March 20, 2013 Incheon, Korea (Seoul) 9:00a to 7:00p

Today should be the coldest weather we experience on this voyage. It was 37* to 47* and pretty windy. The good news was it was supposed to rain and it didn’t. Just a spritz.  Other people that went to the DMZ tour said they saw a bit of snow. Our first surprise was that Korea port has locks. (who knew?) It was a pretty sail in as we passed under the Grand Incheon Bridge then entered the locks. The second was that we were supposed to leave at 7:00, but it had been changed to 6:00, so all aboard was 5:30.



Today we had booked a tour with Korea Private Tours aka Happymize Travel. Which we highly recommend! http://www.KoreaPrivateTours.com 

Joining us are Rick & Janie and Marianne. (still the Fab Five) There were many options here for tours and it was hard to choose. City tour of Seoul or DMZ tunnels tour among others.

We opted to see Hwaseong Fortress and Korean Folk Village with Korean lunch.

Description of tour:

“The popular and essential tourist destinations Hwaseong Fortress and Korean Folk Village will be visited. You will be transferred to Korean Folk Village by our car and enjoy looking around a traditional life of Korean people.

After lunch in Korean Folk Village with traditional Korean food (Lunch with Galbi; grilled beef ribs marinade), you will be transferred to Suwon, a city of Hwaseong Fortress. Why not walk along the walls of Hwaseong Fortress and enjoy beautiful scenery which goes well with old town of Suwon.”

Our guide today was Mr. Jay Jung. It was only about an hour drive to the Folk Village. It was very interesting, but of course would have been way more enjoyable IF it had been warm weather. The Folk Village is a living museum type of tourist attraction in the city of Yongin, a suburb of Seoul in the province of Gyeonggi. The Purpose of the village is to display elements of traditional Korean life and culture. Because of the weather (season) many of the demonstrations were not available. We did get to see a fabulous equestrian show. They had these huge whips they cracked and showed the precision of their use by using them to pluck a flower from the hands of another person. Then, they did lots of acrobatic tricks on the horses.

 

 drive to the Folk Village

 arrival at the Folk Village

 all bundled up.....

 lady working in shop



After a bit of souvenir shopping we were off to lunch. AMAZING lunch at a Korean BBQ restaurant.

We were seated at a table with 2 grills in the table and then all the dishes started appearing. There was no available space left on the table! We had 2 salads, 2 soups, kimchi, pancake, salmon, spicy crab, jellyfish, sliced purple cucumbers, pickled horseradish, garlic, hot sauces, rice, pumpkin, and the best of all the beef ribs that our server cooked for us and cut it up with scissors. We ate with silver metal chop sticks. We also had a long handled spoon. It was all good…even the jellyfish. For dessert we had a piece of pineapple with some other fruit wrapped around it. None of us ever understood what that was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 Stuffed, it was time to drive the short distance to the Hwaseong Fortress in the city of Suwon. The fortress sprawls on both flatland and hilly terrain. It is designed to serve political and commercial as well as military functions. The fortress was built scientifically utilizing newly invented construction equipment. Fortification facilities were enhanced by properly combining stones, bricks, wood and by incorporating drainage, rampart slit embrasures, crenellated parapets with embrasures and bastions. (huh?) It was a very interesting fort and very pretty as well as functional. It was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997.

 

 me, sheltered from the wind....

 

 

 our guide

 



We actually got back to the ship early. We thought it might be a good time to catch up on laundry before our China trip. It finished just minutes before we needed to be downstairs for dinner. After dinner we went to the show which was an instrumentalist, Craig Richard. He played alto sax, soprano sax, piano and even sang a bit. He did traditional stuff like Kenny G and Bruce Hornsby, but also did tributes to Ray Charles and Michael Jackson. He has toured with Kenny G. Pretty entertaining young guy.

Now we are back in the cabin so I can get caught up on the blog and tomorrow we need to pack for our China Overland. Trying to get more pictures up on the Picasa Web Albums. (the link is on the side of the page)