Seoul Day Trip

 We arrived in Incheon early in the morning on turnaround day. and almost everyone who was staying on the ship took one of the excursions into Seoul.

We chose the one called 'The Best of Seoul'. Of course, I had booked these so far in advance that I'd forgotten exactly where they were going and what we should expect to see, so it was always a bit of an adventure to find out from the tour guide what the day's itinerary would be.

Even before we left for the tour, we noticed these huge banks of apartment towers. This photo doesn't do them justice at all. Each complex had a name with signage at the top of each tower, multiple buildings of at least 30 floors, and the building number written huge on the side. There must have been a half a million units in view just near the port at Incheon.

Our first stop was Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was established in 1395 as the first royal palace of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. It was huge, with more than 500 buildings within its walls, and was burned down during a war in 1592. Initially because there was no money to rebuild under the poor farming economy, and later, after Japan colonized Korea in the early 1900s when it was a symbol of the Korean monarch's authority, it was never rebuilt. In fact under Japanese rule, almost all of the buildings that were left were sold off and moved elsewhere.

It wasn't until after the liberation of Korea in 1945 that discussions began to restore the palace. So far, one period of restoration has taken place between 1990 and 2010, bringing back the buildings we see today. Another phase of restoration began in 2008 and will last until 2045(!) to add more. It certainly is an ambitious plan, but judging by the number of local people who were visiting along with us, it is an important cultural treasure and the work, however long it takes, will be supported by the population.

We were wondering why so many people were wearing
traditional dress here. It turns out that you can rent the dresses
and tunics to wear over your clothes. If you are dressed
this way, you get free admission to the palace grounds.

A lovely artificial pond with a banquet building
and small temple

The restored buildings here are all beautifully painted, and most of them have these figures on the corners. They are called 'Japsang', and are supposed to protect the king and the structures from evil spirits, fire and misfortune. Dragons represent courage, royal authority and power, and the monkeys are the sacred guardians bringing prosperity.

This is the Queen's Garden located behind her residence. It is quite lovely with the azaleas still in full bloom.

And another of the buildings here is the king's 'office', where he met with his court during winter and spring. Why then? Because the stone floors were heated from below and with the doors closed it was a comfortable space. It gets quite warm and humid in Korea in summer, and the doors of all the buildings are opened and stored above the opening for maximum air flow.

Twice per day there is a changing of the guard ceremony at the Grand Residence. We didn't catch the whole thing, but we arrived there to see some of it on our way out. The ceremony is done by over 100 participants and re-enacts the Joseon-era event. It is very impressive!

Our next stop was at a restaurant for a traditional Korean lunch consisting of a selection of salads, kimchi and beef Bulgogi Jeongol. This is different from the grilled version in that it is served in an earthenware pot with vegetables, broth and glass noodles. No matter what, it was delicious!

Our restaurant was in a part of town that traditionally was required to only have signs in Korean and not English. Even Starbucks had to comply with this requirement; and here's what the sign looks like on the first location they opened here. Since the mid-2010s this restriction has been lifted, but older stores and restaurants haven't made any changes.

We had a little free time after lunch but not being shoppers we checked out a park across the street. It also had a small shrine, and in the big glass case, a 10-tier pagoda that was built in 1467 by King Sejo. The pagoda is said to have enshrined 'sarira' or sacred remains of Buddha. The designs on the pagoda are meant to represent the manifestation of Buddha's body and teachings. It was actually made from marble and not granite. We had no idea we'd stumbled upon such a historic monument.

I've had to adjust to take away some of the glare,
but you can still see some of the white marble

Our final stop after this was at the Bukchon Hanok Village. This is an area of old houses in the city which is still inhabited today. And because it is high season for Koreans to be vacationing, just like it is in Japan, it was quite busy. As a result, it was difficult to get good photos, so there weren't many from this stop.

It's pretty bad when someone has
to hold a sign to tell you to respect
the people who live here

One of the houses

See how busy it was? 

As we left the village and were walking back to the bus, we passed this little flower shop. I did a double-take as something looked a little odd....It was - ALL of the flowers and petals are crocheted! You can see in the back that even some of the pots are crochet.

This is a close-up

The display at the window

After that we headed back to Incheon and the ship. It certainly was a busy day, and it was quite interesting. Our first day of the segment was also a sea day, we hoped to be able to catch up on some much-needed rest!

The Korean Tea Experience

 Today's first tour in Korea took us to a tea plantation in Boseong called Daehan Dawon. It is the most historic and the oldest tea plantation in Korea, established in 1939. It produces almost one-third of all the green tea sold in South Korea, and was opened to the public as a park in 1957, after the Korean War.

The bus ride was a long one, over an hour, but it was both scenic and an opportunity to take a nap, whichever was more to everyone's liking - except, of course, that the tour guide had to be giving us information about Korea almost the whole way.

Our first stop was for the tea tasting at the Tea Museum, Tea House and Shop called Botjae not far from the plantation. Our guide rightfully suggested we do this first as it would get busier through the day and some teas might also sell out at the shop. She explained that there are three types of green tea, the quality dependent on how large the leaves are when they are harvested. The tiniest leaves make the tea called 'Ujeon' or 'pre-rain tender buds'. This is the highest quality and is only picked before mid-April. The next type is 'Sejak' or 'early spring sparrow-beak leaves', picked late April to early May. After this come the 'regular' green teas.

We had pre-ordered a tea set on the bus and once we arrived our orders were placed and we picked up our trays. Our tray for two included the pot for brewing, extra hot water, two small cups and some Korean confections to have with it. At first we couldn't figure out what the second cup in the middle was. The instructions for preparing and drinking were a little confusing, but we finally understood that the tea should only steep for 2 minutes and then be poured into the large cup. Then more water went over the tea leaves while we drank the first pour into our small cups. It was quite interesting and delicious.

Our Ujeon tea steeping

After our tea we went into the shop and discovered that there are more uses for green tea than we had ever imagined, everything from hand cream to shampoo. And our guide suggested that we could use steeped tea leaves chopped up in pancakes or even as a facial pack. We did buy some Ujeon and Sejak loose teas to drink at home. After this interlude, we headed back to the bus and across the street to the tea plantation, Daehan Dawon.

The view of the plantation from Botjae

Once we arrived at Daehan Dawon, there was a bit of confusion about bus parking, and our driver wouldn't admit that he didn't know where he was supposed to be. Too bad that some of our other guests saw that he was using a navigation app all the way from the port. Our guide got some spotty information and it was a few more minutes, and a disembarkation and re-embarkation of the bus, to finally get us to the right place to enter the plantation for our walk.

We certainly weren't prepared for the hills at the plantation. Our guide had been instructed to take those who wanted to go to the highest point. We got most of the way up, but when the path and stairs got so steep that we wondered how we would get back down, we gave up and did our own walk along the pathways.

Small leaves on the tea plants. We were just at the end
of the Ujeon season; they were probably picking the
Sejak tea leaves by this time.

Larry making his way down the hill from a higher
path. It is quite steep everywhere!

The tea leaves are picked early in the morning, before the dew has a chance to evaporate. Huge numbers of workers come into the plantation and pick for a couple of hours every day.

It was a very interesting tour, although we had thought we'd see how the tea leaves were processed after picking, so that was a bit of a disappointment. On the way back to the bus, however, we stopped at one of the shops and bought some famous green tea ice cream and ate it as we walked.

You all know we don't like to take selfies -
except in certain circumstances!

Once we got back to the bus we had another hour and a bit to get back to the port. Time to rest our legs and try to nap a little.

Our next stop was Jeju Island. Unfortunately on the drive back from the plantation I developed a dry throat, and by the next morning it had turned into a head cold, probably related to the rainy weather in Hiroshima. We didn't really want to start giving a cold to anyone so we stayed on board, missing the Tae-kwon-do exhibition, which, according to reports was very good. Oh, well. We hoped we would both be good for the all-day tour to Seoul from Incheon.

Shimonoseki Samurai Heritage

 We were hoping to have left the rain behind by the time we reached Shimonoseki; it turned out to be a perfect day. The captain had announced before we left Hiroshima that instead of docking at Moji as originally planned, we would be on the other side of the Kanmon Strait that separates Japan's largest island of Honshu from Kyushu.

Our excursion was the Shimonoseki Heritage Tour. We lucked out with our guide - she was married to an American who taught English at a school where they preferred that he didn't know Japanese so he wouldn't be tempted to talk to the students in their native language. Her English was great, and she had some amusing stories to tell.

Shimonoseki is the hub of Samurai heritage in Japan, where the Samurai rule was established, and where it ended. We visited two temples, one with significance to the beginning and one to the end.

Our first stop was at Kozan-ji temple, founded in 1327, and it is the oldest example of the Zen Buddhist architecture style in Japan. Its main temple or Butsuden, is the oldest building of this design in Japan.

Main Gate to the Temple

The temple's claim to fame is that Samurai Takasugi Shinsaku used it as a base to collect and train a rebel army to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate. Recall from earlier posts that this was the family that ruled Japan for over 200 years and kept it in isolation from the rest of the world.

The temple bell and the statue.

A statue of Takasugi on horseback to 
commemorate his work for Japan's
freedom from the Shogunate

A side temple on the site along
with some lovely blooming wisteria.

Takasugi was the first to create an auxiliary militia, allowing everyday Japanese men of all classes to own weapons. Only samurai who would have to be loyal to the shogunate were allowed to do so under the feudal system. He saw the advantages to using the financial wealth of merchants and farmers to support improving military strength without depleting the domain's finances to do so. After Japan was invaded by an international fleet of warships in 1864, the leaders of the shogunate realized that their military was woefully inferior and called on Takasugi to lead its reform, and also to negotiate peace with the British, American, French and Dutch who had invaded. Ultimately after much fighting between the conservative factions and the modernized military led by Takasugi, a civil war broke out between two of the domains or provinces in the shogunate in 1865 and led finally to victory over the shogunate's forces. Their discredit was strong enough for other domains to adopt Takasugi's military framework and the Tokugawa dynasty was overthrown. After this Emperor Meiji took the throne and the Meiji Restoration began in 1868.

Takasugi died at age 27 in 1867, so he never saw his dream of defeating the shogunate come true. He certainly achieved a lot in such a short life, and should possibly be more celebrated than he is.

So this visit defined the end of the shogun rule for us. Our walk back to the bus took us through a residential district that had been occupied by samurai warriors in the 1800s. It is a very interesting neighbourhood with some of the houses dating back from that time.

Everyone associates Japanese gardens with the colourful koi fish. They are actually a species of carp and are bred to have different colorations. They are considered sacred in Japanese culture, so they are always found in the ponds near temples and shrines. In this case they were also in a stream that runs alongside the road in this samurai neighbourhood. Koi fish are known as 'living jewels', and some of them can have the price of a substantial sized diamond. If you manage to raise a large multi-coloured koi you might sell it for up to one million dollars!

We found a couple of other interesting things in the neighbourhood as well. When we left the temple we found a vending machine outside a nearby building, decorated on the side with a samurai warrior.

Japan is known for vending machines selling everything from drinks to ready-to-eat noodle bowls. Quite often you'll see banks of 4 or 5 machines together on a street corner, and many convenience stores are famous for having aisles full of them. One of our tour guides mentioned that there is approximately 1 vending machine per 23 Japanese people. Considering there are 122 million people in Japan, that's 5.3 million machines!

The other thing we discovered was that Shimonoseki is the pufferfish capital of Japan. Our guide told us that it takes quite a total of 7 years for someone to become licensed to prepare it, known as fugu fish for those who consume it as sashimi. There are major exams to be taken and at least 3 years of on-the-job-training under a licensed chef before you can be trusted to remove the poisonous parts of the fish and serve it. Apparently about 5 tons of pufferfish is brought in every day to support the demand in Japan. We found all sorts of puffer-related things in the area:

A Japan Post mailbox in the samurai area
with a pufferfish on top

The manhole covers in the area with
pufferfish on them

And even the upholstery on our bus
seats had pufferfish on it

and ultimately, a lovely pufferfish platter
at the local fish market. The price converts
to about $108 CDN.

Our next stop was at the Chofuteien. This garden once belonged to one of the vice-leaders of the Chofu clan, the conservative shogunate leaders that Takasugi fought against. The gardens were only opened in 1993, but some of the buildings date back to the 1600-1800s.

The Shōin, or old residence

The whole garden is quite beautiful, especially
in the sunshine!

Stonework depicting all sorts of 
Japanese motifs like dragons and lanterns

More views around the pond

These storehouses date back over
200 years

Yes, we were here!

It was a lovely interlude, especially after the rain we had at the garden in Hiroshima. After our half an hour here we headed for the bus again and our final stop at an important shrine by the strait.

As we sailed in to the port, I noticed
a bright red temple and took some
video and photos...

...and then I discovered that it was one of the places we would be visiting on our tour! But first, our guide gave us some interesting information about the Kanmon Strait. Not only is it very narrow, but when the tides go in and out every 6 hours, the direction of flow of the water changes from eastbound to westbound and back again. And the current can be quite strong. Along with the standard navigation aids there are signs indicating which direction the water is flowing and the strength of the current on a scale from 1 to 10. Anything above 8 and no ships are allowed into the strait as it is dangerous for navigation. We've never seen this anywhere else.

Our final visit here was the Akama-jingu Shrine. The significance of this place has to do with the beginning of the samurai period in Japan. According to our guide, the legend is that in the late 1100s there were two warring clans in the Imperial House of Japan. The problem for 8-year old Emperor Antoku and his regents was the the clan of his cousin, who was only 2 years old himself, and excluded from the line of succession, wanted to fight for his right to rule. After a number of skirmishes, the cousin's side began to gain strength and, rather than have her grandson be taken by the enemy and killed mercilessly, Antoku's grandmother took him into the Kanmon Strait and drowned them both. A fisherman caught the small emperor's body in his net not long afterward, and the shrine was erected to him at that spot. The cousin's clan was the first to establish a shogunate in Japan not long after Antoku's death. The Shogun were the military rulers of Japan and the samurai were their retainers, maintaining control over the country.

This fresco on the shrine gate is of Antoku on horseback

Antoku's grave is behind these doors. The chrysanthemum motif
on the doors is reserved only for the emperor as we've seen
in other places. The ONLY person ever allowed beyond
these doors is the current Emperor of Japan.

Before we left the pier, we were treated to some local music and dance. It was interesting to watch the drummers take turns about every five minutes beating out the rhythm; it must be quite a strenuous job!

Another very interesting port! Next up was Yeosu, South Korea, our first stop of four in that country.