Royal Caribbean Cruise to Japan and Korea
This past weekend, we went on our very first cruise trip to Japan and Korea with Royal Caribbean. It was Royal Caribbean’s first cruise that embarked from Shanghai, and we went with 16 other friends — pretty much our entire small group, also known as “WAG” (Wednesday Adult Group). We left Thursday night and came back Tuesday night. We were supposed to be back early Tuesday morning but that’s another story for another day.
Aside from the stressful (and somewhat traumatic) check-in/check-out madness, we had a wonderful time! We visited Fukuoka (Japan), Busan (Korea), and Jeju (Korea). It was loads of fun, especially traveling with friends. And of course, the best part of the trip was the non-stop eating! We came back with a combined weight gain (between the two of us) of 8 pounds!
More on the trip later. Here are some photos from the trip. You can view the entire slideshow or by thumbnails.
 Amazing (and gluten-free) dinner on the cruise!
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 Playing tossing games
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 Royal Carribean’s first cruise from Shanghai
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 Super long line at check-in
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 Rhapsody of the Sea
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 Our “large” stateroom
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 Muster drill
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 Room service breakfast
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 Then breakfast buffet with friends
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 Our royal suite bathroom
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 Just kidding . . . prize for playing Bingo
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 Our friends Thomas and Elaine
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 Part of the Royal Suite
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 We all want to win!
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 Kind of scary looking . . .
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 Our stateroom attendant having fun
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 Greetings from Fukuoka, Japan
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 Sashimi!!
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 Robosquare in Fukuoka
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 Kid demonstrating a robot using Lego Mindstorms!
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 Pachinko, a popular game in Japan. We wanted to play but couldn’t figure out how to play.
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 One of the many tempos in Japan
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 Sakura
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 Next stop — Busan, Korea
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 Waterfall inside the Busan Lotte Hotel
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 Gukje (International Market) in Busan
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 Our first authentic Korean lunch
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 The cucumber guy selling cucumber slicer on the subway
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 Krispy Kreme in Korea!
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 Kimchi chocolate!!!! (eww. . .)
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 Dinner on the cruise with friends
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 Dinner on the cruise with friends
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 Taking pictures of food so we know what to order.
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 Visting a cave
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 Mary, Annie, and Marybeth before entering a cave
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 Not really supposed to be back there . . . hee hee
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 Not quite natural formation . . . or perhaps “intelligent design”
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 The WAG gang
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 Constantly thinking about food
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 Too much to eat . . .
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 Jae-Am Folk village
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 More food!
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 A peacock’s butt
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 The prettier side
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 Mandarin duck
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 Hallim Park in Jeju, Korea
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 The famous Korean soap opera “Da Chang Jin” was filmed here
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 Black sand beach
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 Not sure what Thomas is doing . . .
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 The karate kid
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 Interesting rock formation
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 Elaine and Marybeth, the hobbits
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 The WAG gang
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 Korean BBQ
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 Jeju is a beautiful island
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 Annie rowing a “boat”
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 Mary and Annie in the field
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 Our waiters
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 Our head waiter who arranged amazing gluten-free meals for Jason
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 Indoor swimming pool
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 Lobby of the cruise
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 Broadway theater
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 Most unfortunate last memory of our cruise — being dropped off in some back alley of Puxi with no bus, subway, or taxi anywhere . . . walking 30 minutes in pouring rain
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 with all our suitcase, strollers, bags, . . . and 2 kids to a subway station.
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