As I wrote in my previous post, this is cherry blossom season in Korea. Actually, the term "cherry blossom" is a little reductive since different kinds of spring flowers are blossoming, which makes Korea even more beautiful at this time of the year. You can admire these flowers in a lot of places, there are even a few world-famous festivals, but the cool thing is you just need to go out in the street to see blossoming trees like this one.
In the Busan area, there are quite a few good spots to enjoy the view of cherry blossoms. Last week, I walked up the road from Haeundae Beach to Dalmaji Hill, which is famous for its beautiful cherry blossoms. It's in town, so cars may ruin your pictures, but it's quite pleasant to take a walk there.
You may also want to go a little further, which we did last weekend, at Daejeo Ecological Park. A festival will take place there in a few days (Nakdong River Yuchae Flower Festival) but we chose to go earlier for fear that it may be too crowded then. In fact, it's already pretty busy, and the festival hasn't started yet:
To get there without being stuck in traffic, take line number 3 of the subway, get off at Gangseo-gu Office station and take exit 1 or 3. You just need to follow the signs (and the crowd) and you'll be there in about ten minutes. This article describes the place as "lovely busan countryside." Well, I wouldn't exactly call this "countryside", but it's still pretty charming.
These places and festivals are very popular. The view is stunning, and it gives you an opportunity to take dozens of pictures and selfies (don't forget your tripods and selfie sticks if you go there).
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| Even evil wizards fall under the spell of the place. |
As you can see in these pictures, and as I said before, it's not only about cherry blossoms, even if that tree-lined alley, albeit crowded, is really beautiful. You can also admire canola/rape flower gardens (sorry, I'm not sure what difference, if any, there is between canola and rape flower) spreading as far as the eye can see, stroll through a bamboo grove, and we even found a few tulips.
On top of that, even if the Nakdong River Yuchae Flower Festival only started a few days after we visited, we could already enjoy a concert given by an apparently nationally famous singer performing famous Korean hits that seemed to delight the audience very much, judging by the number of people standing on their chair and dancing. There were also a few food vendors selling traditional Korean food. Only on the way back did I stumble upon that "insect repellent auto sprayer" machine.That could make it to my list of things I had never seen before moving to Korea. It's ok that I didn't use it, though, apparently it isn't needed in the spring, only in the summer.
In short, the view was beautiful, the mood was good and I really enjoyed it. And I'm happy that I'll have the opportunity to visit a lot of other such places every year when cherry blossom season is back.
