Pusan

P(B)usan, Korea



Ed got up in the night and the tapping was him trying to get Tums out of the bottle. The corned beef masquerading as brisket had really gotten to him. I couldn’t sleep after that and eventually the wake up call for 6 am rang. I got up and opened up the curtains to reveal a hint of dawn with a baby blue and pink sky. After I showered the sun looked like a big mostly orange ball just a little above the horizon. While I was dressing (one of the joys of sailing is leaving your windows entirely open while you do everything in the cabin) I saw a severely peaked small island in the near distance with a cute little lighthouse perched on the edge of the land. It seemed very quickly that high rises came into view and then we were at the pier by 6:45 and were in place by 7 am.
There is a Korea Coast Guard (in English) berthed next to us and Ed spotted a mobile ATM near the LED sign welcoming our ship. JJ stated on the morning show that the Korean immigration came onto the ship in Nagasaki and they have cleared our passports so that we don’t need to appear before immigration before going on our tours. We have been advised to carry a copy of our passports (which I brought with us).
Today’s tour
We quickly gathered and were on our way with “Park” (her surname) to the temple 45 minutes away. She spoke excellent English and told us a lot about the country along the way. The high rises here are imposing. The architecture here is relatively uninteresting and very functional. North Korea bombed them all the way down so there are almost no old buildings left; everything is new by comparison and very functional and almost institutional in feel. The population density is very high; 70% of Korea is mountainous and this means really high peaks all over and lots of tunnels to get from one place to another. We saw 9 ports along the way; I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many sea vessels of various kinds in my life. We even saw two boat building factories where you saw the various modules which would eventually be put together to form a new ship.
Beomeosa Temple
This trek was on a mountain which was very high up. We had to climb 250 steep stairs (you know how these 7th century steps can be) and then there were long walkways in between these stairs. And there were no hand rails. I had not taken my trekker sticks and this is a time where they would have been indicated. I’ve adopted the method of going down these steep stairs sideways and it seems to help. There were monks and people in prayer and they seemed not to even be aware that we were there. As we climbed the mountain, many of the folks were panting; they are probably the ones we see on the elevators. The monks wear gray here as it is the color of ashes and we saw several student monks. It was very cold up here and only one monk had his shaved head covered. As we came back to the bus, Ed was able to buy a Pepsi zero with American money. Prices here are not low as they definitely were not in Nagasaki.
We had another 45 minute ride after leaving the temple to go to Ja-Gal-Ch’l Fish Market. This is also called the “aunties market” is a great seafood emporium created during the Korean War. The bus let us out in front of a general store on a busy street. Some of these streets are 14 lanes wide! The subway outlet was right next to our drop off point too and so we had to be careful not to get separated. There were many independent stalls selling luscious looking fruits most of which are familiar to us. They have lots of oranges for sale.
We walked down some side streets where we saw many fish monger stalls including some ‘aunties” with a single tub or two with diverse kinds of fish they were selling. When we finally made it to the market, it was closed. The guide seemed momentarily flummoxed and then pointed us toward a street market of fishes. We saw fish we could never properly describe. Ray of various sizes were for sale along with some huge chunks of tuna. Some stalls featured dried fish and above the roofs you could see fish hanging on lines to dry. We had been told about the sea slugs and how ugly they were: no eyes. Just a mouth and a butt. While we were all gawking, the man picked up one and started squirting it in our direction. It was quite funny. His wife offered one to us to see if anyone wanted to try it themselves. Then she brought out a small octopus for us to take photos. There were others she brought out for us to enjoy. I thought this was very generous of her since we clearly weren’t going to buy.
We were all afraid we were going to get separated from the group as this was such a congested area with stalls, folks with push cars and scooters hollering at our guide to keep us out of the way, and shoppers. We made it safely back to the place where they dropped us off and back onto the bus. From here, back by all the ports and shipyards to the ship.
Lunch
We visited with a couple from Melbourne and a California couple; the wife of this latter couple simply cannot shut up and it is hard to turn the conversation around to the Aussie couple. Finally they left and we had a quick conversation with the Aussie couple.
TV
I wanted to turn something on that wouldn’t be the shouting heads of the talk shows (assuming we could get the satellite connection which we couldn’t for a while this morning). So I turned on a documentary about Mrs. Goldberg, a TV series in the 50s that could be very funny. As I expected, Ed became entranced with this and we are both enjoying it while I’m downloading photos and doing this blog.
I read for a while and Ed went to book some airline flights for us for June. Then I went to the RED HAT gathering. There were about 5 of us. This has become the realm (and I mean this in the royal sense) of one particular lady who freely admits that she doesn’t not pay dues to the RHS and does her own thing. She has cajoled the ship into giving us certificates recognizing our membership in the Pacific Princess chapter. There was much discussion, led by her stories, of folks who have purchased knock offs while on voyages and then had them confiscated by customs in the US. There was commentary about how silly this was and how unfair. I said nothing but I vehemently disagree. If this was a product they had developed and saw stolen after all their hard work, perhaps they’d be able to understand better. I left after 30 minutes.
Trivia
There were three of us who are the core and we were joined by a couple who sometimes sits with us. I’ve spoken of them before; the husband can be very annoying but the wife is a delight and a welcome addition to our group. The dynamics this afternoon were not very pleasant and I came close to leaving at one point. The issue of which is the correct answer gets tied up in the ego of many folks and it becomes a struggle that I simply sit out. We didn’t win, not surprisingly and I was relieved when it was over.
Dinner
I had a good conversation with Neville who worked training dental technicians in one area of Australia for 40 yrs. He’s a delightful man and we enjoyed a long sharing of commonalities and differences in how things go in health care in our various countries.
Entertainment: Ed went down and met me on the way and just shook his head “No.” And I’ll remind you, he’ll watch almost anything. So we came back to the room to wait for the Princess Patter and I did some photos work.
No more phone calls?
The Patter has a note stating that Access to applications like SKYPE, VOIP (this is what Ed uses to make phone calls), etc. is not available. So our only chance of making phone calls without paying an arm and a leg is to find free wi fi. I doubt Beijing will have this anywhere so probably our best chance will be Hong Kong at some place like Starbucks assuming they aren’t blocked there too.