Korea in bloom

Spring suddenly descended on Korea. Birds are tweeting, children are laughing, and the cherry blossoms are blooming.


The thing about cherry blossom trees is that they make you feel lucky. Lucky because you were able to catch them for the few days a year the blossoms are on the tress. As soon as they bloom they start dying. The light pink petals dusting the ground everywhere I go are evidence of that.  A cherry blossom's life span is about a week. Some of the trees in my neighborhood that looked like fluffy pink clouds last week are as bare as they were in the dead of winter. Gone. Like it never happened.


It did happened though, and I have the pictures to prove it. I have 137 pictures actually, but I've plucked a few of my favorites out to show you here. I'll upload the rest to Facebook for those of you who get enough of flowery landscapes. 


This festival was in a small city southwest of Ulsan, where I live.  It took about 2 hours by bus to get to Jinhae. It was a pleasant trip and I enjoyed the landscape through my little window. Getting back to Ulsan was quite an adventure. We had to take a bus to Busan, which took about an hour and a half, and since in Korea it's ok to sell WAY more tickets than you have seats for, we had to stand in the aisle. I was not pleased. Then we jumped on the subway for 45 minutes to take us to a bus station with buses going to Ulsan. Then, after a bus ride that seemed like it took 10 years we arrived in Ulsan. It was a long night but the lovely day trip was worth it.


So, This is the 진해 (Jinhae) Cherry Blossom Festival.

Korea in a nutshell.

I like this picture a lot because the city was actually really beautiful
from the observation deck. You can't really tell from the
picture but the blues and orange rooftops looked like sprinkles.

Korea is really into artificial streams. Sometimes they suck but
sometimes they're perfect, like this one.

Up close and personal.