full moon

A Saturday night began, waiting for plans to be confirmed by text message. This is the trend in Ulsan, texts over phone calls. I was sitting on a bench in Geongeuptap and a friendly voice to my left asked, "Excuse me, do you speak English". I replied with a smile and chuckle, "No, what do you want, how can I help?" Charlie sat down and we talked for at least 20 minutes before we decided it was sensible to go indoors, it was around 5 degrees Celsius outside. He in turn jabbed me about taking so long to reply to a text message about possible club plans that night. Charlie is a new recruit teacher from England and has a similar dry sense of humour. I have a feeling we'll be good friends. We shared first day stories and compared our... *ahem* Angel students.

A short taxi ride to Muegodong, the University pocket of the city, took us to a variety of choice for those wanting to meet other people our age. We hadn't walked for long before I ran into a friend from school, a lovely Korean woman Jeannie. She has just finished dinner with a friend of hers, Guk Jeon, and they decided to join us for drinks. Long story short, we had a fantastic time and I made two new friends by chance. This marks my favourite night in Korea to date.

Today I explored the Ulsan Park walking path which featured an outdoor exercise station at the top and further on, some odd stationary machines I will photograph later. The air was fresh and the changing leaves were beautiful and reminded me of thanksgiving walks at home with my family. The sunset was magnificent and the moon came up bright orange at 5:50 against a purple sky due to pollution I'm sure. It was a brilliant day rounded out by a Church concert my colleague invited me to listen to. The refreshments afterwards were tasty and the old ladies were very kind to me. Children as usual greeted me with enthusiasm; treating me like a theme park mascot in a fury suit with a giant head. I don't think that will ever change.