Before coming to Korea, cherry blossoms had always been something I’d heard about in Washington, D.C. Little did I know that come spring time, this country goes cherry blossom-crazy. Streets in seemingly every city are lined with the trees, and they’re planted all over parks across the country. They seem to be everywhere.
After what’s felt like a rather long winter, it was nice to see some flowers. And while there’s plenty of the trees in my neighborhood in Ulsan, the urban backdrop isn’t very picturesque. So I went searching…
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First stop: Daegu
Walking through a park in Daegu on a Saturday evening, the trees looked quite nice lit from below.
The most popular place in the country to see the blossoms is the festival in Jinhae, a small city west of Busan. After reading reports online of four-hour traffic back-ups to get to the festival, I decided I’d just try my luck in Busan. But where? I referred to my tourist map of the city, and thought the green-covered islands in the south looked pretty promising.
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Stop #2: Yeongdo island, Busan
As it turned out, the island is really big – a small city in itself, really – and not quite the natural paradise all of that green on the map had me envisioning. Walking around, I felt more the quaintness of a small coastal town than the rest of metropolitan Busan. We followed some narrow streets up and down steep hills, where houses disappeared down tiny alleyways, their cement walls covered in many different brightly colored paints. After about an hour of trying to follow signs to the ‘Jeoryeong coastal pathway,’ I finally found my way to the green part of the map.
While the excursion was a total failure in terms of finding cherry blossoms, it was still a spring afternoon very well-spent. The pathway goes along the rocky coastline, up and down tons and tons of steps set into the sides of the cliffs facing the ocean.
On one of the beaches there were a bunch of ajummas selling raw fish and soju. Amongst the seafood being sold out of their colorful plastic buckets was something terrible looking called dog penis. Gross.
There were several other people hiking, including a group of Koreans behind my friend and I that had obviously been drinking (which seemed a rather unwise decision for all of the steep steps up and down cliffs they were navigating). One of the men kept offering to take my friend and my’s picture, even though we weren’t asking. He also wanted to take our picture kissing, which we weren’t too keen on. But he was persistent, so eventually we told him we were brother and sister. At that, they all seemed very embarrassed, and his wife bought us both an ice cream.
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Number 3: Hakseong Park
This park is just down the street from my apartment in Ulsan, but for some reason I had never been. My first week in Ulsan, one of my co-teachers told me something about how “only old people go there,” and I guess it made me less eager to explore. As it turns out, it’s absolutely beautiful in spring and full of cherry blossoms.
Needless to say, I’m glad I finally decided to check it out.
A sunny evening in the park, surrounded by flowering trees and floating flower petals. What could be better?
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Stop #4: Gyeongju, Bomun Lake
My final excursion to take in the cherry blossoms was to Gyeongju, Korea’s ancient capital and rather conveniently Ulsan’s neighbor to the north. Joining what seemed like a quarter of Korea’s population in Gyeongju on a warm Sunday afternoon, I hopped on a bus to the resort-y Bomun Lake.
The lake was crowded, but still beautiful. Most of the lake was lined with restaurants, motels, noraebangs, and places to rent bicycles and ATVs, which reminded me a bit of some Michigan towns along the Great Lakes.
Gyeongju World and the hot air balloon experience provide the fancy entertainment on the lake. The hot air balloon looked like a total rip-off to me, as you never actual detach from the rope holding you to the ground and just kind of float for a while.
Duck paddle boats filled one part of the lake. Please note the mommy duck in the back.
It’s been a very pretty couple of weeks, but the cherry blossoms in Ulsan are officially dead. There’s actually a site that tracks the cherry blossom progress across the country, and I hear they’re just starting to open up in Seoul. But I think I’m finished chasing them. At least after these past few weekends, I won’t be associating cherry blossoms solely with D.C. anymore.
Annie Around the World 
