Sunday, June 10th …..

We’re in Busan today and all our Korean passengers are finishing their cruise here. I think almost all of the other passengers are on excursion because there were 30 buses waiting on the dock when we arrived. Marilyn and I were not enthused by any of the offerings which seemed a bit thin on content and depended on a Korean buffet lunch and a visit to the fishmarket. Even though there were three separate offerings, they all had the same ingredients. For generations, the market has been controlled by middle-aged married women; we heard a group of Australians discussing what they should do today and the thought of visiting a place controlled by middle-aged married women was not an attraction. However, again, the ship is almost empty. I’ve just been for a walk around and only saw 5 others.

Arriving about the same time as we did was a ferry from Osaka, about the same size as the Spirit of Tasmania and apparently there’ a regular run between the two cities. I met a fellow once who was travelling around on a motor-bike and he said he had travelled from the mainland to Japan by ferry so this might have been the way he did it.

We saw another great show last night: Swing City. The music was terrific and the costumes outstanding. On Friday night there was an Australian magician who had a pretty good act but nothing new. The big attraction for Friday night was The Quest, a game show where teams of 6 had to produce objects to get points. It was another way to try and get the different nationalities to work together and it was good fun. Some of the things they had to produce was a driver’s licence, a picture of an animal, a photograph just taken of womens’ underwear, a man with a bra on his head, a woman wearing a man’s trousers inside out and back to front.

As you can see it escalated quite quickly to bawdy and raucous, but we spectators enjoyed it. One thing I have trouble with is people who just don’t bother with the rules, no matter how simple. Rule #1- Only one person to bring out the object. Bugger that, let’s all go, and it’s chaos. Rule #2 – No running, and you can imagine how successful that one was. As an ex-school teacher, you can also imagine how much I want to yell at them

I’m sorry to say there is a lack of good manners on board: shoving ahead of you into the lifts, blocking other people’s way at the buffet line, and so on. This morning at breakfast, my table was hijacked by a woman who thought she would like to sit there, so she just sat down. I tried to argue with her but it was easier to move to another table. Marilyn and I were playing Shuffleboard on the deck yesterday and a group came up and started playing on the same court, so we smiled and left them to it. They’re small things and not worth fighting over but they become annoying after a while.