Day 54 – 3/9 – Seoul, South Korea

We did a private tour today. A shipmate set it up for 12 people. He shared our itinerary with the guest lecturer, and she said it was a good plan.

We took a full-sized bus to Seoul. This is 30 miles, but 60 minutes (due to traffic and in-town portions of the drive). It was nice to have the vehicle oversized for our group.

Seoul has a population of 12 million people. I think that is bigger than New York. Regardless, Inchon (and perhaps other cities) mesh with the edges of Seoul, so in that sense it is certainly more people in an extended area than anything in the US.

Our first stop was the Imperial Palace. (Photos and text below.)

We then drove past the “blue house.” This is Korea’s version of our White House. No photos of this because it is not permitted. Authorities would board the bus and erase all of our camera memory sticks if they say someone taking a photo.

We had an authentic Korean lunch. I’m sure the ship’s tour did not do this! It was very interesting. Lots of food, and lots of variety.

After lunch we had time in a local shopping area. Kathleen and I were approached by a man who claimed to be producing a show for Korean TV. He wanted us to sample some food and comment. This was a unique and unexpected experience. [Photos and text below.]

We next went to an area that had examples of historic Korean village. [Photos and text below.]

Finally another shopping area where Kathleen bought some fresh flowers. [Photos and text below.]

This was a very interesting day with lots of different and some unexpected events.

Because our cabin has a special view of the front of the ship, we invited our tour mates back to our cabin to watch the ship maneuver back out of the locks. We had dinner at the casual dinner area and saw some friends that we had done the initial portion of the Kyoto trip with, so invited them to join us. This is an aspect of the long cruises: you meet lots of people and interact on short notice whenever it works out. In all this was a nice day and we are a bit tired from 3 active days on shore out of the last 4 days.