Cherry Blossoms at the Flower Festival

Today's weather was ideal for our visit to the Cherry Blossom Festival. Phillip and I, and a couple thousand of our close friends, went to Yeoiudo to see the cherry trees that lined both sides of the circle road. The cherry blossoms were indeed spectacular. It wasn't a field of cherry trees, rather miles of them planted, quite awhile ago as they are mature trees, along both sides of both sidewalks of the road next to the river.

This was an advertised festival of flowers which meant that the sidewalks were also lined with vendors, mainly food vendors. We arrived at about 10 am and since I hadn't had breakfast yet, when I saw the first egg bread vendor, Phillip bought me one. I expected festival vendors to charge double, like they do in the States, but this egg bread was only 1,000 won, half the price we paid for my first one!

This picture shows the vendor removing one from the little pan and putting it in top of the actual cooker to keep it warm and displayed for sale. Little loaves of deliciousness for about US 90 cents!

The sidewalk opened into a park area where we found flower displays, more colorful than just the cherry blossoms. All our friends were also taking pictures next to these displays, so we had to be quick to get one, then I needed to crop out the other photo subjects. It was fun to watch the dance of getting pictures next to the prettiest displays. Everyone was so polite, but still jostling in for a picture, then darting out of the way of other people. 

For lunch, we bought these rolls of kimbop. Phillip was happy to get the standard kimbop, seaweed around rice with the middle containing pickled daikon, carrot, egg, and green onion slivers. The lady from whom we bought these had apparently brushed the outside with a bit of sesame oil and sprinkled sesame seeds on them. Very nice and tasty as we sat in the grass in the park and watched the people as we ate them. We walked several miles thru the festival and finally walked out of the festival area, i.e., the vendors became scarce but the cherry blossoms remained along the sidewalk. As we headed for the subway stop, we came across this building:

I did not know that Donald had a building in Seoul, but sure enough, there it was. We were actually on the back side, the parking garage entrance, of the building. It was decorated with gold-colored signs. We weren't quite interested enough to walk around to see how ornate the front of the building was, but the word gaudy comes to mind with what we did see. We left Yeoiudo and rode the subway north to the area around City Hall. As if we hadn't already walked enough... our next destination was Cheongyecheon, an urban stream.

This is a 7 km stream right in the middle of the business/government buildings area. Walkways on both sides, fish in the stream, an oasis of calm in the bustling area. 

In keeping with the flower festival theme of this post, here's the art that decorated the wall of one of the stream underpasses. Traffic overhead, crossing the stream, and brightly colored flower art next to the stream. And I leave you with this picture, animals painted into the flowers. Phillip noticed them before I did, can you pick out which animals are depicted?

My next post will be from Jeju as we leave Seoul and head on to other adventures. We have really enjoyed Seoul and are glad we were able to see the flower festival today.