… 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!
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