Ulsan is an outstanding industrial city in Korea. It is thus frequented by businesspeople.The city also has a unique landscape with the mixture of three elements, its downtown, industrial complex and the sea, all adjacent to each other. This is the reason why Ulsan is suitable as a tourist destination for “workation” where you can work and have vacation at the same time. In the village where whaling thrived in the past, you can see the street that recreates its old memories. At Daewangam Park, why not keep the open East Sea in your eyes imagining the whales that used swim there. You will find romantic café and lighthouse in vivid colors near the breakwater against the ocean.

Whale Culture Village, an old landscape of Jangsaengpo

Jangsaengpo Port used to be a representative whaling station in Korea. After whaling was banned, however, it has been reborn into a whale-themed tourist destination called “Jangsaengpo Special Whale Culture Zone” with facilities such as Whale Culture Village, Jangsaengpo Whale Museum and Whale Life Experience Museum. The beginning of whaling in Jangsaengpo dates back more than 100 years from the point when Jangsaengpo was designated by Russia as a base for dismantling whales caught in the Pacific Ocean. The whaling in Jangsaengpo was most lively from the 1970s until 1986, when commercial whaling was banned. Whale Culture Village shows how the place looked in the most prosperous times.

Jangsaengpo Whale Culture Village is in the form of a large park. With Whale Square and Whale Sculpture Park in the middle, it has a Prehistoric Whale Garden, Hydrangea Garden, Jangsaengpo Old Village, Mugunghwa Garden and a 5D theater.

Jangsaengpo Old Village is where you can see how Jangsaengpo looked in the golden days of whaling. The ambiance of the past is recreated with more than 20 buildings and sculptures. You can find Jangsaengpo Elementary School with a classroom with small desks and chairs and using a hearth with lunch boxes on top of it, as well as the sculpture of children playing the skipping rope on the street. Old items from those days are placed in a local bookstore, photo studio and corner shop. At the corner of the village, there is also a whale dissection place.

Jangsaengpo Whale Museum, Korea’s only whale-themed museum

Upon entering the museum, you will see the special exhibition room on the 1st floor and a permanent exhibition room that gives explanations about ‘Jangsaengpo.’ The touring order the museum is first the 1st floor, next the 3rd floor, and lastly the 2nd floor. When you go up to the 3rd floor, you will find a real baleen of the right whale (black whale), the replica of the skeleton of a whale, the explanations and exhibits of the gray whale, and displayed items related to whaling.

Through the window of the observatory on the 3rd floor, you can see the view of the sea stretched widely. The sea that you can see here is one of the routes through which the gray whales, the endangered species, travel before breeding. For this reason, the nearby sea area (Migration Site of Gray Whales of Ulsan) was designated as Korea’s Natural Monument no. 126. On the 2nd floor, you can find the real skeleton of a killer whale that was caught off the coast of Taiji, Wakayama , Japan displayed. The ship that is exhibited next to the museum is the restored “Jinyang no. 6,” the last whaling ship of Korea that caught whales until 1985, and you can see inside.

Cute tricks of dolphin family right in front of your eyes at Whale Life Experience Museum

The Whale Life Experience Museum is Korea’s first dolphinarium. As soon as you enter the museum, you will see the submarine rest area. It is where you can how four common bottlenose dolphins, named Jang Duri, Jang Dodam, Jang Kkotbun, and Go Jangsu, live together. Their living space is connected to the whale submarine tunnel. Passing through the arch-shaped tunnel, you can see dolphins swimming overhead.

On the 2nd floor, you will find the dolphins’ performance hall. This is where you can watch the dolphin show, but it is now temporarily closed due to COVID-19. At the 4D theater, you can watch 15-minute video with your chair moving according to its content, which makes its appreciation even more interesting. The diorama at Jangsaengpo Hall will let you get a vivid glimpse of life in Jangsaengpo during the days when whaling peaked in the 1970s-80s.

Daewangam Park with bizarre rocks surrounded by legend of the queen of King Munmu the Great

There is a legend about Daewangam Park: it goes that the queen of King Munmu the Great of Silla died and went underneath the rocky island after she became a dragon to protect the country. The eye-catcher at the entrance of the park is the forest of over 15,000 tall pines. Thanks to the shade that is made under the pine forest, the 600-meter-long walk to Daewangam Rock would feel fresh even in the hot season.

The walking train comprises four sections: the Legendary Rock Trail that runs along the northern shore of the park, the Pine Forest Trail that goes through the forest, the Four Seasons Trail, and the Seaside Trail that runs along the southern Gwagaean (or Neobeungae) Coast carpeted with pebbles. At the end of the Four Seasons Trail, there is white Ulgi Lighthouse giving an exotic landscape. Ulgi Lighthouse was first built in 1906 and lit up for more than 80 years until 1987.

Daewangam Rock that is risen in the transparent sea of which you can vividly see the bottom has a bizarre form. Daewanggyo Bridge that goes over the sea to connect the rocks also look extraordinary. When you stand on Daewangam Rock, you will see a wide view of the blue sea in front of you. Underneath Daewangam Rock, there is the seaside Haenyeo Village where you can taste fresh seafood caught by haenyeo (women divers).

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