Today, we were in Busan, South Korea for a rather weird and unusual port day… weird because it’s Sunday and stuff was less open than usual, and unusual because the ship didn’t arrive until 3pm and was scheduled to depart at 10:30pm. Given we have been here before, we weren’t too bothered about having a strange half day to go to town, but I felt sorry for people on the ship’s tour who signed up to go all the way out to the Haedong Yonggungsa Temple… it takes about an hour to get everyone off the ship, the temple is easily an hour’s drive away, followed by about an hour worth of steps to get down to the beautiful seaside temple, only to end up there in dusk – or worse, in semi-darkness. Not the best scenario for photography or for admiring the intricately painted and carved temple.
Never mind. Our plans only extended as far as going to town, finding a coveted transit card on the metro, checking out the fish markets, heading to a local shopping centre and being back on the ship for to see the lovely bridge all lit up for sail away.
We took the free shuttle bus – the one the ship doesn’t tell you about – to the Busan Metro Station and managed to nail our first objective pretty quickly. Only of course after finding an ATM because none of the ticketing machines accepted credit cards… what’s with that Asia? Everywhere else you can tap and wave for just about anything from a can of Coke to a $100 purchase – here, it’s ‘cash only’ just about everywhere. South Korea and Japan are known as technologically advanced nations and yet, they seem stuck in last century’s financial payment systems.
Anyway, got ourselves some ‘cashbee’ cards for the collection and took a train to the famous Ja-Gal-Ch’i Fish Markets, whereupon we were greeted by nearly every edible fishy thing under the sun. Some of which was already half-gutted and prepared, some of which was being dehydrated for purposes unknown, some of which was alive and kicking in tanks, and some of which was doing its best to escape said tanks!
The Fish Markets cover an enormous area including this building where you can buy your fresh seafood and take it to one of the many restaurants upstairs and have them prepare/cook it for you.
The entire tray of oysters in the photo below was only10,000 won, and while I would normally have been keen to try all the things, we were here at about 4:30pm, and I was not at all hungry.
After this, we went looking for, and promptly got lost in the Lotte Mall – one of the world’s biggest shopping malls consisting of three interconnected 13 storey towers of shopping as we hunted for the observation deck and coffee shop. With the enormous size of this place, the last thing we expected was to discover the observation deck was only accessible from one tucked out of the way elevator, but eventually, we found the right one. The views were admittedly a bit uninspiring – Busan was, 20C overcast and very hazy today.
After this we made our way back into the shops to potter around, find a snack and bludge some wifi in a coffee shop – as you do, before making our way back to the ship around 9pm. I took some lovely and slightly dodgy photos of the sail away (you try taking night photos off the back of a moving ship with no tripod!) but I kinda like their fuzzy weirdness anyway 😉
We checked into our hotel, admired the view and how spacious the room was (for Tokyo), before heading out for a wander for a late dinner. We found a quaint little restaurant (not a noodle bar, not a sashimi restaurant, not a teppanyaki grill?) that served various soups, stews, grills and general Japanese fabulousness. Enjoyed a lovely meal of yakitori and broiled eel washed down with a nice junmai sake before heading back to the hotel to decompress after our transit day.
*I wonder how many times that damned Wave has been posted to this blog…
Some beautiful streets in the Lower Town near the Place Royale.
There are several large murals in this part of town. Many depicting important local history.
La Place Royale… a 400 year old plaza.
The Notre Dame de Victories cathedral in the lower town.
It’s summer at the moment so Quebecers have planted beautiful flowers everywhere. Given the winter sees Quebec City covered in as much as 14 feet of snow and can snow as late as May… the town loves to take advantage of the warm weather and fill their planters with flowers for the summer months.
The ‘Breakneck Steps’ leading up to the Old Town – Quebec’s Old Town was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. 
Or you can take the Funicular.
The world’s most photographed hotel, the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac.
This world famous chateau was built in 1893 (celebrating their 125th anniversary this year) for the Count de Frontenac, a notable governor of New France. The building was extended in 1924 with the impressive central tower. This Dali clock was outside the hotel bearing a price tag of $189,000… which seemed odd as it is out in the public space. Then again, Quebec is considered one of the safest cities in the world.
The Dufferin Terrace stands on the site of the Fort Saint Louse built by Champlain in 1620. The terrace is named after a Lord Dufferin and gives wonderful views over the Lower Town, the Place Royale and the river. 
The Notre-Dame de Quebec Basilica Cathedral. Built in 1647 under the French regime, the cathedral has been expanded, bombarded, burnt to the ground, rebuilt in 1925 according to the original plans and finally designated as a national historic site for its architectural value and its lovely artistic interior.
So much gorgeous timber – a confessional.
As we stepped out of the cathedral, it started to pour down rain and we took refuge in a nearby shop – which turned out to be a year round Christmas shop called La Boutique de Noel. A little weird, though probably less so when your town is under snow most of the year.
If the rest of Canada makes as much fuss over Christmas as my Canadian relatives do… I can see how this store would be fine year round.
More beautiful French streets and alleyways.
The US Consulate – no marines, and a very unassuming building beside a B&B.
I love that mobile phones, keys and fast food seem a higher priority on the prohibited items list than firearms and explosives! 😛 
View back towards Frontenac from the Citadelle. The Citadelle is the largest active fortress in Canada and home to their famous 22nd Regiment.
We inadvertently stumbled into one of Quebec’s most famous French restaurants ‘Aux Anciens Canadiens’ for lunch. No doubt completely touristy, but delicious French cuisine.
Cathedral Holy Trinity – known for being the first Anglican cathedral built outside the British Isles in 1804.
Frontenac with the World UNESCO monument in the foreground at the Place des Armes.
Naturally the Nookies had already scouted out the nearest Irish pub and we found ourselves happily situation at the Pub St-Patrick with Guinness and Kilkennys and ciders (oh my!) before too long.
After our fabulous luncheon consisting of fine French cuisine, we weren’t hungry, but the Nookies order some lunch and Ms Sandra ordered ‘La Poutine Poulet Buffalo’, which was ‘Homemade french fries, with Perron cheese curds, poutine sauce, chunks of crispy chicken with Buffalo sauce and blue cheese ranch dressing’ – which I tried and have to say was easily the best poutine we have tried so far. 
Past some civic art (no idea what this is).
Back on board and we were waiting a few hours (and a few more drinks) until it got dark. This was the view back toward the city at night from the ship – no tripod unfortunately…
And because it is summer and we have extraordinary good timing – our ship was in town for a local summer festival that included lots of lovely fireworks at about 10pm. So here, I am going to bore you with my hand held fireworks photos, and (because I uploaded them while still very squiffy!) I am completely unapologetic at how many I decided to add in here.
So the TL;DR…? We <3 Quebec and will totally be back one day to see the city and the area properly.
Our ship received a lively welcome to the area by a group of acrobats, jugglers and performers on stilts who were whooping it up and posing for photos on the port. It seems Saguenay is known for it’s hospitable welcome to cruise ship passengers and they make a bit of a festival of it for visitors.
Mermaid statue near the Musee de Fjords on the Baie des Ha ha. ‘Ha ha’ in this case doesn’t relate something funny but rather means ‘an obstacle’. The bay freezes over for several months of the year so it becomes quite the challenge to enter or leave the port. Once the ice is 30cm thick, the locals all set up little ‘streets’ across the entire bay and put down their ice fishing huts, create an ice rink and other entertainments out on the bay. The whole area can see snow 2-3m deep every winter and yet today while we are here, it is 29C and about 90%+ humidity. 
Not far from the Musee de Fjord is the Touverre Glassblowing and Gemstone cutting economuseum. It is the workshop of a local glass artist, Guiseppe Benedetto who does glassblowing demonstrations and creates plenty of glass art pieces for sale. Lots of whales, marine animals, some large colourful plates and drinking vessels etc. We had a quick look through on our way to the Ha-Ha Pyrimide.
Bumblebees!
In 1996, a major rain depression event resulted in 260 mm of rain falling over only a 48 hour period across the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. The ground was apparently already oversaturated after an unusually rainy few weeks and none of the excessive rainfall could be absorbed by surrounding areas completely overwhelming the Saguenay River basin. This resulted in a disastrous flood which has been commemorated by this art piece created of over 3000 reflective yield (give way) signs, called the ‘Ha Ha Pyrimide’. It’s very striking and distinctive, but stands out like dogs balls among all the historic buildings and more traditional monuments in the area.
Like this near by war monument: 
After we left the Baie de Ha-Ha area we headed towards Chicoutimi, another of the seven municipalities that has been rolled into the city now known as Saguenay. Chicoutimi was once a fur trading post and would later be primarily known as a pulp and paper manufacturing town.
The 145 year old gothic revival/Romanesque, St Dominic church in the Jonquiere area.
Saguenay City Hall
While in town we stopped for some lunch at a nice French bistron called Summum to suck down some free wifi, some delicious Mystique ciders and of course, to try some more poutine! This serve was completely different to the last one – the fries were maybe a bit overcooked or something, and the curds in lumps so big, they squeaked on your teeth like halloumi 😀 but the gravy was a definite improvement on yesterday. I guess we will just have to keep hunting.
After lunch a little more sight seeing on the way back to the port.
The Chicoutimi River and Spillway
Back at the port once again. Saguenay is a lovely area and surrounded by what we believe are amazingly beautiful national parks. Being barely 180 miles from Quebec, I definitely think we will be back here one day to do a land tour to see more of the area.
Sail away down the Saguenay Fjord, the weather had come in considerably and it was raining quite heavily in patches, but gave a gorgeous impression of the rugged countryside nonetheless.
Corner Brook apparently has no snakes, no deer, no groundhogs or any small critters. Squirrels were introduced to Newfoundland (no idea whether that was deliberate or not) in the 60s and now over run the place… so I was hoping to see them everywhere, but was disappointed not to see a single squirrel running about. Moose were also introduced to Newfoundland and thrived in the conditions here – but there were none of them around town either… not even on local menus. 😛 
The town centre was fairly colourful with some cool rainbow pedestrian crossings and some colourful hockey related murals. 
We also did some pottering through a small market set up by local artisans and I saw these very creative pictures of fairies and pixies made out of pressed flower petals. Gorgeous work.
Mr K’s paddle of local beers, and below Ms Sandra’s very impressive taco salad.
Given we were in eastern Canadia for a few days, we decided we would try and hunt down the best poutine we could find. Today’s offering was quite nice in the fries department and nice politely portioned curds, but the gravy was lacking a bit of body. Definitely not made to Mom’s homemade gravy recipe. Never fear though,we have several more stops to find some Good Poutine.
After a few more ciders and stouts we did what we were told and all made our way up to Walmart to stock up on well… mostly shit we didn’t need, but when in Rome (ie: Corner Brook in this case), before rolling ourselves back to the ship. A nice day a shore, but a little on the quiet side. 