Busan, Korea Rep.

I’m writing this from the balcony of our cabin…looking out at the Sea of Japan. Not bad at all!

Today we made it to Busan, South Korea. This is the second largest city in South Korea and a major port. Our tour guide explained that until the 1990s, South Korea was very poor. They apparently went through some very strict austerity measures (including families selling (at low prices) their jewelry to the government to help the government pay off its debt.) Now they appear to be bustling with lots of new buildings and roads. They are in the process of moving the port to a suburb area so that they can develop the now prime real estate along the water along downtown Busan.

We only had a partial day in South Korea, so we were limited in what we could get to. We started off at the Haedong Yonggungsa Temple. This is a Buddhist temple that is along the ocean, while the majority of the temples in South Korea are in the mountains. It is a very pretty setting (although today it was quite overcast). This temple is known for the 108 steps you have to go down to get to it (and go up to leave). They are stone staircases that are uneven and of varying heights…gotta watch your step, but it is definitely worth the walk. The temple is very colorful and has a number of statues of Buddha among other things. It was explained to us that in Korean Buddhism there can be any number of Buddhas representing different aspects of life. We saw, for example, Buddhas for academic success. In addition to Buddha, this temple also is for the sea goddess, Bodhisattva. She is supposed to be merciful and compassionate. This temple was originally built in 1376 but was burned by the Japanese in 1592 and was rebuilt in the 1930s.

From there we drove by the UN Memorial Cemetery, established in 1951 and containing the remains of many UN soldiers who died in the Korean War. We also went by one of Busan’s premier beaches, Haeundae Beach. Our guide said that much of the sand from the beach gets washed away and that they replenish it with sand from North Korea. Maybe laying on the beach counts as visiting North Korea, then.

We then went to a small wooded island (sorry, I can’t recall the name right now and have very limited internet). We walked the perimeter of the island, which looks very much like some of the California coastline. The island also contains the building that housed the 2005 APEC meeting with President Bush along with multiple other world leaders. We toured the building, which has a beautiful inlaid mother of pearl mosaic. From there we went to a shopping district. This was an interesting area because the main streets had formal stores but the side streets had small vendors with everything from tourist trinkets to kitchen supplies to light fixtures to yarn. Truly a mishmash. There also were some food vendors. Now, I’m not afraid to try new foods, but Korean foods seem to push my limits. There’s the pungent Kimchee (which our guide referred to as Korean pickles with garlic) but the Korean foods appear to get much more odd from there. There were flattened dried squid, dried seaweed, tiny snails that you have to dig out with toothpicks, and boiled silkworms. I truly couldn’t recognize any of the meats being prepared.

Our guide explained that Korea has gone through huge cultural changes in the last 100 or so years, making it difficult for different generations to really understand each other. Her grandmother grew up under traditional Korean culture, but her mother grew up when Korea was under Japanese rule. She wasn’t even allowed to speak Korean. Our guide grew up well after the Korean War, but during some of the continued poverty and the economic recovery. She says that her kids are very westernized and not very interested in Korea’s past. She is very hopeful that the 2 Koreas could be united some day and said that some South Koreans think it could be possible in the next 5-10 years. She has family that is stuck in North Korea, but she does not actually know them as they are not allowed to even write letters. It was very interesting to hear her perspective.

By the way: we also learned some very important random trivia. Gangnam is a very wealthy area near Seoul, hence the obnoxious song Gangnam Style is about copying the style of that area to appear wealthy.

The rest of our day was at sea an uneventful. Tomorrow is a long day going in to Kyoto (about 90 minutes inland from our port).