I Am A Celebrity!: Cruising in Japan

WAIT WHAT? South Korea! Why would I include a blog about South Korea in a series about our cruise around Japan? Because we "stopped" there. 😎 Sort of. If you look at a map, it is well over 300 miles all the way across the Sea of Japan from Fukuoka to Sokcho, and probably less than that to just continue northeast around the Japanese Island. While I cannot authoritatively explain this, I think much of it has to do with maritime laws, fees and penalties, rather than a burning desire for HAL to add one, single stop in South Korea. My research didn't unearth a "straight" answer, but I do know that the U.S. "Jones Act " and certain related laws exact a heavy penalty on a non-U.S. flagged ship with a majority of non-U.S. citizens as crew members, if they go from U.S. port to U.S. port. I guess until somebody smarter than me enlightens me, I will go with the thought that the same may hold true for the Japanese cruise. For whatever reason, it is my understanding that during the cruise embarking from and terminating in Japan, the ship must make at least one port that is not in Japan. Previous cruises actually stopped in Busan South Korea. Recently that port changed to Sokcho. That may well be a good thing, going forward. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this city on the border between South and North Korea.

SOKCHO's POPULATION is right around 80,000 (the geographical area). That's not huge, and the city itself felt very compact. It is apparently a popular tourist hub for Korea, and that is probably mostly on account of its nice beaches, and surrounding mountains and natural resources. Before becoming a major Korean port, Sokcho was a small, fishing village. It is also - I think significantly - the closest city to the border between North Korea and South Korea, along the coast.

THAT MEANS, of course, that it is also very close to the DMZ. I suppose there is a certain "pilgrimage" to that part of the country. I wanted to go, but there were no tours left by the time we got around to signing up. Instead, we got a nice tour of the small city, with a few of its landmarks.

I HAVE said before that one of the high points of any cruise for me is the ability to photograph from the top deck of the cruise ship. This is nowhere truer than in the various ports we visit around the world. A favorite activity for me is to be out on the deck as we enter a port (assuming it is daylight). I also love to photograph a sunset at or before the sail away, or if we are already in darkness, nighttime images of the port and city.

Tour Buses, staged and waiting
Cruise Port - Sokcho, S. Korea - Copyright Andy Richards 2024 - All Rights Reserved

SOKCHO IS no exception, and it was actually probably my favorite photographic port of the entire cruise. Not only was there a nice harbor area with the city in the background, but on one end, there was Sokcho's iconic and photogenic lighthouse, and at the other, the ubiquitous Ferris wheel. They make nice points of interest, and I knew that we would be in port after dark. While the daytime pictures were nice, I looked forward to making some nighttime images, before we pulled away. Like most of our other ports so far, there was a contingent of local performers there to greet us as we docked. They would also be there to bid us farewell later that evening.

Seolak Bridge (main span over the Lagoon Channel) - Sokcho Port
Sokcho, S. Korea - Copyright Andy Richards 2024 - All Rights Reserved

ONE UNIQUE feature of the Sokcho Port is the twin bridges that cross canals into one of the two lakes for which Sokcho was once noted for its proximity - as a fishing village. There are two spans: one at the main channel into the lagoon and a second span to the north, crossing a second channel into the lagoon. The daytime color of the primary bridge is red. The second span is blue. At night, that changes, especially in the most prominent, main span. A couple Decembers back, I photographed one of the primary bridges into Tampa, Florida at night, and was very much taken by the changing colors of the bridge. The Sokcho Bridge had the same characteristic (as did the Ferris wheel), and it nice to have enough time before sailing away, to be able to wait to record the different colored scenes.

ON SHORE, there were a couple of interesting sites, including a pier out to a traditionally designed and decorated gazebo, with a nice view to the Sokcho Light.

AFTER WANDERING the street for a few minutes after seeing the light, we re-boarded the bus and headed for Sokcho's Municipal Museum and (replica) Village for Displaced Citizens. As always, I found the bright colors used in advertising and signage in the retail areas throughout Asia interesting to my photographic eye. While less oriented to cartoon and digital cartoonery than in Japan, the Koreans still make use of large graphics and graphic models in their displays. We saw this everywhere we went - along with the accompanying bright colors.

WE LEARNED from our guide that at one time a substantial majority of the population of Sokcho were displaced North Korean citizens. While they probably no longer make up the majority, Sokcho's inhabitants are often descendants of their North Korean ancestors, and the city is still very much influenced by North Korean culture including food, architecture, and other things. The Municipal Museum's, interior was kind of "ho-hum." I did find the traditional Korean structures in the "village" interesting. These were presumably housing for North Korean refuges for many years after the separation of the country into north and south. Though originally designated as part of the south, Sokcho was briefly captured by North Korea and became part of the north. Shortly, however, the South Koreans recaptured it, and it has remained part of the sovereign territory of South Korea since then.

Sokcho Municipal Museum - Displaced Citizen Replica Village
Sokcho, S. Korea - Copyright Andy Richards 2024 - All Rights Reserved

WE ALSO were treated to one of the seemingly omnipresent drumming ceremonies. We had good seats and it was fun to watch. The "dancers?" were very athletic. I made a few pictures, but not was as interesting to me as the closeup here. The dancer was signaling us that he was having trouble hearing our enthusiastic applause. 😀

WE FINISHED our day with a stop for about an hour in the city marketplace. Like many of these places, it was very crowded. For our part, we did a quick walk-through and went in search of an ATM machine. We had a difficulty finding one, and difficulty getting any help, as English did not appear to be widely spoken and our Korean was non-existent. :-). We wanted to get some Korean currency to tip our guide. In the end, she was happy enough to accept our U.S. dollars.

WHEN I first started writing this blog, I promised the occasional (sometimes funny) story, or anecdote. This one is not - on its own at least - all that interesting or humorous. With the accompanying photo, however, it becomes mildly funny. Good enough to tell, I guess. I think I may have mentioned here (or in a recent post about this cruise) that this was only the HAL Westerdam's second stop in Sokcho. Even though our guide was a Korean citizen (interestingly, originally from North Korea), the city was relatively new to her. Before she took us into the market, she stopped us at an intersection on one of the main streets, and pointed out a coffee shop (which, it turns out, was part of a chain, so they were on multiple intersections, as we discovered later) as our meeting point to re-board the bus. Once we were in the marketplace, her directions upon leaving were not crystal clear, and our group ended up in two separate groups, one which found their way back to the original meet point; and us :-) a group who thought we had followed her directions. Fortunately for us, we ran into her on the street, but she seemed to be a bit lost herself. She communicated with the bus driver and asked us to stay where we were. She then left in search of the other half of the group. The image below is made from across the street where we eventually waited for the bus to "rescue" us. While there was some consternation from some of our group, it all ended well.

BACK ON board, we took a couple hours to rest (in my case, smoke a cigar on the back deck), and get ready for dinner. We did not pull away from Sokcho until 10:00 p.m., which gave me yet another opportunity to take my camera and tripod out on deck and try my hand at some more nighttime photographs.

AS I mentioned earlier, this was one of the best ports we visited in terms of its photogenic potential. I took as full advantage as I could. As we sailed away, I thought about our one and only stop in South Korea. I enjoyed it and would have loved to travel again to South Korea one day. For now, this would have to suffice as our only visit to a new country on this trip.

I Am A Celebrity!

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Cruising in Japan - Sokcho, South Korea

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