http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/griffster/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from griffster en-us Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:33:40 +0000 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:33:40 +0000 Well as usual I've waited much too long to update the ol' blog. But moving along last month I took a weekend trip to Ho Chi Minh Vietnam with newish good friend Malcolm. Malcolm is here from England teaching English with his girlfriend Louise who happened to be off on a girls' trip to Hong Kong so Mal and I planned a boys weekend. It also happened to be Mal's birthday an extra cause f http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-452527.html The shipyard recently went on summer vacation so I took advantage of the time and went to Japan for six days. The timing worked out perfectly since my good friend Jevan also wanted to come over and visit another friend studying in Nagoya for the time being. It was a relatively short trip but we managed to see TONS. In six fast days we saw much of Nagoya Osaka Nara Himeji castle Tokyo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/blog-426918.html I've had quite a busy week. I've also decided to not wait for months on end to update my photos It was a nightmare organizing them all but I'm finally caught up. Anyways I just got back from Japan yesterday but that's for the next entry. Right before Japan I went on a road trip through Korea with Malcolm and Louise my British English Teacher friends. I was only able to go for two days o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Gyeongsangbuk-do/Andong/blog-426871.html I happened to be browsing the Weezer website one day and noticed they had a tour date to play in the Seoul area. After digging a little more I realized it wasn't just a Weezer show but an entire three day rock festival I've really missed going to live shows here so naturally I immediately wrote all my friends here to start planning a trip. We got our tickets rented and borrowed tents and p http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Seoul/blog-423004.html At the end of their tour the fam went to Japan. Again I was working so I took another long weekend and only had time to spend in Kyoto. I am returning to Japan next week so stay tuned. I really liked Kyoto. It's probably my favourite city over here so far. It has a really nice vibe to it where modern day living meets a variety of tradition. This city was just really clean and everyth http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-422985.html Once the whirlwind of China was over we all got on planes and headed to my temporary home. Home base was my apartment in Ulsan but we ended up all over the place. Luckily and with many thanks to NOV I have a sufficiently large enough apartment to house those goons. Don't get me wrong it was great to see them and all but you could barely walk through the luggage in my place for two weeks http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Ulsan/blog-422972.html So I'm going to split up the Kennedy Tour by country. If you want every single little detail talk to my mom She's always thrilled to pull out pictures and relive it allWhile Mom Dad and Doug were here I took very few holidays from work and went to meet up with the fam whenever I could and it worked out really well. They first arrived in Beijing so I took a long weekend off and flew down http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-422952.html I took a very short trip to Seoul my first time and took a few photos. It was a fast trip with the sole Seoul HA purpose of renewing my passport.My advice if traveling through Seoul DO NOT DRIVE The first bit of the trip was pretty miserable. The GPS unit in my car broke about halfway there very convenient timing and I had only one map in a little tourist book measuring around 6 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Seoul/blog-422944.html First of all I owe everyone following this blog a huge apology I have been TERRIBLE with updates and I promise to do better from now on Anyways the good news is that today I'm taking some time to get it all together and do a huge retroactive updateI'll start with my first entry which is a tour of Busan with my English teaching globetrotting friends Malcolm and Louise. We took a weeke http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Busan/blog-422934.html A while back I got an unexpected message from my good friend Mike Tang who I met in Houston when I worked there. He said he was taking a trip to China and was wondering if I'd like to meet up with him and a couple other friends he knows in Shanghai for a weekend. Naturally I jumped on the opportunity to tour around a bit more. First let me explain a little about Mike. Although I met him in http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-380121.html The day after my HAIL gig I got on a plane to go wander around Hong Kong for a few days. Lunar New Year is a three day holiday in Korea so I wanted to take advantage of the time. My friend KyeOk came with me too. Hong Kong is a really progressive city. They call it the International City and it really is. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to get around and communicate with p http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/blog-368986.html Last weekend was the first gig with HAIL my new band that I mentioned in the last entry. It went really well and was so much fun. We played at the Ulsan Foreigner's Compound bar where a lot of expats and English teachers live etc. It is a very small little place and we managed to pack probably 5060 people inside. We split the show up into two sets and also did a little encore at the end http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Ulsan/blog-368980.html Hi Everyone. I've stockpiled a bunch of pictures that I've been meaning to put up for a while. It's been a while since the last update... Hmm what have I been doingI've been travelling around a bit locally. I visited Gyeongju keyONGjoo which is a natural park with a lot of old Buddhist temples and such. It's very nice and lowkey mostly untouched by big tourism with the exception o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Ulsan/blog-354631.html So there's not really a huge amount to report for this entry. I have been continuing to get used to the area and mainly just settling into life. Everything is relatively easy except for communicating with people in shops and places. People at work all speak English but going out for food etc can be frustrating. I hope to learn Korean as I go but it's very different. I get by now by pointi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Ulsan/blog-348030.html After months of waiting for my visa documents relocation details and human resources changes I finally made it to Korea For those of you who don't know I recently accepted a position with the Rig Solutions Project Management team with my company National Oilwell Varco. I am working at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in the city of Ulsan pop. 1 million or so where NOV is supplyi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Ulsan/blog-344568.html