Spring Time in Korea

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Spring time in Korea

Well last weekend I was suppose to go with the Kunsan hiking club on their continuing trek along the Bek Do De Gan trail, the group was leaving Saturday night at 9:00 pm to start the hike at 3:00 am Sunday morning, the hiking club uses two big buses to carry all the hikers. I had to go up to Seoul for a meeting on Friday and visit with my girlfriend on Saturday. When I went to work on Monday I was told by my friend that the club did not do their hike, seems like there was an accident. The back bus ran into the front bus, which left the front bus stuck, so the hiking club had a party and drank.

So this weekend was kinda the peak for the Cherry Blossoms, Kunsan had two festivals this weekend, and Seoul has a large group of Cherry trees around the National Assembly. Saturday morning I walked to Eunpa Park, which would host one of Kunsans festivals, and walked around and took in the sights till about 10:00 am. I then drove to the town of Iksan to catch the KTX, the bullet train, to Seoul to check out the National Assembly, it was amazing, with all the trees in bloom and a nice fragrance in the air, until you pass a vendor selling boiled silk worm larva. The National Assembly is by the river so there were a lot of people flying kites; one guy had a string with about 50 kites stacked together. I called a fellow worker, the new NICET sprinkler guy, and met him and his wife for diner at a Mexican restaurant. After diner I went back to the train station hoping to catch the KTX back to Iksan, but I missed it, so I got the regular train back home. This train takes twice as long, 3 hours compared to the 1 ½ KTX ride. So I get home at around 2:30 am Sunday morning.

Sunday I went to the second festival in Kunsan, this festival had fewer trees but more booths. It was quite the show, with all the food and game booths. The game booths were very interesting, I saw two, one you have t throw darts and the other you had to shoot a BB machine gun, the prize….liquor, the winner had a choice of either wine or whisky.

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Photos

Eunpa Park
The main road around Eunpa Park

Magnolia Trees?
I think these are Magnolia trees close to my apartment

Joging trail
This is the jogging trail around Eunpa Park

Reflection
I thought this would be a cool picture looking into the mirror

Some of the visitors
Seems to me that it was not as croweded as last year, even with the great weather.

Kites
This is the long train of kites

Night time
At night they up light the Cherry Blossums with different colored lights

Kunsan Festival
This is the dart game, notice the big jugs of wine to win

More games
This is the BB machine gun game, again notice all the jugs of wine and liquor to win

Vendor food
The front is Chest Nuts, the middle is the silk worm larva, i have no clue what the back item is

More vendor food
This looked very tasty

Comments

[joanne santandrea]

loved S. Korea's Spring photos!!
The photos you took were fabulous!! You really got the feel for the celebration. I'm glad you're having fun, wish I could be there!! Nice job, John. Can't wait for more.

[Your Daughter]

Hey Dad the trees are so beautiful. I must say I enjoyed reading about your adventures in hiking, and I am throughly intrigued by this "punch" guy ya'll keep talking about. I want the whole story on him. You should finish your hike trail thingy too. I want to go hiking, we should go sometime. love ya