What a fun day we had in Busan, Korea!
We arranged a private guide through Tours by Locals and were picked up right on time at our ship. I had a couple of agendas for the day, but first, we saw a bit of Busan. We were impressed with this modern city, surrounded by hills and soaring blocks of apartment buildings. Our guide, Frank said it was Korea’s answer to San Francisco and that description fit the hilly streets.
About 20 years ago, we spent a few overnight hours in the Busan airport and were super impressed with its high-tech, modern ambiance. The city, home to about 3.5 million residents, paid off that initial impression being both attractive and colorful.
We started the day off with a visit to the Gamcheon Culture Village, a formerly poverty-stricken area with no power that was transformed into a veritable canvas for local artists, creating a vibrant neighborhood filled with shops and food vendors as well as homes.
If you have ever run into Korean groups while traveling, you know they love to take posed pics and this area is an extremely popular photo-op destination. Some spots even had lines of people waiting their turn to strike a pose. We saw young women in local costumes, a mural tribute to the two local members of KPop Super Stars BTS, and our first cat sighting this trip (surprising for countries so in love with cats).
We also learned to pose the Korean way – making a sign for love (vs the overused sign for peace).
The Jagalchi Fish Market was another famous local site we took in. The first floor was loaded with every sort of live fish and shellfish you can imagine. Upstairs on the second floor, you could purchase processed fish, but more significantly, you could dine in one of the dozens of small restaurants cooking up the fresh catches of the day. It smelled sooooo delicious.
One of my goals was to try an authentic Korean BBQ meal and Frank took us to one of his favorite places, unique to Busan. I could never get anyone to tell me how to translate the name, but I did take a business card in Korean if anyone needs to know.
Needless to say, the meal was incredible! Frank did all the tableside cooking, explained the side dishes, and showed us how to eat. We had several types of meat and pork dishes. There was a soft tofu soup that was absolutely delicious and the Ssamjang red bean paste was wonderful. It was unlike any Korean food I have ever eaten. My biggest problems were trying to manage the large bites of food Frank kept urging me to take and manipulating the squared-off metal chopsticks that were very tricky to grip.
Then we headed out of town to the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival. I found out about this online and was happy the weather was nice and we could go. Good news – we did see cherry blossoms! Although not in full bloom, the festival was in full force and the trees were lovely. We started at Gyeonghwa Station. If you’ve ever seen a pic of a train riding through arches of cherry blossoms, this is the place. These trees still had a way to go, so we moved on to the Yeojwacheon Stream. The trees were lovely in this area and the streets were packed with young people (and lots more posing for pics – but now, we were too). There were all sorts of shops and every type of food available, although I didn’t find any Diet Coke. Frank brought us some fish-shaped pastries with cream and red bean paste, a very tasty treat. The festival also had information booths for a wide variety of causes such as Korean unification and pet adoption. Attractive portable toilet trailers had also been brought in and staged up and down the area, so there was never a line. Beautiful and impressive.
The festival was more than an hour outside Busan and we drove on some impressive super highways to get there. I’ve already mentioned in my last post that I don’t like bridges and since I did that post there has been the horrible bridge accident in Maryland. But now, here we were riding on a double-decker bridge and also on the craziest full-circle elevated bridge access road I’ve ever seen. Time for my yoga breathing.
I liked the port bridge much better about 10 PM, when viewed from our stateroom, under an almost full moon, with electric lights the colors of the rainbow running across and up and down the span.
When you post from long distances, sometimes things don’t go perfectly. While hanging out in LA with good WiFi (since our flight to Miami was canceled), I decided to review my site production pages. A few pics never uploaded and this post about Matsue Castle and the Horikawa River was missing altogether. Who knows what else I’ll find when I look at my large monitor. In any case, here’s a flashback:
I was happy to get to Matsue. We docked in Sakaiminato, about 45 minutes away, and enjoyed a scenic ride through some very agriculturally-oriented countryside. One fact, this is the ginseng capital of Japan.
It was a lot of laughs to take the boat ride around the 400-year-old canal/moat system that circles Matsue Castle. The Horikawa River Cruise was about 50 minutes and went under 16 bridges, 4 of which you had to basically get down as low as possible when the fabric roof over your head was lowered. This might not seem difficult, but we were sitting on the floor of the boat, shoeless, as usual. Each boat holds 12, but we had 10. There are very welcome heated blankets in the center.
A traditionally dressed boatman manages the craft and even sings a traditional folk song at one point. I read that information on the boats was only provided in Japanese, but we had a recording in English that helped us understand our surroundings. It was nice to see more Samurai homes along the shore, listen to birds singing, see waterfowl, and then, what was either an otter or a large rat . . .
Seeing 10 not-so-young passengers get in and settled on the floor, and then out at the end was truly comical.
The rest of our goal for today was to see Matsue Castle, one of 12 surviving original castle towers dating from 1611, considered a National Treasure. It has six levels reached by 87 steep, slippery (again socks only) wooden steps. It’s a well-defined museum with clear information, including some English, to explain the structure, building, and combat elements.
We enjoyed seeing the brackish Lake Shingi, and a treat for my husband was traveling on the Eshima Ohashi Bridge, often called one of the scariest bridges in the world. Look it up on social media pics, it appears to have a 45-degree incline – but not really. Distant shots with a telephoto lens enhance the angle. It is still a giant bridge at 144’ tall, and I do NOT. LIKE. BRIDGES.
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What an incredible city. Kanazawa is filled with the clean lines of modern new buildings, harmoniously blending with historic Japanese architecture – some dating from the 1600s.
We finally had warmer weather today – with temps reaching a perfect 60, no rain, and cloudy skies clearing to a bright sunny day. A great setting for exploring ancient parts of the city.
First up – the well-preserved Higashi Chaya Geisha District – now filled with tea rooms, lovely gift shops, and their famous gold-leafed ice cream. I thought seriously about it, but my better judgment overruled eating the gold-leaf-covered ice cream, but we saw plenty of it in the hands of young Japanese patrons (all snapping pics). This is the center of gold leaf and also the silk used in kimonos. I remain surprised by the number of young Japanese women walking around dressed in traditional kimonos. It is not an everyday occurrence for the girls, it’s something they do for special occasions or just for fun (and selfies).
Next stop, one of the top three gardens in Japan, the Kenrokuen Gardens. Adjacent to the Kanazawa Castle (reconstruction is ongoing), the gardens were beautiful and will be amazing when the cherry trees bloom.
Lovely plum trees were already in flower. The name of the garden reflects its six qualities: spaciousness, seclusion, an air of antiquity, ingenuity, flowing water, and views. It’s designated a National Site of Scenic Beauty as well as a National Site of Special Scenic Beauty. I wish we’d had more time here to just sit and contemplate our surroundings. There are many attributes to having a guide, but in this case, our comical leader kept herding us along like we were trying to be first to a finish line.
We topped off the day with a visit to the fascinating Nagamachi Samurai District and the Nomura Samurai House. This site had absolutely gorgeous gardens with flowing water, but walkways surrounding the home with no rails or barriers. Since you take off your shoes and walk in socks inside these Japanese houses, temples, etc., I have visions of misstepping and sliding right into ponds and plants, or down a flight of stairs (which I have been known to do, with shoes on, in the past). The entire district was split with a canal flowing through, originally designed for fire prevention. New homes are mixed in with the old, but the entire area was charming. One good thing about having even a flaky guide was finding out there were also two restored houses that had belonged to lower-class samurai, and we made sure to get in a quick peek.
Kanazawa will be at the top of my must-see list for those planning a visit to Japan.
Today we arranged an off-ship walking tour. Through Viator with a firm called Edge of Niigata, this was one of the few we scheduled that has worked out. Due to the current shortage of guides in Japan, we’ve had several canceled, making it much more of a sure thing to arrange through the ship. I know some people arrange things off the ship to save money, but my objectives are usually for a more personal, flexible experience. In any case, we really appreciate having professional guides when traveling in a country with such a language difference. Our British/Italian guide was married to a Japanese man and had lived here for more than 30 years.
It had developed there were going to be others on this tour (again due to the guide shortage). We found one of the other couples from our ship and shared a cab for the 15-minute ride into town to meet our guide. It was about $13; there is no tipping here and cab doors are opened and closed by the driver (which I keep forgetting). We were early, so had a nice stroll along the river while we waited.
Temps were in the 40s and rain was in the forecast. We learned a bit of history by the waterfront and saw a restored area that revealed the canal system originally an important part of this coastal city. There was also a historic former bank building that is now empty. The doors are left open so anyone can enter. It’s kept clean and in perfect condition by the city and was a stunning contrast to what would happen if a similar building was left unoccupied and open in the US.
We wandered off through residential areas to get to the Minato Inari Shrine. The lovely Shinto shrine featured an entrance flanked with some very unusual lions that could be rotated on their pedestals.
Continuing our journey through residential streets we were struck by how tidy, clean, and incredibly quiet it was on this Saturday morning. Eventually, we reached the Ozawa Family residence, built in the 1860s and occupied until 2002. The seven buildings housed the family’s very successful shipping business, as well as their living quarters. It was lovely and featured a beautiful collection of art work and figurines as well as a display of dolls and toys celebrating a special girls’ day held earlier this month. A similar boys’ day is a national holiday.
Our next stop was the Kotohira Shrine which had good examples of raffia-wrapped figural guards. I think these were lions- at the last shrine they were foxes. Binding raffia pieces together is unique to the area, and is done to ask for successful relationships – whether in business dealings or personal.
Niigata still has a Geisha District, but here they are called Geikos, and we were able to see one of the country’s few remaining districts with clubs and tea rooms where Geikos perform. These highly trained women are not prostitutes and excel in the arts of dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, conversation, and games.
Jumping ahead to say that later, back on board our ship, we were able to watch three perform and with a translator, answer some questions. It was so interesting. The singing was pretty jarring to my ears, but the dancing lovely. There are only 19 Geikos in Niigata and two of the women were still in the eight-year training phase. When asked to describe their typical day, I’m not sure the translator got the question right – this first to answer said she loved to watch Netflix! Not the answer we expected!
Back to our walk:
It was beginning to rain and we still had one more stop, the Saito Family Villa, a more modern home dating from 1918. It was beautifully designed and featured incredible gardens with views from every room.
My takeaway from seeing these homes is that they are freezing. Really cold. Since you take off your shoes, it’s even worse. They have no central heating or insulation. I don’t know how anyone lives like this. Our guide said even visitors from colder areas of Japan complain about how cold the residences are in Niigata. At least summers there are hot.
The rain was pretty steady, so we made our way to the city center and caught our ship’s shuttle bus back to warmth and a bowl of hot soup.
Despite the weather, I loved our brief time here and felt more understanding of the Japanese way of life. BTW, some of the lovely plum trees were blooming!
