Cherry Blossom jeans, boots with the furrrr... (Part 1)

As I mentioned in a recent post, Saturday I had the opportunity to visit the cherry blossom festival in Yeouido with Randy and some of the girls from school. Needless to say we had a fabulous time!

Our outing started out a little on the disappointing side as we got off the subway to find ourselves in a rather large park, with perhaps a dozen cherry blossom trees, and about a million people.

Was this what we had heard all this hype about?

We tried to make the best of our situation. It was after all a beautiful day and the park really was wonderful even if the cherry blossoms were a little underwhelming. I set to work taking pictures anyway so I would have something to show for myself after promising pictures in my last post. We got a few really nice group shots of all the girls, (It seems that Randy was always the one holding the camera in these situations -- hmmm... ) and I snuck some pictures of tiny Korean children being cute in the part, as I am sometimes apt to do. I realise now, years later, that my trip to Belgium was poorly documented when it comes to pictures... I'm not going to have that problem with Korea! Ha!

And to be fair, there were a few cherry blossoms in the park, as well as a flower here and there, although most of the other flowers weren't in full bloom yet.

We also got to see some things that I thought brought a distinctly Asian flavour to the excursion. These two pictures are among my favourites. This man was just chillin' on the side of the road outside the subway, eating an ear of corn. I'm not sure if he really wanted his picture taken, but now he's famous! He just looks so quaint.

There was also a gaggle of Korean girls that wanted their picture taken with Randy's beard. I was just walking along near the front of the group minding my own business in front of the group when out of no where he was kidnapped by the paparazzi! Good thing I'm so fierce looking and could save him from the Korean hoards. We get a lot of attention when we're out walking. Korean men seem to feel the need to talk to us for some reason. I believe its 1/2 because I'm a white woman, which seems to be quite attractive to the average middle aged Korean man, and 1/2 because they are jealous of the fact that even if they never shaved again, their facial hair would never be as magnificent as Randy's!

I though this little boy picking at flowers was just too precious. He reminds me of those crying dolls that my mom used to like so much when we went to the flee market at the mall on Sundays. His mom was crouched down behind him taking his picture too, so I just snuck in behind her and took a quite shot. I guess she though that he was pretty cute too.

The stone man in the chair is one of the most famous people in Korean history. His name is King Sejong and he invented the Korean alphabet. (You can read more about him here.) He's a really big deal in Korea, and I've learned about him in two separate courses that I teach at SLP. Its so great to also be learning new things while I'm teaching! :)

There was a huge Korean flag flying in the distance, which in this picture does not look as big unfortunately. I guess I still have some work to do on the picture taking front. Not a photographer yet! To console myself for my lack of picture taking ability I took a silly picture of the girls on a bench. The peace sign by the eyes means, CUTIE! :)

One of the next things on my list of things to do before Randy leaves Korea is to rent a bicycle built for two and look as cute as these couples did riding around in the park. If you look closely you'll notice that the girl in the second picture was actually posing for the picture as I was taking it. Cutie!

Naturally where there are millions of people looking at cherry blossoms snacks will be in abundance. There were some 'regular' snacks like cotton candy and ice cream, but also some less regular snacks like this man selling silk worm pupa and some snail looking creatures.

There had been a lot to see, even though we were disappointed with the lack of cherry blossoms at this supposed cherry blossom festival. We were starting to feel a little discouraged, until we saw....

To be continued...