9th July

Incheon South Korea Sunny Skies forecast 20c.

From the Navigator.

At approximately 04.15 Sun Princess will board the local pilot and proceed through the buoyed channel towards Incheon. As we approach the berth, we will swing the bow to port on arrival and berth starboard side to the quay. On departure from Incheon, once we have all passengers and crew back on board and with all our pre-departure checks completed, we will retrace our track through the buoyed channel to disembark the local pilot. We will then set a north-westerly heading towards our next port of call Tianjin, your gateway to Beijing.

We fixed a wake-up call for today at 6am and breakfast to arrive at the same time as we were having it in our cabin today. We were actually awake at 5.30am and I have showered by the time breakfast arrived a little after 6am. As mentioned yesterday we had to have a face to face immigration inspection this morning and our scheduled time was 7.35am but knowing what usually happens people start lining up well before that so we went down at 7am and the queue was already half the length of the ship. However, they were very quick and we had our inspection not much after 7.35am. We then had to wait in the Wheelhouse Bar for our tour to leave and there were at least 15 buses for our tour alone. We have heard that 800 people are going to the Great Wall from Beijing in a couple of days, we are glad we are not. Once on the bus it took about one and a half hours drive to Seoul with the first stop at the National Folk Museum. At the Museum you can browse the three exhibition halls which give a broad perspective of the traditional Korean lifestyle with an emphasis on the nation’s cuisine, crafts and architecture. As it was Saturday the place was very busy. Next we visited the “Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven” which once housed the Imperial Family creating the “Crown Jewel of Old Korea” There are numerous Pavilions all with wing-roofs intricately decorated with vibrant hand painted designs. All very photogenic.  Finally, we visited the Hanok Village which is five restored houses, they have been moved from their original location, giving an example of how people of the Joseon Dynasty lived. It was then off to a restaurant to partake of a Korean Barbeque lunch. This was quite an experience, the meat is cooked in front of you on butane gas hotplates and there is an array of complimentary dishes such as noodles, rice, sea weed, tofu, and spicy sauces. You help yourself to whatever you fancy. It was all delicious. The temperature was forecast to be 20c but it turned out to be nearer 30c so it was a tried and hot group who arrived back at the ship after enjoying a good tour. We decided to go to the buffet tonight, get our food and take it back to the cabin to enjoy the sail-a-way on our balcony. Which proved to be a good decision. We gave the entertainment a miss tonight and spent the rest of the night in the cabin catching up on emails etc. as the Internet is back on and seems to be better.