Busan, South Korea

           On 3 Oct 2013, after again setting our clocks back one hour the previous night (Yeah!!!), we awoke to our alarm about 6:30 AM.  As we approached the harbor of Busan, the view of the city was beautiful; however, we were eating breakfast at the time and were unable to take any photos.  By the time we reached our cabin again, the sun was directly behind the best views, so the excellent photo opportunity was gone.  (It’s probably a little confusing to many of the passengers, but when Jesse was in Busan a few years ago, he found out that the spelling of the city seems to vary between “Busan” and “Pusan” for no apparent reason.  Even in the Princess announcements, both spellings are used.)

At 8:30 AM we proceeded to our excursion meeting point in the Wheelhouse Bar and soon disembarked the ship and boarded our tour bus.  As in Japan, we were told to “buckle up” due to their laws about safety belts.  (Not so in Russia.)  Our tour guide’s “Christian” name was Anna Li.  We were never able to understand her first name.  (In fact, she talked a lot during our excursion, but her accent was so heavy that we understood only fragments of what she said.)  She actually lives in Seoul, Korea, and rides the train three hours into Busan to guide tours, as do most of the tour guides.  As our bus took us to our destinations, Anna pointed out the major sites and described life in Korea and gave us a brief history of the country.  Eighty-five percent the population live in apartments, which they own.  Apartments are preferred due to their convenience and are much more expensive than single-family houses.  She said they have heat in the floor of their apartments; since they sleep on the floor, it is somewhat like a massage!   She also said South Korea is like an island; they can leave only by ship or plane because they can’t drive through North Korea.  Before 1990, they weren’t allowed to leave the country.  Anna seemed very hopeful of a unified Korea sometime in the future.

Tongdosa Temple

Our first stop was the Tongdosa Temple, which was a one-hour drive from the ship.  The word Tongdosa means “saving the world through mastering truth.”  The picturesque temple dates back to 646 A.D.  At least three Buddhist services were being conducted in different buildings on the temple grounds and we were quickly told by our guide and temple personnel that taking photos or video recordings of the services was strictly prohibited, although we observed a few visitors breaking the rules.   We were each given a bag for our shoes and had to take them off to enter one of the areas (even though it was outdoors), where we observed several people kneeling and chanting; we were not allowed to take photographs in that area.

United Nations Memorial Cemetery

Our next stop was the 35-acre United Nations Memorial Cemetery.  This is the final resting place for many of the soldiers and medical personnel who gave their lives during the Korean War, and a few, who had served during the war but died as late as 1974.  Although 36,492 of the 40, 896 UN troops listed on the Wall of Remembrance were from the U.S., only 36 are buried there, since we traditionally choose to bring the bodies of our fallen heroes back to U.S. soil.  About 2:00 we re-boarded the ship, stopped at the buffet for a quick lunch (which included brownies with hot fudge and vanilla ice cream), and returned to our cabin for an afternoon nap.  (Jesse doesn’t like to hear it, but when we get home, there will need to be some drastic changes to our diet!)

After our nap and then watching the sail-away from Busan, we went to dinner, where we stuffed ourselves again, and then to dance for a short time.