Cherry Blossoms in Korea | From Korea With Love

Last week my friends went on a last hurrah trip to the beautiful city of Gyeongju (same place I’ll be doing my race in next week). Laura and Analie left Korea this past weekend, so it was a last epic trip with them. Plus it’s spring, the cherry blossoms were starting to blossom and we wanted to ride some scooters. The trip in summary:

Matt forgot his licence before getting on the bus so he had to take a different bus while we waited at a cafe in Gyeongju for him.
Far from where we rented the scooters (aka the bus station), Analie got a flat tire.
Waited for 2 hours, while they arguably did the worst job in getting that tire fixed, then replaced the whole bike with another after pushing for the guy to come to us and stop wasting our time.
Had an amazing lunch of tteokgalbi 떡갈비, and got filmed and interviewed by a TV station crew.
Went to a traditional festival near downtown, and found Yujeong’s friend who works at SBS and got filmed again!
Matt and Laura were interviewed by a reporter.
Yujeong haggled with the ajossi until Analie got her $5 back that she paid for, trying to get the scooter fixed by owner’s friend.

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Cherry Blossoms

While some Koreans were out voting for the National Assemblies election, Matt, Dave and I decided to visited the beautiful little city of Jinhae. It was a bit past peak season, but Jinhae is the place to go if you want to fall in love with cherry blossom trees, or bott kkott namu (벚꽃 나무) they are called. Watching of cherry blossom was introduced to Korea during Japanese rule. While Japan has been known to present countries with cherry blossom trees as gifts, it was also used as a means to claim occupied territory (source).

Jinhae History

Jinhae (진해구), located a 2 hour’s drive from Daegu, in a bay on Korea’s south coast. It’s a small city, of roughly around 170,000 people. The Japanese planted many cherry trees to beautify the city following their occupation of Korea as they simultaneously transformed Jinhae into a naval port. The port is still a famous spot in Jinhae, and hosts the Jinhae Gunhangjae (군항제), or Naval Port Festival. The festival has been commemorating Admiral Yi Sun-si (이순신) since 1952, a navy admiral who fought against the Japanese back in the 1500’s.

Yeojwa Stream

Yeojwa Stream (여좌천) was by far my favorite spot! It is a popular couple’s place (::snort:: what isn’t in Korea?). It is also called “Romance Bridge”, which has been used as a shooting location for “Romance,” a drama starring Kim Ha-nul and Kim Jae-won.

Yeojwa Stream was number #17 in CNN’s 50 Beautiful places to Visit in Korea. It’s just beautiful, for a long stretch, a small stream is surrounded on both sides by cherry blossom trees. It encases the stream, and you feel like it’s snowing petals. So so romantic. At night, they apparently turn lights on and the blossoms glow agains the dark sky. Maybe next year, I’ll have to stop by and check it out ^_^

Jinhae Tower

Jinhae Tower is built on top of the small mountain called Je-Hwang Mountain (90m elevation) near the city center of Jinhae. There are 365 steps, called “year stairway”. We were brave enough to walk to the top. And it was sooooo worth it! We stopped at one point to sit and breathe in the pine trees and look at the cherry blossoms. Perfection!