… to Tianjin, China …

… a city of 15 million people about 3 hours south of Beijing. Tianjin is a port city, which in the last ten years became a huge bedroom community, with endless apartment towers, seemingly brand new. We overnighted in Tianjin where it was snowing as we docked. Our Indonesian and Filipino crew had a blast bulidng a snowman and throwing snowballs until the wee hours. So the nose was a strawberry, the eyes small jam jars and the mouth a couple of sausages - it was still a snowman! Many crew members had never seen snow before.

 

We decided to take it easy the first day, exploring a mall accessible by shuttle bus. When we woke up, the ground had several inches of snow, and heavy fog obscured the view. The Chinese government had closed all roads, making the immigration process very late. All excursions were put on hold pending the condition of the roads. When the fog finally cleared a bit, the shuttles began running and the Aeon Mall was a great destination on a snowy day – sparkling clean and ultra-modern. It boasted a large movie theater, a place where kids could fish for beautiful carp, an arcade with a talking tree, a slot car track, the large Aeon anchor store, similar to WalMart, and more restaurants than we could count, most serving some version of the Chinese hot pot meals.

 

 

 

  

There were also clothes with a decidedly American bent, toilet seats with functions including the sounds of a mountain stream, and entire departments of Hello Kitty medications for kids.

   

Fascinating! And that was all before our chicken and beef hot pot lunches, where we didn’t realize the noodles were supposed to be stretched before they were popped into the pot … quite a bit sturdier than they were supposed to be!

 

… to the Incheon, S. Korea markets …

… an eye-popping experience! Needed to post a few pictures to show what I mean. First we went to one of Incheon’s open air street markets …

 

All kinds of foods were represented … even Cajun food, with an explanation of what it is!

There were fried fish that looked at first glance like pancakes …  

 

Any kind of seafood you could imagine … including huge bags of dried shrimp …

 

… and sad, board-stiff dried fish with glazed eyes. There were gigantic hot dogs …

  

… and our favorite, spiral potatoes on a stick … delicious!

     

Well-fed, we went to the Kinpo Underground Market … something for everyone. Some labels were interesting …

 

Such a fun experience!

… to Incheon, the port city for Seoul …

… our only stop in South Korea on our newly revised itinerary. Because of stormy weather and berthing conflicts, the Captain decided to skip our second port of call, Jeju, and spend an additional night in Incheon before proceeding to Xingang, the port for Beijing. On our first day, immigration procedures were delayed, impacting the schedules for all excursions. We went into Seoul, a city of 18 million people – and horrendous traffic. A huge protest taking place in center city, involving about 800,000 people, made getting around difficult. That number was not a typo … 

   

Unfortunately the protests were everywhere we went, and our visits were cut short by all the delays. First was the spectacular Gyeongbok Palace and Folklore Museum, built in 1394. The palace courtyards were filled with young women looking like princesses, wearing traditional Korean dresses which they rent by the hour. They happily posed for photos.

         

After a 10 minute visit to the Museum, we headed to lunch at a traditional Korean restaurant serving chicken pot, similar to the crab pot in Osaka. Here we came face to face with the protestors – and the police. The police blocked the street where our bus was parked, requiring negotiations by our driver to extricate us.

 

Next up was a trip to Insa-Dong Street, filled with shops selling traditional Korean arts and crafts. We had only 20 minutes, but it was a lovely area. Our last stop was South Gate Market, an open-air market near the Palace. Food, clothes, shoes, household items, novelties – the market had everything.

 

     

It took more than two hours of fighting traffic to get back to the ship. We spent our second day in Incheon rather than Seoul – visiting an open air market selling strange and unusual foods, and the Kinpo Underground Market – a seemingly endless corridor of shops and stores. Another fascinating day!

… to Nagasaki, Japan …

… site of one of the US nuclear bomb drops on August 9, 1945 which helped to end WWII. Nagasaki wasn’t the first intended bomb site, but cloudy weather obscured the primary target, so Nagasaki was chosen. Fortunately, the bomb exploded at 1500 feet, and only about 10% of the radioactive core reached the ground. Nagasaki’s ocean location also helped dispel some of the blast’s effects. Even with those ameliorating circumstances, approximately 73,000 people were killed instantly, and 74,000 injured. A third of the city was leveled. Supposedly the city today has very low radioactivity levels. We went first to a scenic overlook on Mt. Inasa; the view of the city was breathtaking because there is very little haze in winter. The lovely houses squeezed together on the mountainside are now mostly empty; their elderly residents have moved closer to needed downtown facilities, and young people would rather rent apartments in center city. 

  

Our next stop was Nagasaki Peace Park, dedicated to world peace. The main statue is an imposing 30’ tall. The park’s many beautiful monuments were gifts from nations around the world, commemorating peace.

   

In the afteroon, we explored Nagasaki on foot, hiking up steep Glover Street to peek at its quaint little shops. We discovered the site of the first bowling alley in Japan, and shared a Japanese cheeseburger – different but delicious. Can you see something out of place? It yelled at us as we walked by … 

     

This cute little building sat on a busy corner. Dessert was purple sweet potato ice cream. The ice cream was in a plastic cup container, which was inserted into a special machine. A press of the button turned it into a soft swirled cone. Magic! Few napkins are provided in Japan, just moist cloths on the tables, like the green one here.

 

All good things come to an end, and we reached the top of Glover Street. It was a very long way down. But the ship looked tantalizingly close …. so Frank located a tall flight of stairs, and then another, and another … and eventually we reached street level.

 

It was a perfect afternoon!