Poor Federer got knocked out, so not the best of starts to the day. Paula was still a little bit off colour, so that didn’t help, but after the 7am alarm, we managed the buffet OK. Poor choice of a fruit day for me as the pineapple really was quite sour, so I had to have a chocolate croissant dunked in my coffee to compensate. It was on a food/travel programme that they dunked their chocolate croissants in their coffee, so I am only carrying on a continental tradition. If they were still warm (which they are not), I wouldn’t need to do it, but croissants of any sort, along with any Danish pastries, should be warm.
After breakfast, we collected our things and I decided to NOT take my laptop with us, to try and get a decent internet connection. We joined the long immigration queue exactly at 8:30am and the queue stretched to the seafood bar, but moved quite quickly as they had 10 immigration officials on board.
As promised, cruiser info:
Ship berthed on the starboard side – an industrial container port, so no walk off.
Our el Cheapo, $30 Vodafone pre-pay phones worked – ‘Welcome to South Korea’’.
We were issued with a photocopy and had our passports returned the night before.
At the face to face, they scanned the passports, stamped our photocopies. (Very quick)
We handed our passports back into the ship and had our cruise cards scanned and were issued with an ‘Immigration pass’.
We had to carry the scanned photocopy and hand it in on our return to the ship
We just walked off the ship having had the cruise card scanned again, onto the dock after meeting for our tour.
Ship’s security system only on return.
We had to queue for our tour stickers and we were bus #6 of 10. By the time we were called, there was no queue at all at immigration at 9am.
From here on, the day turned somewhat farcical. We sat at the very rear of the coach. First of all, our tour guide, introduced himself and the microphone or sound system (when he remembered to use it) was hopeless and apart from an occasional word, I have no idea what he said – which wasn’t very much anyway and even missed his name.
The second indication that all was not going to go to plan, was the driver trying to exit an unmanned lane and then having to reverse (not for the first time, as you will read later), to join the manned lane, to exit the port. Mind you, as the port security guy didn’t seem to check anything, you have to wonder quite why the exit lane was manned at all, but it may have more to do with fact that Incheon is really a container port.
Away from the port, we were very impressed with the wide, new roads, but we have a suspicion that either Incheon’s traffic planners were trained in Auckland, or vice versa. Every 100 metres, another set of traffic lights which brought us to a standstill – for ages, even though there was no other traffic. No synchronisation at all – and so it was all day.
Dozens of high rise apartment buildings, but everywhere was very clean, with zero graffiti and plenty of greenery and well maintained patches of lawn, in addition to well thought out trees and bushes. Not what you’d call attractive, but it was a good balance between all those clusters of high rise blocks and the greenery below. Bands of locals (in hi-vis jackets of course) were using ‘weed eaters’ or ‘strimmers’ to hack off the weeds coming through the paved blocks, so given the sheer acreage of pathways, this seemed to be a labour intensive alternative to weed spraying and a lot less permanent.
Traffic didn’t seem to flow very well at all and the they seem to rely on traffic lights when maybe, roundabouts/traffic islands would probably work so much better, certainly at the time of day that we were travelling.
According to the blurb on the ship, this precis is what we’d signed up for:
· Wolmido Island park and the Street of Culture.
· The sights of downtown Incheon
· Jayu Park
· A pause for shopping in Incheon’s Chinatown
· Another fabulous shopping opportunity at a duty free store
All in all, a fair itinerary. But that was the blurb. As there were 10 coaches doing this tour, going in the reverse direction is normal, so our first stop was at Chinatown. But it wasn’t. Just before an entrance street, the coach stopped, inexplicably, for a while and the tour guide gave out his mobile number just in case. He said we’d stop in Chinatown for 50 minutes. The driver then turned into the narrow access street, with a couple of coaches ahead of us as we passed slowly, up-hill, through a very colourful ‘Fairy Tale Land’ (no sign of anything Chinese) for 200m. Then we stopped. We waited. We waited some more. We waited even longer, then after 30 minutes, still with a couple of coaches ahead of us, with a third parked at 45 degrees and half way cross the street anyway, we reversed slowly down the street.
After another 10 minutes, we were back on the main road – still with everyone on the coach. About 500m along the main road, the driver pulled in yet again and we waited some more, having elected by a show of hands to miss Chinatown.
We then headed for Wolmi Park/Island, but once again, the driver had difficulty in finding the entrance so, a U-turn and another discussion with the guide, plus the use of his mobile, we eventually we got there. Maybe the term ‘guide’ was a bit ambitious, as most guides seem to know the way.
We virtually had to drag out of him how long we were stopping and this seemed to vary between 30 minutes and 60 minutes. The eventual conclusion was 60 minutes, but he just wandered ahead anyway, with zero attempt to explain anything, even though this part of South Korea has quite a history. Once most had taken advantage of the rest room facilities, they (and us) just wandered aimlessly through the park. Many of the signs were only in Korean, a script that none of us understood anyway, but a small vegetable patch had carrots, chives, zucchini, strawberries etc., and on the other side of the path, a different way of growing either pumpkins or/and melons.
There wasn’t enough time to really explore and when asked why the monorail wasn’t working, we were told budget cuts. A nice park but all on the coach OK. But that was the last time we stopped…
Back towards the port and he went right around the block that contains the Cube’ shopping centre and where there was a sign for the Free Shuttle – and plenty of cruisers around. Once again the vote was to carry on back to the ship, so you can well imagine that few were exactly satisfied with the tour, but we didn’t put in an official complaint, though others may well have.
Just to round it off, we spied the entrance/exit to the port we’d used, but the driver didn’t… He had to do another U turn, then once again, hit the wrong lane for entry and had to reverse. Being realistic, we could have done without the tour guide altogether as he certainly didn’t add any value to the day.
To cap off a less than satisfactory day, on the dock, the Purser admitted that they still hadn’t fixed the email problem. He’s now saying it is a hardware problem.
Back on board and to the buffet where I ate far too much butter chicken curry, washed down with lemonade and an ice cream. I should have skipped the ice cream.
We crashed out until 6pm sailaway, where reports of the day varied from one coach involved in a crash that damaged a window, to those on a private tour where they had high speed internet - and took full advantage of it. Drat.
At dinner, just 4 of us plus Dave and Sandie, where Marie’s long awaited ‘crudites’ arrived, plus lime for her water - but she didn’t. Then on to the theatre for cruise favourite ‘Maggie Scott’. Her singing voice is powerful, but once again, the sound quality was such that only those with really good hearing caught what she said when she was doing her usual chat. Several were obviously tired after a long day, but again, I don’t think that the theatre sound was up to the job. A good show as always, but very little we hadn’t heard before.
Clocks back an hour again overnight and with the men’s Wimbledon tennis final (without Paula’s favourites, Federer or Djokovich) and the British GP tomorrow, important to find out what is on TV and when. It may even mean me missing dinner.
Meanwhile, we have been cancelling and rebooking Princess tours. Our tickets for Tianjin arrived tonight and I went straight back to cancel, as facing six hours or more on a coach, especially after today, was not at all appealing, particularly as Paula isn’t 100%.
A sea day tomorrow to recuperate and relax, but a hit at cricket on the cards at 10am for a change. Howzat?
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