When you get on a ship you often have to surrender your passport. This is good as it speeds up the immigration process as the officers come on board and they can mass stamp the passports. In Japan we were given a photocopy of our passport as well as a visitors visa that we had to carry with us while we were at shore, at the end of the day it was mandatory that we returned the visa papers. When we were ready to set sail, they announced that about 8 people had not returned their paperwork. This means the ship cannot be cleared until all the papers are returned. It is actually embarrassing as they announce not only your name but your cabin number o ver the loud speaker. When we arrived in Russia it was mandatory to carry our passports and then we had to surrender them when we came on board....well, we were over an hour late in departing because about 25 people had to be paged to return them to the front demo. One lady was paged 3 times before she finally clued in. It was magical as we set sail from Russia, there must have been about 1000 Russians standing t the pier to wave us off. There are not many cruise ships that go to that port so it is quite exciting for them.
Wednesday was a sea day and it was gorgeous outside. We sat on the deck and read, played sudoku and slept, ok, I slept....this traveling is hard on a old girl. Kevin signed us up for a wine tasting seminar in the afternoon. It was very fancy with little canapés and a plate of tomatoes, salt and lime. It was very interesting to taste a wine and then have some salt, or tomatoes and see how the taste of the wine changed. Kevin learned quickly that he could not gulp the wine as they only gave you a little taste, I had to share my Champagne with him so that he could taste the difference after eating a tomatoe.....we had most of our canapé eaten before the rest of the table so they had not give us more......it is really hard to find food on the ship so you have to take advantage when you can......kidding, there is food everywhere all the time. A funny thing we heard at the wine tasting was "what do you call a meal without wine (or beer)......breakfast:)
I no longer a fan of craps....I will leave it to you to figure out why.
We found out that the average age on the ship is only 68.5, a lot less than we thought. It is nice to be well below average.
We docked in Busan, South Korea this morning. A very beautiful port. The best part is the free shuttles that the tourist bureau has provided us in both Japan and South Korea. There are a number of stop and go buses and it is free so no need to take the over priced excursions that the ship offers. We are able to get free Wi Fi almost every where we go so that is much better than the unreliable Internet on the ship.
We love our IPad, we were able to talk to Chad when we were in Russia and he showed us a panorama of the kitchen....it was super clean. Today we face timed with Rick, Sidney, Mitch and Heather.....what a cool option on the iPad. Hopefully we can face time with more people as we travel.
Kevin has decided that perhaps I need to start wearing a helmut. When we were talking to Chad I wanted to show him the ship, I lost my footing and feel into a wall giving me a very nice bruise on my arm. Then yesterday during trivia I walked into a pole adding yet another bruise on the same arm, then walking the stairs to our room, I fell up the stairs. He keeps reminding me that I am getting old but I am sure some of the passengers figure I am a battered wife.
The temples in Busan are amazing. We went to a temple where they were worshipping and it was cool. You must take you shoes off and get a pad to sit on and then listen to the words of the man at the front. He does a lot of banging on the drums. The Busan tower is also very interesting. There is a observatory where you can see the entire city. It is in 2 distinctive parts, one very old and one very modern.
The port in Busan is the 5th largest container port in the world. There are beautiful beaches here and more than 8 million people visit the area every year. There is also a monument that we saw from the top of the observatory that is a U.N. cemetery, the only one of it kind in the world where the dead of 16 Korean War allies rest in honored peace.
We went to the fish market, which opens at 6 am and fresh fish and other funny looking items are kept. It covers many blocks and doesn't smell too swell. Some of the fish are alive and flopping around in the water bins that they are kept in. The woman that sit at these stalls throw water on the fish to keep them alive. There is also a huge area where they dry the fish....this is a delicacy here. You walk around and hanging from strings, much like laundry lines are fish that have been gutted and spread out. We saw a lot of octopus and crabs in the fish tanks. It was quite an amazing scene. The locals come here and haggle over the price. All the stalls look the same so I guess some fishermen are better than others?
There is also an open air market that spans for blocks where you can buy leather goods, ginseng, crafts and lots of knock offs. You can get a brand name purses and wallet for under 10 bucks. I am sure we will see a lot more of this when we get to China. One of the staff on the ship told us we can buy an Ipad 2 for 200 bucks. That is a lot cheaper than at home, but I am not certain that they are actually Apple products.
We went for lunch at a restaurant that had 4 items on the menu. There were only 2 other white people in the place. The way they described the meals was quite unappealing "cow meat off the bone in noodles and rice" They also give you some bok choy to put in it and a mysterious veggie. You can add salt and hot sauce to it. Kevin put 3 scoops of hot sauce and the older man that was helping us was laughing......I don't think he has seen someone put that much in their bowl. We shall see if the effects of this sauce effect Kevin:) Who needs prunes....
I forgot to mention the words of wisdom that we were given by our guide in Japan "may you have a very long life until you die" Very profound.
Another sea day tomorrow, but Kevin and I are doing the 5km Run for the Cure on the ship. We have to walk around the ship deck 8 times to do the 5km. Should be a breeze compared to all the other walking we have done.....and did I mention all the stairs as well.......ugh.
Our adventure has been fantastic so far and I am certain that it will continue that way.
Annyung haseyo from Busan South Korea.......next stop China
Until then...........
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