Queen Elizabeth Voyage: March 16, 2017, Busan, South Korea

March 16, 2017, Thursday, Busan, South Korea

Today, we are in Buson, South Korea, the largest port in Korea and the second largest city in Korea. I was up when we entered Buson Harbor and watched as we came through the breakwater. It was about that time, I realized that I was looking at a United States Navy aircraft carrier with a full deck of aircraft. The carrier, the Carl Stennis, was in port. A few people were a little apprehensive, since a Chinese aircraft carrier was visiting North Korea at the same time. We passed the Stennis and end up docking at a container port a ways out of the main part of the city. A pier closer to the center of town was occupied by another cruise ship.

Sandra and I have another ship’s tour scheduled. The first part to a Buddhist temple up in the hill and the second part to a shopping district in the city. Our bus took us well out of town and up into the hills to the Beomeosa Temple. The temple is approached by crossing an arched stone bridge over a mountain stream. Beomeosa is renowned for its magnificent main hall, seven royal palace wings, three gates, and eleven heritages. One shrine is a large boulder with a message carved into the rock and a small pool at the base with water flowing out of the base of the rock. For me, the most interesting parts were the workmen replacing the roof on one of the buildings. The roof rafters were in place, and the men were adding a layer of bamboo on top. The final layer was to be ceramic tile held in place with mortar.

The second part of the tour was a stop at the Jagalchi Fish Market, Korea’s largest fish market. It has an amazing variety of fish, shellfish and exotic seaweed on sale. It was all very interesting, a lot of fish in water in small tubs, a lot of shellfish and any number of places to eat in the middle of all this fish. There was no dividing line between fish sales and fish eating. By the way, all the floors were wet and slick. After the tour of the fish market, it was off to the other side of the street to a more varied shopping mall. Sandra spent our half hour in this market looking for some new items of clothing. Our half hour was up with no luck in the quest. Our tour went back to the ship which was on the far side of the harbor.

In the middle of early dinner, the ship pulled away from the dock and we proceeded out of the harbor. Our destination was a two-day voyage to Hiroshima, Japan.