What a morning!
Trip Start
Sep 10, 2007
1
86
95
Trip End
Ongoing
Busan,
Korea Rep.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
So we got up at 6 and headed off happily for the bus stop. We found it no problem and hopped on the no. 11 bound for the ferry port...so we thought anyway.... After a half an hour on the bus we became suspicious as to why we hadn't reached the port yet or seen even a seagull, not to mind a bit of water!! So we asked the bus driver in our best Japanese and he told us we were on the wrong bus, well the right bus but going in the wrong direction...feck us anyway...
1 or 2 cranes....
. We now only had 20 mins to get to the port so it was a major panic. We wouldn't have enough yens either as we had that calculated to a tee, how much we needed, bad idea. This situation never happpened to us before, so we were really disappointed with ourselves, someone must have spiked our sushi!!!!! Anyway we flagged a taxi down (taxis in japan are notoriously expensive and not an hour earlier, before we had realised we were on the wrong bus Orla had been saying how good we were that we hadn't taken a single taxi while we were there, she jinxed us!!!!). Anyway, the taxi stopped and the lovely Japanese man with a car you could eat off of, a dickie bow and sparkling white driving gloves on smiles at us as if to ask where do ye want to go? Then the games began.........Our Japanese has never been our strong point, so we knew we were in it deep when he couldnt speak english. First up Orla tries saying to him "International Port, and Ferry and Beetle ( the name of the ferry we were getting), He would repeat every word but didnt have a clue if we were clucking or cackling. Like a tag team Orla leaned out of the window and Kieran leaned in. Kieran began by sketching a picture of a ship, unfortunately his art skills seem to be a little on the rusty side, and the message did not transmit. So Orla came back with her second wind and says "Korea", bingo, the old one word tactic had worked again. Phew! Well in fairness to the taxi driver he made some time getting to the port, passing out, ducking in and out of lanes he really did his level best for us and fair play to him he got us there on time
anyone for lunch!!!yuck!
. So we got to the port at 8am just on time and the next problem was would the checkin take mastercard, visa or US dollars, as we had no yen left. We needed to pay about 8Euros each for the fuel surcharge. We were really worried about this as anywhere we went in Japan they didn't take credit car, its hard to believe as they spend so much money here but its mainly a cash society.So we weren't confident that they would take mastercard and we would be stuck again. Well, as luck would have it there was a money exchange at the port. (O! as well international ATM's are very hard to find here in Japan, you have to know where they are as they are usually tucked away in a back st post office or somewhere remote like that.)
So Orla queued for the check in and Kieran went to change some US Dollars, but then we realised that they do actually take mastercard-we won! problem solved.
So we checked in, went through immigration and boarded the boat, set to depart at 9am - Phew!! we made it. We could hardly believe it when we were sitting on the boat, that was the closest encounter yet!
The end of Japan though, it was a fast 2 weeks but porbably the most rewarding country to travel in. The people here are its best quality, they are so helpful and nice. WOW! we have alot to learn from there attitude towards each other. You see business men bowing to each other on the street, they have huge respect for other people.
