Full Day Tour of Seoul

We haven't done a lot in the last 2 days because of the heat and Becky being under the weather.  But we made up for it today with a full day tour of the city where we saw so much.

We started with a trip to a Buddhist temple.  Very pretty, with lots of lanterns. You can actually stay overnight in this place and learn to meditate.  It was full of inflatable decorations, but instead of them being Halloween or Christmas themed, they were all Buddhas or elephants or lotus flowers.

Next we went to one of the 5 Royal palaces in Seoul and learned about Koreas history. The palace we visited was the largest palace and had a ceremony for the changing of the guard.  Two of the girls in our tour group hired Hanboks (traditional Korean dresses). If you're wearing a Hanbok then entry to the Royal palaces is free, so lots of people dress up.

Then we went to the N Korea Tower. The trip up the mountain to the tower is by cable car. Needless to say I don't have any photos of that as I kept my eyes closed the whole way.  The tower is 236 metres tall. Combined with the hill it sits on, you get a view 480 metres (1574ft) above sea level.

We were dropped off at a street food market for lunch, but with Becky still being careful about what she eats and me not being adventurous enough to try weird stuff like blood sausage or baby octopuses still wriggling on a stick, we ended up in a Starbucks having a cheese, ham and egg melt. Even that was a bit weird as the bread was very sweet. It felt like having a toastie made with 2 slices of madeira cake.

Then it was off to Insadong, one of the premier shopping districts of Seoul, where some of the group, including us, went to a teahouse and performed the tea ceremony.

Our final stop of the day was Buchon village, an area with old style housing, before everyone started living in condos.

By the time we were dropped back at our hotel we were knackered,  but nobody could say we hadn't seen a lot of Seoul.

The COEX Mall and the Starfield Library

Today we took an Uber over to the Gangnam district to visit the COEX Mall. This place was HUGE!  It must rival West Edmonton Mall in size.  As well as the mall, there was an exhibition centre where there was a show of K Cosmetics going on, cinemas and even an aquarium.  At the centre of the mall is the Starfield Library.  The shelves are several storeys high - I have no idea how they get the books down off them.

Becky is still a bit under the weather, so after walking around the mall for a few hours we took a taxi back to the hotel and ate an early dinner before having another early night.  

There are so many huge screens on all the buildings here that I have to shut the curtains really tight because there's so much light coming in, even in the middle of the night.  The view from our hotel room reminds me of that scene from Blade Runner with all the buildings with screens on them.

Arriving in Seoul

Yesterday was a sea day, which gave Becky and me time to do our packing, wash our hair and have a nice 3 course meal at the fancy restaurant.

We hugged goodbye with the 2 couples we've been doing the trivia with and had an early night.

We took the walk off the ship option the following morning and used a private car service to transfer from the cruise port terminal at Incheon to our hotel in downtown Seoul. The traffic in Seoul is crazy and the journey took 2 hours.  We were still too early to check in, so we left our luggage at reception and decided to walk to a palace just down the street.

Unfortunately,  there was a note on the gates saying this palace is closed until 2nd June. so we walked on to a shopping area where there was a Lottemart hypermarket. 

The place was huge and it took us ages to walk around. At this point Becky's illness caught up with her again and it took us a while to get back to the hotel as we kept having to stop at coffee shops to rest.  

On the subject of coffee shops I've seen 3 Tim Hortons here so far!

Once we made it back to the hotel and checked in, Becky went to bed for the rest of the day.

Yesterday was our last day in Japan. We have 2 stops in Korea before the end of the cruise. Today we are docked in Busan, Korea's 2nd largest city at 3.2 million people and also the 6th largest port in the world.

Our tour took us to Gamcheong Culture village.  Our guide said we'd see how people in Busan used to live and I thought we'd see old buildings and people making rice flour by hand along the lines of St Fagans or Upper Canada Village.  However, the place we went looked perfectly modern and all the guide really meant was that the people here didn't live in the high rise condos that dominate the skyline.

About 60 to 70 percent of Korea is mountains, so with little space to build almost all the buildings are high rise condos. As you can see from the views.  

Back onboard, Becky and I were invited to a Sail Away party on the Helipad.

Fukuoka

Today we are docked at Fukuoka. Try saying that 3 times fast.  The tour today was to the nearby Kokura castle and gardens.  Becky was not feeling well, so I went on the tour alone.

The castle has really put everything into the tourist angle and they have guys dressed as Samurai warriors directing the buses in the parking lot.

The castle has no moat, but is surrounded by a japanese garden. 

Inside, it's a museum, with lots of neat touristy things, there was a mirror/screen thing which superimposed a geisha outfit onto you if you stood in front of it.  

After the castle we went to the local market, but I did most of my shopping in the castle gift shop.

Back onboard, I joined my team for afternoon trivia, but without Becky we didn't win.  Fukuoka is our last stop in Japan, so everyone, including Becky,  had to get off the ship to go through departure immigration.  After that, Becky went back to bed and I had a qick snack at the buffet on my own.

Nagasaki

Today's excursion was to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and Peace Park. It's obviously a common destination for school trips.

The visiting students donate origami cranes the have made in memory of the dead.

Outside, in the Peace Park, the cranes are hung up in shrines.

There didn't seem to be a lot else to see in Nagaski, so after another ice-cream (this one specially shaped to look like a rose), it was back to the ship in time for trivia. We won both quizzes this afternoon.

Kagoshima

There wasn't anything really interesting to see in Kagoshima itself (more shrines and castles maybe), so Becky and I were booked on a brewery tour instead.

We had a very interesting ride on a small bus up into the mountains to the Hioki brewery, where we sampled the local spirit called shochu.  Shochu is like sake in that it starts off with fermented rice, but after the first fermentation they add sweet potatoes to the mash to add flavour during the 2nd fermentation. 

First we donned our special hairnets and footwear to walk around the brewing area. Then we returned to the tasting room to sample 3 of their products. Some of  these spirits were 41%, so I was pretty squiffy afterwards.  

Back on the bus the guide tried to sober us up by plying us with rice cakes and crackers, cookies, caramel corn, etc.  Our next destination was a pottery making Satsuma wear, so I  guess she didn't want us stumbling around and breaking stuff.  We watched people making the pottery and visited the kiln and a pottery museum before exiting via the shop, where I got Becky a birthday present.  

We did the quizzes back on board in the afternoon. The weather wasn't great as we left port, but that didn't stop the locals from seeing us off with a school  marching band, a very bad singer and a woman with balloon animals blowing bubbles. It's the thought that counts.