Life in Korea: Cherry Blossoms

Love is in the air

Everywhere I look around

Love is in the air

Every sight and every sound

  (John Paul Young - Love is In the Air - 1977)

April 9th is Parliamentary Election Day here in Korea and it's a national holiday as well. Since Spring has sprung here in Korea, and since we can't vote here, Nancy and I decided the best way to celebrate was to go to Yeouido (pronounced Yo - Ee - Doh) Island here in Seoul and walk through the cherry blossoms.

Every year Yeouido island closes the road around the National Assembly Building (Korea's Capital Hill) so that lover's young and old can walk along the cherry blossom lined road. This is the traditional time of year for marriage proposals (under a cherry tree), anniversary celebrations (under a cherry tree) or maybe just a "we're getting serious" date/picnic (under a cherry tree).

The tales abound, ranging from young girls who tell you very sadly how they have never had a boyfriend in April and therefore have never seen the cherry blossom lane (it's not accepted that girls go without a boyfreind), or to the couple that returns every year "at the day and time he proposed to me under the cherry trees". Korea in April is a very romantic place (under the cherry trees).

So here's what Nancy and I found on our walk around the National Assembly Building on Yeouido Island (under the cherry trees). Love is in the air...

A path through the trees on Yeouido.

The main drag. Note the 2 couples in front of the camera - matching powder blue and in front of them, well she's got him wearing a matching pink shirt.  Love is in the air..

Here's my squeeze. Cherry blossoms above. Forsythia below.

Sometimes the canopy of flowers is so thick it looks like snow above you.

Unfortunately it was a gray day so the photos aren't all they could be (and it rained hard later knocking most of the blossoms off). Those are magpie nests in the tree above.

Yours truly

Close-up time.

Everyone else was doing it...

Another shot of the main drag.

A family is trying to have a picnic under this tree. At the same time people keep coming up and pulling branches down to take close-up shots..