Tuesday 27 August - back in Busan, South Korea

Drizzle overnight and early morning as we arrived in Busan but clearing up during breakfast. Pat has yet to make a breakfast appearance in the restaurant, so most people believe I am travelling alone rather than accept my explanation that her absence is because "robes are not allowed in the restaurant".
Blog is falling behind because my portable WiFi is limited to Japan and I am not taking my tablet ashore today - should catch up with publishing tomorrow.
Easy exit from the ship (which was refuelling from ship alongside that was serving such purpose) after the masses, breezed through Immigration and picked up some Korean Won. Plan was for the four of us to taxi up to the UN Memorial Cemetery then taxi & train into the city. Our taxi driver (Mr Kim) was keen, however, and offered us a four hour tour for the equivalent of $A30pp, so off we went. First to the UN Memorial  Cemetery which is beautifully presented with the flags of all 16 participating countries flying (as well as that of the UN). Established in 1951, this is the only UN Cemetery in the world and covers 35 manicured acres with rows of neat stone markers on the graves of those who lost their lives and are buried here. In recent years, a number of the wives of the fallen have also chosen to be buried alongside their husbands - including, the first of them, Mrs Nancy Hummerston from Australia (whose husband of 1 year lost his life soon after arriving at the front). Her cremated remains were buried beside him in 2010 (2 years after she died in 2008, aged 91). 11,000 military dead from the Korean War are interred in this UN Cemetery, including 885 British, 378 Canadians, 462 Turks and 281 Australians. There were many thousands more military deaths, where the bodies were repatriated to their home countries, including almost all the 40,000 Americans who were killed.
We then travelled via Songjeong Beach, a long sandy surf beach (plenty of surfers & surfing lessons in progress), a fishing port area and market to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple. This temple is located on the coast, has a dramatic rocky backdrop and is tied to the legend of a great sea goddess. We all snacked on Hoddeok fried cakes (deep fried, hot and filled with banana and sunflower seeds). By this stage the drizzle had restarted but Mr Kim had umbrellas for those without them. Then up through the foothills via a huge colourful cemetery, with numerous flower stalls on the roadside, an extensive market garden area (with roadside stalls), forested hills, and an area of garden themed restaurants, to Beomeosa Temple. This hilltop temple is more than 1300 years old and features many "prayer halls" (with plenty praying and/or meditating). More than 400,000 attend here for the first new year prayer sessions.
We came back via a specialist crab area. An area of 3 blocks x 3 blocks is given over to shops/stalls selling large red crabs and to restaurants cooking and serving them. We then returned to the ship via areas densely populated with huge high rise apartment towers. We covered a big area in our 4 hour tour and were all quite impressed with what we had seen and what a contrast it had been with the inner city area of multiple markets and market like areas that we had seen eight days earlier. Mr Kim had provided great value for money, as well as saving us from what would otherwise have been quite a wet adventure.
One abiding impression of Busan is that, irrespective of where you are, it is most unlikely you would have to walk more than 100m for a feed.
Soon after we had returned to the ship and had a bite to eat, the drizzle stopped. Our departure from Busan again saw plenty of activity on what is a huge and super busy harbour.
Before dinner we went to a great Latin American dance performance by a couple from Poland, then to another excellent dinner.