Busan, Korea

Friday, March 6, 2009 – BUSAN, Korea (also known as Pusan) “The city you want to visit and stay in again!”
50 degrees with a strong wind and sunshine!
1,510 won = US$1; Population 3.6 million in Busan and 46M in Korea

“If you should kick a stone in anger, you will only hurt your foot.” Korean proverb

To give you an idea of the size of the harbor, our first view was of 15 freighters waiting their turn to pull into the harbor. It is a very busy and large international port with the beautiful Gwangandaegyo Bridge. With clusters of apartment buildings over 30 floors high, Pusan seems to be a “tall” city spread out quite a distance between the sea and steep mountains. We found out later you can drive for two hours and still be within the city limits.

Upon disembarking at this maiden port call, we were all presented with an item which could be used as a bookmark, a letter opener or a hair decoration! The ATM mobile van and money exchanger were there and our first vendor! The free shuttle bus drove us the 25 minutes to the Phoenix Hotel (near PIFF street – the area of the international film festival) and we considered our options. I REALLY wanted to get up north to Gyeongju (the Ancient Silla burial mounds called museum without walls) but our options were dwindling minute by minute. The tourist info desk said it would take over 2+ hours each way with the express bus service, including an hour just to get to the bus stations via subway, IF we made no mistakes along the way. You know how that goes when you can’t even read the letters on a sign! So we asked the front desk clerk, An, at the Hotel and at first he thought it was too iffy if we could return on time. Then he made a call to his “friend” (Kim – of course! A common Korean name) and within 5 minutes he was outside the door and we were ready to go for $135 for the taxi.

JUST as we were hopping into the car, another bus load from the ship was unloading and there were five from our group. They asked where we were going, we told them, we saw we had room and in they climbed! Gene went back to Kim to visit An in the hotel lobby to re-negotiate the rate (but how much can you re-negotiate when they are already sitting in the car!!!??!!) and off we went for $30 pp -- two Australians, one English and four Americans. It was a great car! A large SUV made by KIA but with BMW tires!

Kim did not speak much English but we enjoyed the drive through the city with the many, many high apartment blocks and the golf practicing ranges. There are three levels for people to swing from and the entire area has a green net around it. The ball goes onto the green sloped “grass” and it rolls down on an angled pitch back to where you are standing.

The highways were two to three lanes and most of the signs were in Korean with a little English. We had thought about renting a car but thankfully we did not. We would have been lucky to find the highway out of town, let alone the sights when we arrived north of the city!

Our first stop was Bulguksa – a Buddhist monastery and temple is considered the crowning glory of Silla temple architecture and is on the Unesco World Cultural Heritage list. There are two national treasure bridges you cross over with 33 steps, representing the 33 stages of enlightment. Two more national treasures are the pagaodas that stand in the courtyard of the first set of buildings. The first, Dabotap, is of plain design, while the other, Seokgatap, is much more ornate and typical of the Baekje kingdom.


Then we headed into the town of Gyeongju and stopped at Tumuli first. Gyeongju became the capital of the Sill adynastry in 57 BC and remained so for nearly 1000 years. “The city’s population peaked at 1,000,000 but eventually fell victim to division from within and invasion from without.” (Something to ponder here…)

There were approx. 30 burial mounds which look like grass hillocks. They are in a secure area and you can even enter one! (They served the same purpose as Egyptian pyramids.) We entered Cheonmachong (Heavenly Horse Tomb) and saw a replica of the Gold Crown from Cheonmachong, which was found in 1973 in the wooden coffin on the head of the person. Like other Silla gold crowns, its outer round headband consists of three tree branch-like prongs on the front and there are four prongs branching out from there. It looked like deer antlers and was at least a foot tall. Other items were bracelets, jade ornaments, weapons, pottery and even ancient eggs. They showed the layers of the mound – grass, soil, large rocks and then the cavern with the lacquered wooden coffin and gold and other burial items they would need for their after life. 11,500 artifacts were excavated from this tomb! The name Cheonmachong comes from a painting of a white horse which is depicted on a birch bark saddle flap, also referred to as a mud-guard (for the horse!). They had a replica of this also. He was an unknown king from the empire, which lasted from 57BC-935AD, which had 57 kings.

These mounds are supposed to be of kings and court officials from the early Silla Kingdom. The largest burial mound is 240 feet x 360 feet and 66 feet high!!! Many houses were in this area until the discovery in 1973. Since 1984, many people have been re-located.

Near Tumuli, is the Far East’s oldest astrological observatory, Cheomseongdae. It was constructed between 632 and 646 and its apparently simple design conceals amazing sophistication: the 12 stones of its base symbolize the months of the year. From top to bottom there are 30 layers – one for each day of the month – and a total of 366 stones were used in the construction. We did not have time to stop at the Gyeongju National Museum but I can only imagine the “real” treasures as compared to the replicas.

Driving back to Busan, we made it in just over an hour and were able to explore for an hour in the city (Cunard offers free shuttle buses from each port in to the city center if the ship does not dock close to “anything”. We meandered over to the Jagalchi fish market, seeing the various octopi, lobster, crabs, tuna, sea cucumber, fish, eels, squids and who knows what else kind of fish in the buckets and fish tanks and spread out for purchase. The vendors sit on a low seat or bucket and have the fish on pallets (with ice) in front of them. They will fillet, clean and cut per your request!

It turned out to be a great day! We returned to the ship, “back to home”, as many passengers are now calling it, and dressed for dinner. How civilized. The Royal Cuanrd Singers and Dancers presented a country and western show and then Dave Lee, the English comedian, performed, whom most Americans could not understand and they left the theater! AND we received a very special private invitation from the
Captain for a private bridge tour tomorrow!!!! We have to be discreet as these invitations are extremely limited. Imagine attempting to get over 1900 passengers into the most important area of the ship!


“Cultural mores prevent most people from initiating contact with foreigners, but if you take the first step, the level of kindness and generosity extended your way can be surprising”. We certainly found this to be true.