Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival Weekend

Koreans remind me a lot of British people in that they love their gardens.  Growing up with an English mother, we always had one of the nicest yards in the neighborhood.  I always remember my mom tinkering around in the yard -- planting this, watering that.  Sometimes I would help her, but quickly learned I did not have her talent.  Still to this day I have to ask my mom to come help me with my gardens.  I always seem to pull out the flowers and water the weeds.  Thank goodness I don't have a yard to take care of here in Korea, because I can't just call my mother to help!

Since it's been warming up here, it's been fun to see all of the older Korean men and women out planting and watering flowers.  They take great pride in keeping what little bit of landscape they have immaculate.  One thing they especially love is their Cherry Blossoms.  There are several festivals centered around the trees blooming.  The largest one, though, is in Jinhae.  Since we're only here for two years, I feel a HUGE sense of urgency to see and do everything we can.  So when we heard about the Jinhae Cherry Blossom festival, we decided to plan a trip around it.  Unfortunately we only had three days we could take off, but crammed as much as is humanly possible into those three days.  When I told my Korean neighbor my plans she exclaimed, "You're going to do all that in three days...with kids?  I'm glad I'm not going with you!"  But that's just how we roll.  A vacation just isn't a vacation if you don't come back completely and thoroughly exhausted.  It's probably not the healthiest way to travel, but it works for us.

Our ultimate goal in this vacation was Jinhae for the cherry blossoms.  Since we were traveling as far in Korea as we possibly could from Seoul though, we wanted to see some other things as well.  Before I start talking about the vacation, I have to admit, one of my favorite parts was the 6 hour car ride across the entire country of Korea.  Korea is a beautiful country!  Around 80% of the nation is covered in mountains, so the entire drive looked like a mix between Montana and West Virginia.  I loved it!  

Our first stop was the city of Gyeongju.  This was one of the places I was dying to see.  Historically it was the capital of the ancient Silla Dynasty that ruled most of Korea between the 7th and 9th century, and it's one of the few places in Korea that wasn't destroyed during either the Japanese occupation or the Korean War. Our first stop in Gyeongju was the burial mounds.

Most of the people buried here have not been identified. One of the few known was a king from the late 200s.  Judging from the size of the mounds, though, I'm guessing most people buried here were some sort of royalty.  Here we are in front of the mounds.

These pictures really don't do it justice.  The mounds are everywhere and they are so beautiful.  To be honest, my first thought when I saw it was it reminded me of Teletubbies.  I kept waiting for Tinkie Winkie to come popping up over one of the mounds.  

They have actually excavated one of the mounds and you can go inside and tour it.  Here's Emma waiting to go in.  

Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside, so we don't have any to post.  However, many people break this rule, so google Cheonmachong and you can see the interior of the tomb along with the items that were buried with it.  

After leaving the burial grounds, we found a great park where people were flying kites.  I don't know what it was about this, but it just seemed so...Asia!  So we had to buy a kite and join all the other Korean families.  It was a perfect day for kite flying.

This was one of my favorite areas in Korea.  With the Cherry Blossoms in bloom and the mountains in the background, I felt like I just stepped onto a movie set.  It didn't feel like it could be real.  Again, these pictures don't do it justice because the colors were so much more vivid in real life.  

Here are some of the pictures with the Cherry Blossoms.

We, of course, had to stop for a local treat.  

These were yummy little pieces of bread filled with sweet red beans.  

Our next stop was the temples.  We visited the two most famous.  The first was Bulguksa.  It was nestled in the trees near the top of a mountain.

 These are the guards protecting the temple.  You always pass these on the way into any Buddhist temple.

 We drank some of the natural spring water at the temple.  It is supposed to bring you good health.

 The view from here was amazing!  

Outside the temple were many vendors selling various items.  This drink, Pocari Sweat, is a popular one in Korea.  It always makes me giggle.  Somehow drinking something called "Sweat" just isn't appealing to me.

The last temple of the day was my absolute favorite.  It's called Seokguram.  The sun was starting to set and the view was absolutely amazing!  It was beginning to be decorated with different colored lanterns for Buddha's birthday.

Again, one of the most amazing things to see here is one of the world's finest shrines to Buddha, but again, we weren't allowed to take pictures.  It was pretty incredible.  Google "Seokguram" and you'll find a bunch of pictures.  Seeing it in person took my breath away.

Since the sun was setting, we decided to head for Jinhae where we were spending the night.  Along the way we stopped at a rest stop for dinner.  I can honestly say I've never had rest stop food quite like this before.  It was delicious, home-cooked food.  Yummy!

The next morning we woke up and headed to the local GS-25 (convenience store) for some breakfast.  The kids wanted to try these "Korean" cereals.  :)

After that we headed to Jinhae for the famous cherry blossom festival.  One of the perks to going during the actual festival is that the Korean Naval Academy opens its gates up to the public.  We felt like we were in the Korean version of Annapolis, Maryland!  We were allowed to tour several large ships along with another historic one.  Peter and I love this kind of stuff, so it was pretty exciting for us.  

I started taking pictures of the water when these guys in the picture started shouting in Korean and running up to me.  Apparently you are only allowed to take pictures in designated spots.  Oops!

 The rest of the pictures are authorized.  :)  

After touring the modern day ships, we headed to the historical turtle ship which is only on display this week.

This is a re-creation of Admiral Yi's famous ships that went into battle against the Japanese in the late 1500s.  The dragon head on the front could launch cannon fire or flames.  Pretty cool!

We ran into this other tourist on the ship who was hysterical!  He really wanted to use his English and kept us laughing.  We're pretty sure he'd had a few too many drinks, but he made for a fun afternoon!

 This was the toilet on the ship.  It opened directly to the water.  The kids found this pretty funny.

When we finished looking through the boat, these Naval Academy cadets took a liking to the kids.  They started fishing different creatures out of the sea for the kids.  They knew very few English words, so they kept using the ones they knew like "Wow!"  or "Oh My Gosh!" every time they pulled something from the water.  They reminded me so much of myself trying to use the same few Korean phrases I know.  The kids loved them!

 We then got to dress up as Naval Academy Cadets. Emma absolutely refused.  Apparently she's already "too cool" for this stuff. 

She was okay with the pink dolphin mascot though.

 

They had several crafts we could participate in.  This Naval officer loved helping the kids do this stamping project.

 Again, everywhere we go, Emma gets all the attention.  We think it's great; she, unfortunately, doesn't!

After the Naval Academy we headed over to the cherry blossom festival.  Since we were hungry, we decided to sample some of the street food.  Yummy!

This is a hot dog covered in breading and french fries.  After you buy it, they deep fat fry it.  I don't think I want to know how many calories are in this yummy treat!

We followed this with a potato chip on a stick.  They cut the potato into curls and fry the entire thing.  Then they sprinkle with either barbecue spice or cinnamon and sugar.  So good!

Emma opted for this healthier treat...Corn on the cob.

Here are a couple of other foods we didn't try.  These are either little chickens or ducks fried whole.

And these, I'm guessing, are squids.

 After eating, we walked around some of the more famous spots for cherry blossoms.  Unfortunately for us, it rained the night before and knocked a lot of the blossoms off the trees.  While it was still beautiful, it was a shame we didn't get there a few days earlier. 

This spot is famous for taking pictures with the train and the cherry blossoms. When the blossoms are just right, the wind from the train will knock the blossoms off and make it appear as if it's snowing.

I had to take a picture of all the cameras up trying to re-create the scene.  

That evening, the entire city was lit up.  The different colored lights looked amazing reflecting in the water and changing the color of the blossoms.

We finished the evening with another treat.  Korea has not been good for our waist bands!

The next morning, we left Jinhae for Busan.  On our way, we stopped at Haedong Yonggung Temple.  This is one of the few temples built along the coast.  It was built to honor Haesu Gwaneum Daebul, Seawater Great Goddess Buddha of Mercy.  Apparently she lives alone in the ocean and rides on the back of a dragon.  Here's a picture with the dragon.

On the way into the temple there were statues of all the Chinese zodiac signs.  We had to take pictures with each of our animals.

 This temple was breathtaking.

 

 Here's Peter and the kids trying to throw coins into the buckets below for good luck.  

There was a little market outside the temple selling all sorts of things. 

Emma loves the these little stuffed dogs that bark.  They sell them all over Korea.  She went up to a man selling them to ask how much they were and he gave it to her, along with this other toy, for free.  She was thrilled!

Our next stop was the city center of Busan.  Every city in Korea seems to have a tower, so we went up Busan's on the top of Dragon Head Mountain Park.

It had a pretty amazing view.

Our next stop was the Jagalchi Shijang.  This is Korea's largest seafood market.  What we didn't know, though, was that it was closed the day we went. Bummer!  Here's a picture from outside. 

 There were plenty of interesting sea creatures to see outside the market though.

Our final stop was Korea's version of Grauman's Chinese Theater. 

After a little more shopping and a little more eating, it was time to head for home.  Great weekend in another great part of Korea.