Taehwa River Whale and Dragon Boat Festival

They are among the largest animals on the planet. They are the largest animals of the watery realms. The blue is the largest. They were made famous by Herman Melville's novel, Moby Dick. And so on.

When I first got here, there were two things drilled into my brain:

Ulsan is the home of the Hyundai. The Hyundai empire was built on an insanely wild dream after the Korean War. A one-won bill was famously involved.
Ulsan had a long, long history of whaling before Hyundai came along. We are made to remember this every time we take the bus, as the shelters have a blue strip in the middle of the glass panes with little whales lined up one after the other.

So yes. People don't really need to remember that Ulsan is the home of the Hyundai because they are ubiquitous here. Everywhere you look is Hyundai this, Hyundai that: Hyundai Department Store, Hyundai Apartments, Hyundai Insurance, Hyundai... Hyundai... Hyund... well, you know.

So, like I was saying, people don't really need reminding that Ulsan is the home of the Hyundai. But seeing as whaling is a dying industry (you can still eat whale meat in some places so I'm guessing it's not illegal, but there is probably a moratorium on whale hunting and the meat is possibly pretty expensive as a result... I don't know, as I haven't eaten any... yet) and that Koreans love to throw parties to show who's cool, well, there you have it: a whale festival. Woohoo! Bring on the beer.

I woke up around 7am to be there at 9, which was when the dragon boat races were supposed to start. Unfortunately when I got there the races had been slightly delayed so I ended up nearly falling asleep a couple of times before the real deal finally began. A few friends of mine were in the races so it was nice seeing them get their sportin' on.

Afterwards we walked over to a huge food tent for a spot of lunch, and then we ended up walking around. Picture time!