Wishing you all a happy Children's Day from Korea.
outdoor activity
05/04/2010
05/03/2010
Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival
In mid-April, we went to Yeouido Island look at cherry blossoms. Yeouido Island is the site of the South Korea's National Assembly, as well as Yeouido Park and a large riverfront park.The road beside the riverfront park is lined with cherry trees.
There was a big crowd for out for a Saturday afternoon stroll around the parks . Picnicking in the parks during the festival is popular, possibly because it's the first real excuse to get out and enjoy the warmer weather with a picnic.
Yeouido Park was our first stop. It's a nice park with some ponds, bike and pedestrian trails and a large plaza. The plaza was crowded skateboarders, rollerbladers, basketball players and people watching some sort of performance on a stage but there weren't nearly as many cherry trees in full blossom as I was expecting. Every large tree in full bloom was surrounded by a crowd trying to get their picture taken with the blossoms. There was a lot less competition for getting your picture taken if you chose a smaller flowering tree.
Geezler didn't think the hour and a half on the subway was worth just to look at cherry blossoms (note the enthusiasm on display in the photo above). Her favourite part of the park was a pond that had this beautiful duck and lots of huge koi.
When we reached the end of the park, we wandered along the cherry-tree lined street. There were lots more cherry trees in bloom here but it was also much more crowded than Yeouido Park.
After a few blocks, we decided to admire the cherry blossoms from the relative quiet of the waterfront park. We took up some seats near the bike path and watched women in skirts and high heels pedalling by on rented bicycles. The rental places also rent tandem bikes. Several bikes passed by with a guy pedalling in the front while a woman sat in the back, her feet resting on the crossbar, using her cellphone to take pictures of herself or text her friends.
Gordon always makes fun of me for carting around snacks in my bag, since there usually street food vendors everywhere in Korea (even on the hiking trails!) . Unfortunately for us, the snacks of choice in the park that weekend turned out to be silkworm pupae and some sort of little snail (both are usually sold from the same cart), dried squid or cotton candy. Thank God for the cotton candy!
I keep thinking that I will get a picture of a silkworm pupae vendor but so far I haven't managed to get a good one. There are two reasons for this: 1)I'm a little shy about shoving my way through the crowd around the cart just to get a picture and 2) I find the smell of the silkworm pupae repellent. It doesn't seem to bother either Gordon or the Geezler in the same way but I can smell the stuff from a block away and it makes me want to turn and run. That said, it's a popular snack! We saw lots of people, toothpicks in hand, sharing paper cups from the silkworm pupae carts (pupae carts just doesn't sound right, does it?). I suspect that it's the kind of snack you have to have been exposed to as a child to appreciate. I saw one mom skewer a pupae on a toothpick and blow on it to cool it down before offering it to her toddler . He seemed to enjoy it. Gordon keeps reminding me that I need to set a good example for Grace in eating different foods but I have to draw the line somewhere. On the walk back to the subway station later, we found a vendor selling hotteok and gukhwappang (like bangeoppang, but shaped like a flower instead of a fish). Good thing we hadn't filled up on silkworm pupae after all.
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