Tourist Attraction in Korea ⑥: Whale Museum

We both really like ocean views. For a nice trip, we often go to places with ocean views. We miss the ocean a lot more because we live in a dessert now in Utah. On our first wedding anniversary, we went to the Iron Springs Resort in Copalis Beach in Washington, USA. Last December we went on a trip to Sequim, a beautiful port town in Washington. Sequim is across the ocean from Victoria, Canada. In Sequim, wild deer were walking around neighborhood. We found a place in Ulsan that reminded us of Sequim. The area is called Jangsaengpo. It is a small port town. There are no deer but the area is famous for whales. We went there to see the Jangsaengpo Whale Museum because Ulsan is well known for its whale watching tours.

The museum itself looked like a whale. The admission fee is 2,000 won (about two US dollars) for adults. There were foreign language brochures in Chinese, Japanese and English. The first thing we saw was a replica of the Bangudae Petroglyph, which was carved in the prehistoric age. The Petroglyph includes many drawings of whales. It was designated as National Treasure no. 285 in 1995. The actual petroglyph remains in its original location, but it is under water for half of the year. There are also many other whale related exhibits, such as a whale skeleton and maps of migration routes.

The museum was small so it didn’t take us long to look around. Another interesting exhibit was the whaling boat located outside of the museum. We walked on the boat and looked inside through its windows.

Later on, we went to a whale meat restaurant near the museum. Most restaurants serve only whale meat and/or raw fish around this area. We have never had whale meat before so we tried it. Some parts tasted a bit like beef or bacon, but we didn’t really enjoy the whale meat. We went to a pizza restaurant afterwards because we were still hungry.

To watch live whales, you can take a whale watching cruise. Of course, there is no guarantee that you will see the whales. Whales swim around to seek their sources of food, rather than staying in certain locations.

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