan. We recently learned that the CEO of Lotte is from Ulsan, so that explains its popularity here. To give you an idea of how big these chaebols are, these are just a few of the ways that Lotte touches our lives in an average day. First, we wake up in our Lotte Hotel. We shower with our Lotte soap. Jeff goes to work at his Lotte owned KP refinery. I shop in the Lotte Department Store. We drink Lotte bottled water and eat Lotte candies that we bought at the Lotte Supermarket. And these are just the obvious ways that we notice!

Happy New Year

Happy 2007 everybody! We are still in Korea, so we thought we would share our experience regarding the new years celebration here. Jeff had to work on New Year's Eve, so we thought we would relax in the evening and head out around later at night (10:00 or so). We had been searching online for good bars in Ulsan, but we couldn't find anything reasonably close to our hotel, so we decided we would head down to the Jungle Plaza. Its a cool Thailand themed bar in the basement of our hotel. We have been down there for drinks a few times, and it was never busy, so we figured we would be fine just hanging out there and listening to the live music. We got ready and headed downstairs only to find that all of the seats at the bar were reserved for the night! Who would ever think of reserving a seat at a bar!!! We were shocked and decided we better get moving to try and find another place to celebrate! We went upstairs, got our coats and headed out. We didn't want to go to an all Korean bar, and had earlier seen a bar called "Miller Time," so we thought we would head over there and hope it was fun (and that they had seats!).

When we got there it was about 10:30 and there were 8 tables or so still available. We sat down and ordered some nachos and a pitcher of MGD. We knew a bar like Miller Time would carry Miller products, but what we didn't realize is that Miller was literally all they had (no other beer, no wine, no liquor)! We ate our nachos (which were very interesting - they had mustard all over them), drank our beer, and waited for the big countdown. There was a large screen at the back of the bar that started counting down with two minutes to go:

At midnight everyone cheered and toasted, just like you would expect in any American bar. However, as soon as the cheering began, it was over and the bar went back to normal. No confetti, no noise makers, no singing Auld Lang Syne, in fact, no music at all! This gentleman wasn't even awakened by the low key celebration:

Our waiter was kind enough to take a picture of Jeff and I to commemorate our first New Years as newlyweds:

I guess we realized that New Years is not quite as big of a celebration here as it is back home!