By riakkim
After months of quite cold weather, spring has finally arrived in Seoul. While the nights are still chilly and the weather is still fickle, the moods of everyone seemed to have brightened with the better weather. Springs songs abound, and popular spring songs such as Busker Busker's Cherry Blossom Ending, HIGH4&IU's Not Spring, Cherry Blossoms, or Love, and Roy Kim's Spring Spring Spring are making their yearly rounds.
The winter jackets have been stowed away as lighter clothes take their place, and its lovely to see pastels, florals, skirts and dresses take their place. And then there are couples, which can be seen even more frequently than before, wearing their matching outfits. And much like cuffing season in the US, there is much talk floating around about who has started dating with the start of spring.
좌천로망스다리 / Yeojwa Cheonro Romance Path
I spent the past weekend in Jinhae, a part of Changwon, located in the very southernmost part of Korea along the shoreline. It's the most famous area in Korea for Cherry Blossoms, and it has many areas filled with Cherry Blossoms and accompanying festivals. We went to the 여좌천로망스다리 (Yeojwa Cheonro Romance Path), the 경화역 벚꽃길 (Gyeonghwa Station Cherry Blossom Road), and 제황산공원 (Jehwangsan Park). Each one was filled with not only cherry blossoms, but stalls upon stalls of food, gifts, and vendors, while the path was full of visitors, all taking pictures, eating, or buying food.
Flower crowns and small fake blossoms adorned the heads of many people, females and males alike, and cute hairpins with chicks or hearts would be clipped on the locks of others. Chatter in many languages filled the area, from Thai to Spanish, and there was an excitement that only 벚꽃 (Cherry Blossoms) seems to bring to people- the magic of standing under a canopy of cherry blossoms with precious friends, lover, and/or family is a feeling hard to describe with words.
경화역 벚꽃길 / Gyeonghwa Station Cherry Blossom Road
The festivals themselves with all the vendors is overwhelming- there are caricaturists, who usually are drawing couples, to food- the overwhelming amounts of food. Korea is already quite well known for its street food, but its difficult to find everything that they sell on the streets in Korea in one spot- if you exclude festivals. Festivals seem to have at least 3-4-5 (if not more) options for each type of food, from crinkle-cut fry covered corn dogs, cheese-filled and ramen-covered corn dogs, fish cakes, green onion pancakes, omuk (fish cakes), chicken skewers, tornado fried potatoes, and more than I can even list.
Jehwangsan Park even had many vendors that had setup a sit-down eating area inside, and were roasting whole pigs outside where they were cooking, and large vats of soups like Kimchi Jjigae. I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of food, but to accompany that heaven was the stress and complete mess of driving around and parking in such a crowded area, with tight spaces to squeeze a car through and equally tight spaces to park.
제황산공원 / Jehwangsan Park
Each place had its own charm, and they were all quite different from each other- Yeojwa Cheonro Romance Path had many lights in different shapes (usually hearts) and was quiet enjoyable at night, when the ambient light lit up the cherry blossoms, sometimes tinging them purple or blue.
Gyeonghwa Station Cherry Blossom Road was known for its train tracks and big KoRail train in the center, and Jehwangsan Park for its "1 year stairs"- with exactly 365 steps to the top of the hill, which was surrounded by cherry Blossoms. While Jehwangsan Park had the least amount of cherry blossoms, they had (probably) the largest festival, which extended for many streets around the area.
Just as spring creeps up throughout Korea from the south, the blossoms have just begun blooming in Seoul, and Peak bloom is expected to be this weekend~ I'll be lucky enough to experience the magic once more, as it marks the unofficial start of spring in Korea~
