Jinchon Ferry

UPDATE: Jinchon pictures are up as you can see. Here's the slideshow and set page.

An early morning bus and subway ride brought us to the port of Incheon. After much ado with tickets and customs (complete with a security guard noting our 'good looks' and caressing my arm hair), we were aboard our cruise ship.

Accommodations were comfortable in room 303, bunks 13 & 14. We were free to wander the ship along with the many Korean and Chinese passengers (plus 8 foreigners). We began our long voyage with our last Korean meal; Dol-Sot-Bibimbap.

On the deck we met Steve and Rachel - two foreigners who've lived in Montreal for three years, having emigrated from the UK. He's and architect, she's a neuro-scientist; smart folks! (not to mention kind and generous). Moving to the gallery, we sat and exchanged travel stories, lamenting the troubles and relishing the joys we've had living in foreign countries. They're traveling East Asia for 5 weeks - returning to Montreal and moving back to the UK.

The ship itself was huge, but contained more cargo than passengers. We cruised at 37 km/h according to my GPS. There were plenty of areas to relax, drink, and dine besides our 0.7x0.7x2.1 meter bunk beds.

Google Earth

Martha (Mary's Mom) reminded me of Google Earth; software that lets you explore the earth using satellite images. It's free and fun and can be downloaded here. (Google bought out a company named Keyhole that designed this software.)

I spent some time and made a rough map of our travel route.The image above is a space view of our route. If you download and install the software, you can also download our route for viewing. I created some static maps that you can see by clicking "West Map" or "East Map" beside the flags at the top of this page.

Insurance Purchased, Visas Issued

The other day we bought our travel insurance. We didn't get any for our year in Korea, but this is a little more involved travel-wise. The problem with getting travel insurance is that it's usually assumed that you're leaving from your home country. Well, of course, that isn't our situation. To our rescue comes, http://worldnomads.com/. They offered exaclty what we wanted:

• they didn't care about where we live
  
• we can insure individual items (iPods, cameras, backbacks, GPS, etc)
• andthey have decent coverage at a reasonable price

These are our specific benefits (for my mom's peace of mind):

Overseas Medical Expenses	AUD $10,000,000
Emergency Dental Treatment	AUD $500
Medical Evacuation/Additional Expenses	AUD $1,000,000
Cancellation Costs	AUD $20,000
Personal Liability	AUD $5,000,000
Burial/Cremation Expenses	AUD $12,000
Standard Luggage and Personal Effects	AUD $5,000

It's based in Australia, hence the currency. We also paid a percentage for the extra electronic items we wanted insured.

For a grand total of $509. That's for three months, Aug 30 - Nov 29th.

Also, we've been emailed that our visas have been issued; our passports are waiting for us at the tourist agency.

It's getting so close we can taste it...