A Bit of Busan….

Having moved nearer to the port, our journey to the international ferry terminal didn’t take long at all.

Reflecting on the micropig experience, I felt very overwhelmed with sadness, it wasn’t the right thing to do. I really shouldn’t have done it it, but it was a learning experience and I won’t ever be tempted again.

Although the ferry to Korea would only take about 6 1/2 hours, we had a bed allocated to us. The rooms held 8 people, roll out futons and bedding. I had shuddered at the thought of doing it for the evening journey, which takes over sixteen hours. But, I felt so tired I went up to the room for a sleep and no one was there. Eventually people did trickle in, but everyone was very respectful of each others space. Although, I was apparenty snoring!

 

We had about 5 pounds of Japanese money left. It paid for chocoltae, two ice creams and crisps. Which kept us going!

We were going to go to the karaoke room, but it wasn’t open once I had woken up. It would have been a great thing to do.

Luckily the journey was very smooth, the passage can be very much otherwise, so I felt relief about that.

Nobody really went out on the deck to see islands as we passed them. or the skyline of Busan as we got nearer. It was still warm outside  but the breeze was gorgeous!

We were certainly taken back as how big Busan is. However, with a population of nearly 3 and half million, it would be pretty big.

Getting the buses to where we were staying was also a breeze, by this point it was getting quite late in the day. So, our ability to navigate Busan’s vast transport system was something to be very proud of.

So, of course, pride comes before a fall, and the next part of our journey was quite stressful. Having reached where we shoud have been staying, we were stood by a deserted piece of land. It crossed our minds that perhaps it hadn’t been built yet, like some 1970s Spanish throwback!

The  problem was that the hotel existed but didn’t exist! We asked people for help,  and everyone went completely out of their way to help. Eventually, an elderly cafe owner, tracked down a young customer who spoke English. He pointed us the right way.

A sky rise of around 20 odd floors, each apartment is owned by different hotels, so the one next to us and opposite are not linked at all to Ciel de Mer, so that caused the issue.

Hooray!!!!! Finally in, we could rest and put our feet up.

But of course that didn’t happen…..The ‘hotel’ was self check in, which meant there was an electronic keypad on the door. We had done this several times in other places and it had been seamless. But because we were tired, everything conspired to confuse us. It didn’t work at all.

We couldn’t ring the number up as our phones wouldn’t let us, Pete eventually went to try and find someone in the building. He found someone who owned a shop, who again was very helpful. She rang  the number and I think had put the fear of good into the person who oversees the hotel here.

At the same moment I managed to open the room, a very stressed Korean woman ran down the corridor, to help.She insisted on carrying all the bags into the room, saying that several customers had,had the same issue that day. I was releived. as I thought I had been stupid or Pete had, it was basically the computer saying no!

This is by far the best place we have stayed so  far, it’s pretty amazing, so  the initial stress of trying to find it etc was soon a distant memory.