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Day 14 - Monday 27 March - Incheon/Seoul

Had a bit of a broken night's sleep on account of not being able to breathe.

At 6:20 the alarm went off to wake up.

Arrival in Incheon was pretty boring. I missed coming under the bridge, but then we docked at a new terminal area in the middle of nowhere (they haven't even built the terminal yet). Downloaded the GPS log since Busan.

Had some breakfast at Kings Court around 8:00.

At 8:45 we went into the Royal Court Theatre to check in to our tour. Where we then had to wait and wait and wait. This time the Korean immigrations had setup laptops in the Queens Room to process everyone. So we had to collect our passports, walk past the temperature sensor, then get our passports stamped. Then we dropped off our passports and got a shore card. They had a truck setup outside with a portable gangway, but it was *very* steep getting up it. We could have really just gone straight off the ship onto the wharf, rather than up and over, but apparently the tides change quite a lot and they were going to have to rearrange things during the day. It was after 10:00 before our coach left the wharf.

So then it was the really long drive into Seoul.

Our first stop was the National Museum. We lasted about five minutes with the crowds and our tour guide before we went off and wandered the place on our own. Sure we probably missed out on hearing about some things in more detail, but we did get a nice long look at all the celadon (a green glazed ceramic), and an amazing exhibition of items recovered in 1975 from a shipwreck.

Entrance of the National Museum of Korea

Gold Crown and Girdle, National Treasure #191 and #192

Gold Crown Ornament, National Treasure #630

Ten Story Pagoda, National Treasure #86

Dragon shaped ewer celadon, National Treasure #61

Ewer celadon

Celadon plate

Objects from the Sinan shipwreck

Coins from the Sinan shipwreck

Then it was off to lunch at a place in the city. There was about fifteen different courses!! It was pretty insane. And I was having fun until I was eating all the green vegetables in a cold "porridge" when I got a huge slice of raw green chili. My mouth exploded. I should have spat it out, but I was on a table full of strangers. So that was super painful (I was in tears) and kinda ruined the rest of the meal. And our tour guide didn't seem to understand that people need to use the bathroom, and so we had to try and find it ourselves when we should have been going out to get back on the coach.

Han Jeongsik traditional lunch at Jinjinbara

Han Jeongsik traditional lunch at Jinjinbara. That green chili sunk in with the rest of the vegetables and my mouth exploded when I ate it :(

Han Jeongsik traditional lunch at Jinjinbara

After lunch it started raining. Yay. We went to Bukchon village next, a line of houses built in the 1930s by a dude who wanted to preserve houses built in traditional Korean style. But it's a residential street and I think the people that live there hate the fact that it's a huge tourist destination.

Sungnyemun Gate

Bukchon Hanok Village

Traditional dress store

Girls in traditional dress

Still raining. We drove past the presidential "blue house" and got one or two photos through foggy and rain-smeared windows.

The Blue House

Then into the royal palace next door. Still raining on and off. Had a decent wander around there which was pretty cool.

Gwanghwamun Gate

Heungnyemun Gate

Geunjeongjeon hall

Inside Geunjeongjeon hall

Courtyard of Geunjeongjeon hall and Bukhansan Mountain

Gargoyle at Geunjeongjeon hall

Covered walkway on west side of Geunjeongjeon hall

Gyeonghoeru pavilion

Bukhansan Mountain

Locals in traditional dress

Decorative roof at Gyeongbokgung Palace

Gangnyeongjeon hall

Inside Gangnyeongjeon hall

Locals in traditional dress

Looking towards Gwanghwamun Gate from Heungnyemun Gate

Gargoyle at Gyeongbokgung Palace

Asian women need instructions on how to use the toilets

Girls toilets at Gyeongbokgung Palace

So a reasonably decent tour. Shame about the weather.

Finally a very long drive back to the ship.

Banghwa Bridge

Queen Mary 2 docked at Incheon Port International Passenger Terminal

Incheon Bridge, connecting Yeongjong Island and the mainland of Incheon

Sunset aboard the Queen Mary 2

Queen Mary 2 bell

19:30 the usual pub for drinks/music/trivia (we got 16/20 this time - would have gotten a couple more if we'd joined with the table that marked ours - they knew two that we didn't heh). Really must join ranks with some English people as the questions do tend to be a bit British-centric.

When we got to dinner we found two new people on our table (Bruce and Maria from Sydney). They'd been on board since Sydney and were going all the way to Southampton. But they kept on being at a table by themselves and asked to join someone else. We'd had two seats free since Virginia and Bob got off in Shanghai so that was quite nice. Stu had chicken consomme, Korean chicken and chocolate volcano cake. I had smoked duck, penne, and wasn't going to have dessert because I was so full, but got tempted by the key lime pie heh.

I really feel like we don't belong on this cruise. Bruce and David spent most of the evening talking about travelling business class and comparing airlines, and the sizes of their apartments. Bruce and Maria live in one of the toasters in Circular Quay, and at one point I think I overheard it was 192 square metres (although only heard a snatch of that conversation I could be wrong). Various British couples we've met have summer homes in Europe. We're too young and not rich enough to belong on this cruise...

Day 10 - Thursday 23 March - At Sea

06:11 wakeup. They put the ships clocks forward an hour overnight, but not the internal mobile tower's time, so it was still on the old time. I changed my watch, but not the cameras.

Starboard side games corridor on the Queen Mary 2

Put some washing on just before 09:00, then went down to ConneXions to get tickets for the Planetarium show (got there right on nine and just walked up to the desk where a dude had just setup and got a ticket). Went and got some breakfast. Saved some space for eggs benedict but Stu took the last one of the batch - doh!

Went back to get the washing but I was a few minutes late (on account of being at breakfast). Someone had taken our washing out to put theirs in, but when I went through everything there was an unpaired sock. Great. So that meant we missed a talk on China because I had to wait around for *their* cycle to finish so I could retrieve the sock. But as he was taking stuff out there were *three* socks and a tshirt in with his load!! What a retard. One sock I could *maybe* understand but *three* ??? And a tshirt??? Buttplug.

At 11:00 we went and saw the third talk by Pamela Chen Moore - in the theatre for once heh.

Had a small plate of fries for lunch. As you do. Hrmm.

Dockwise Forte - semi-submersible heavy transport vessel

Went and worked on one of the jigsaws for a while before going to a Planetarium show - Cosmic Collisions, narrated by Robert Redford.

Then had some afternoon tea. Well Stu had afternoon tea, I had a late lunch of lamb (it was 15:00). My eating patterns are all over the place on this trip.

At 15:30 we went to the port talk on Hong Kong. Even though we'll be off the cruise it was interesting to see the sorts of tours they have and what sort of destinations they go to, versus what we've done ourselves.

Hong Kong port talk in the Illuminations Theatre

Afterwards spent a couple of hours with a jigsaw, finishing it a bit before 18:00.

Saw the sun for the second time this holiday, so got some photos of it setting.

Sunset over the Korea Strait from Queen Mary 2

Me at sunset on the Queen Mary 2 (one of only two sunsets seen aboard!)

Looking towards the five Queens Grill suites, and The Verandah restaurant on deck 8

Sunset over the Korea Strait from Queen Mary 2

In the evening we had the "meet the captain" welcome drinks party in the Queens Room all in our formal gear. I wore Chrissie's dress to this one. We didn't end up meeting the captain because half the ship was there and the line to meet him they reckoned was about half an hour long. So we didn't bother with that. Had a couple of glasses of bubbly though, but didn't end up talking to anyone else.

Reception with the Captain on Queen Mary 2

Me at the reception with the Captain on Queen Mary 2

Reception with the Captain on Queen Mary 2

For dinner Stu had chicken liver pate, lamb curry and ice cream. I had pumpkin soup which was very nice, a chicken dish which wasn't too bad, and a small creme brulee.

Pablo, our sommelier

Carmello, one of our waiters

Katerina from Riga, one of our waiters

Stu and Me at dinner

Day 9 - Wednesday 22 March - Shanghai

Got woken up at 05:54 by a ship's horn blasting. Then at 06:00 the next door neighbours had an alarm go off (we have a double room, and we can hear the neighbours talking through the door). So no hope of getting back to sleep. So got up and looked out, and we were still in the Yangtzee river (we were meant to have docked at 05:00). We didn't end up docking until around 07:00, so was able to watch the whole thing from our balcony, including seeing Quantum of the Seas docking just before us. The terminal is way out on the Yangtzee River, not on the smaller river in the city that for some reason I was expecting to go to.

Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal

Quantum of the Seas in Shanghai

We had breakfast delivered so we wouldn't have to fight the crowds in the buffet. It was a bit average, although it didn't help that I'd let it get a bit cold while watching us dock.

At 9:30 we disembarked. We had to go to the theatre to get allocated a coach group, and then we got off the ship. And walked into a hall of chaos. We were mixed up with people who were leaving the ship for good, so they were all trying to sort out baggage. And suddenly we lost everyone that had the coloured stickers. We did eventually go out the right exit and through a security check, but then outside there was one solitary sign saying where the Cunard tours were going, but after going that direction the signs stopped and everyone was going outside but there were no coaches out there and we had no idea where to go. Eventually I saw someone with a sticker and asked them and she said she was just following her guide, so asked the guide and she said she was looking for the coaches as well!! Gah!! She asked someone though and it turns out they were around the corner. We were almost the last to board our coach, so that was very stressful.

Also, random camera died. It's been a bit funny with the memory card since I dropped it in Hong Kong Disneyland a year ago - the memory card mechanism got a bit screwy, and the door for the memory card and battery always looked like it wasn't sitting flush. Well as I was getting off (after having downloaded the SD card before we got off), it decided it didn't want to work at all - couldn't read the card - reinsert. Fricken sigh.

And it was raining. And the coach windows were steaming up.

The tour we had was "Free time in three sites" which was described as they give you a map and you have time to explore three different parts of Shanghai. Except the map they gave us was a general tourist map of a huge area of Shanghai. No actual detail of any of the places we went to. So that map was completely useless.

Our first stop was in the financial district, and they gave us an hour and a quarter from 10:45 to 12:00. Which might have been enough to go up either the World Financial Centre, Jin Mao tower or the Shanghai Tower, as they are right next to each other, but Stu wanted to go see the Oriental Pearl Tower. But that's a fifteen minute walk away, twenty to twentyfive if you take a wrong turn or want to stop and take photos. So it was about 11:15 by the time we got there. Which isn't enough time to go up it. Well, it might have been, but only if there were no queues, but you can't tell that from the outside. So we didn't go up it. Instead we went to Starbucks. Yay. Did I mention it was raining? I wanted to go to the bathroom, so found one downstairs, but there were was no toilet paper. I knew this was a possibility, so had brought tissues. But they were in my bag upstairs at Starbucks where Stu was waiting, weren't they. Fricken sigh.

Looking across to the Bund from Mingzhu Roundabout

Disney Store

Mingzhu Roundabout

Oriental Pearl Tower

Walked back along the sky bridge thingie back to the coach.

Shanghai World Financial Centre, Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai Tower

Oriental Pearl Tower and other Shanghai buildings

Our second stop was in the "Old Town" which is a mega tourist trap. Old buildings are all shops and tea houses and I would have enjoyed it except we hadn't had much for breakfast so I was starving and low blood sugar which meant even trying to find something to eat was too hard (no English subtitles pretty much anywhere so there's all this random food you have no idea what it is). Eventually we found a popular dumpling place and had some xiao long bao. Felt infinitely better after that, so we went to the Yu Gardens to have a wander around. Even though it's not very big it's like a little rabbit warren of passages and gates and completely disorienting with a new view through every turn. Would have enjoyed it more if we didn't need to be back at the meeting spot in time for our departure. We got toffee fruit on a stick on the way out which was a bit of fun.

Me and Stu having dumplings for lunch at Yu Garden

Bridge in Shanghai Old City

Yu Garden

Stu with fruit on a stick at Yu Garden

Fangbang Middle Road

Our third stop was at the Bund. In the rain. I didn't even get my big camera out for the last two stops (I took Stu's random camera which he's barely ever used since he uses his phone). Got some pics of the city from the Bund, then wandered most of the way down and back. Would have been sooo much nicer without the rain.

Me and Stu in the rain in Shanghai

Monument to the People's Heroes

The Bund

Shanghai skyscrapers

The Bund

The Bund Bull

The Bund

Then back to the coach by 16:20 (actually we left a bit early because everyone was tired and over the rain and just wanted to get back to the ship).

Scooter raincoats

Getting back onto the ship was a lot easier than getting off it. Just walked straight in and through security and had our passport photocopies scanned on the gangway and straight back onto the ship.

Quantum of the Seas departing Shanghai

Looking towards the five Queens Grill suites, and The Verandah restaurant on deck 8

View of deck 6 and 7 from deck 8 while berthed in Shanghai

Terrace pool in the evening

Chilled out in the room for a while then went to the pub and had a drink and played the trivia again. We got 17/20 this time, but again a table got 20/20.

For dinner Stu had Indonesian chicken salad, cod with oxtail sauce (weird right?) and rocky road (which was a chocolate mousse not rocky road). I had cream of chicken soup which was lovely, steak which was nice enough but a huge meal - much bigger than they normally serve, and creme brulee which sadly hadn't been blow torched so was just liquid on top.

Then crashed into bed.