Life Without Poutine: Sightseeing Tour During Orientation

During the Saturday of our orientation week, we were taken on a sightseeing trip to (finally) explore a little bit of Ulsan. Unfortunately, it was raining that day, so some things had to be cancelled, like a visit to Grand Park. So instead we got a tour of a historical museum, hours of meandering around the Hyundai Department Store (a large rectangular prism of a mall with more floors than I could count), a free lunch, and one hell of a memorable trip to a whale museum.

The historical museum was alright. I’ve learned after my summer of travelling this year that once you’ve seen one historical museum, you’ve seen them all. I just can’t get myself to care about things like the clothing worn during a particular time period. I look at some of those exhibits and don't feel a thing or give a damn. I’m more of an art museum kind of guy.

There was one pretty fun part to the museum, though: The children’s museum! There was a map of Ulsan on the floor with particular spots that lit up the walls when you stepped on them, there were fort-building blocks, a giant boat that you could pretend to steer, as well as a boat driving video game that gave you an interactive tour of a river! Sadly, we only got like 10 minutes in there before we had to go. We were holding up the group.

I had mixed feelings about the whale museum, mainly because some of the animals were confined to painfully small areas—particularly this one gorgeous sea turtle, who could only swim back and forth in his little tank, which was already filled with a ridiculous amount of animals, including a manta ray, mini-sharks, and an army of fish. The dolphins also must’ve been feeling some serious claustrophobia.

There was a dolphin show going on when we got there, but the place was already packed, so a few of us opted to go check out what was upstairs. We ended up getting a show of our own—we saw these huuuuuge turtles going at it!

At first we thought the turtles were trying to make a break for it and climb over the enclosed fence, because there was one turtle who was pushing the fence, actually moving it by walking into it, and the other turtle looked to be climbing on to its shell in order to walk over the top bar.

I suddenly got flashes of that Simpsons episode where they’re at the dog race and Santa’s Little Helper runs on to the track and pounces on one of the other dogs. Bart says, “It looks like he’s trying to jump over her, but he can’t quite make it. You can do it, Santa’s Little Helper! Jump! Jump!”

Except the only difference here was that I don’t think the female turtle WANTED to be jumped on, if you catch my drift. She kept making these noises that will forever haunt my dreams; noises that surely were screaming something along the lines of “Get him off of me, you sick humans! Don’t just stand there, you dirty bastards! This isn’t a show!” in turtle. But instead, I opted to take pictures. I’m going to hell.

Thankfully, the zookeeper stepped into action and helped the lady out. All he did, though, was just lift the turtle by the edge of his shell and pull him off of her. I wanted to turn to him and say, “Zookeeper, zookeeper! Those turtles are killing each other!” (Sorry, I’ll stop with the Simpsons references.) Unfortunately, this turtle turned out to be a persistent little bugger, and he just kept coming for her. At one point, he was thrusting at her from a perpendicular angle! It was some seriously kinky stuff!

After a while, the zookeeper finally pulled the male out of the fenced area to give the female a break. Mr. Turtle did not look pleased. And then, Mr. Genius Zookeeper brought the female out as well so visitors could see her from close up. That's when the roof turned into a game of cat and mouse. We yelled at the female to make a run for it, but I don’t know if she got away in time or not, because then we went into this room on the roof to look at a bunch of other animals, including rats, snakes, birds, and small turtles. When we got back, the chase was over.

Oh, there was also another fenced off area with a mishmash of chickens, rabbits, and gerbils.

And that, my friends, is what happens at a Korean museum.

That one's for you, Art.

Trapped Mr. Dolphin (sad face)

Dory!

Photobombing Shark

My new best friend :)

That poor turtle did nothing but swim from one end of the tank to the other. And look at the traffic in there!

Striking a pose.

At this point, we still thought they were just trying to make a break for it. Brilliant cooperative work. The turtle on the ground was sacrificing herself so buddy here could get out. Or so we thought.