Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Sakura no mori no mankai no shita

While the cherry blossom season is famous in Japan, I hadn't realised before coming to Korea that it is also a noted period in the calendar here as well, if somewhat more low-key. There seemed to be a sense amongst my Korean Family and friends that we should go and view the blossom - given that there isn't much of it to see in downtown Busan - but it never quite came to pass. Anyway, the roads to Namhae were lined with cherry blossom when I travelled there last week, and between that and the trees on the PNU campus I felt like I'd had the experience.

Despite this, we went to a park in Eulsukdo at the weekend in what was probably a final attempt to appreciate the first signs of spring. There was some cherry blossom although much of it was fading, but the park was awash with colour anyway - the yellow of rapeseed. Korean heads bobbed up and down amongst the flowers taking photos of one another, in what seems to be something of a modern spring tradition. It wasn't long before we immersed ourselves in the foliage to do the same, and I spent most of the rest of the day trying to get yellow pollen out of my clothes for the trouble.

It says something about the local geography that I didn't even realise Eulsukdo was an island until later. We got there over a six-lane highway bridge which spanned about fifty meters of what I assumed was river but in retrospect must have been classed as sea. Apparently the whole area is part of a river delta but you probably have to be up one of the nearby mountains to get a real sense of this.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of customer service.. a Korean guy was upset over his KT cellphone so he rammed his rented Mercedes through the front door of the KT HQ.

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200704/200704110021.html

Mike said...

KT Cellphone Guy Link

I saw that on KBS News too. It feels like Korea's developing Japan's social problems, or maybe some 'salarymen' were always on a short fuse here and I just didn't realise?

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