My husband and I got a break from Japanese temples, shrines, and gardens during our one-day visit to Busan, Korea, where part of the tour featured the famous Jagalchi Fish Market. Do you think the bench by the door of the market was designed for men waiting for their wives buying seafood inside?

As for us, we were strictly window shopping as we walked up and down the aisles of the fish market. After all, what would we do with fresh seafood on a cruise ship? Not that I saw anything all that tempting. In fact, I didn’t recognize a lot of what was for sale. Some type of crab in the picture below?

I did find it interesting that many stalls of the Jagalchi Fish Market, the largest in the country, are operated by women. The tradition began during the Korean War, when husbands were off fighting, requiring wives to earn a living for the family.

Near the Jagalchi Fish Market is the Gukje (International) Market, which started operating in 1950 during the Korean War as a place for war refugees to make a living. Since Busan is Korea’s largest port city, the market imported military supplies for the U.S. armies, which is why the market was named Gukje, Korean for international.

The market provided an opportunity for a little bit of souvenir shopping. (You can see how excited my husband is by shopping excursions. He’s the guy in the pink shirt gazing at the sky.)

I say a little bit of souvenir shopping because a majority of what was sold were household and everyday clothing items, not the sort of keepsake a tourist wants. I did manage to buy a souvenir magnet to add to my collection.

I passed on the food for sale in a stall at the market, though it looked to be a healthy lunch option.

I haven’t gone in chronological order in describing our day in Busan but saved the most significant highlight of the day, actually our first stop, to talk about last. The United Nations Memorial Cemetery, the only UN memorial cemetery in the world, is the sacred, final resting place of UN Forces who served during the Korean War.

Over 2,300 casualties from thirteen countries are interred in the cemetery. Flags from all these different countries are displayed at the cemetery. I appreciated that our Korean guide for the day thanked our group, mostly made up of Americans, for coming to the aid of South Korea in the Korean War.

The United Nations flag is raised each day at 10 a.m. and lowered at 4 p.m. We were there to witness the solemn morning ceremony.

Our ship was docked in the harbor, waiting for us as we returned from our excursion. The Celebrity Millennium would take us back to Japan for the final days of our tour.