Korea is aflower with loveliness lately! Trees I’ve looked on as any other temporarily dead thing for the last months have suddenly proved themselves to be flowering beauties. All around my neighborhood and my school, flowering cherries, magnolias, and forsythia bushes have run amok with their joy in big bunches of flower. Delicate clusters drip from their once bare branches. It has made me feel the need to wear pink and light green, and contacts as much as can be (in the spring and summer I like not to wear glasses!). The weather has been warming up accordingly, and it’s been nice to doff the last remnants of a particularly freezing winter and go around in cardigans.
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| flowers I bought for chun won (~80 cents) in a favorite market in Insadong last weekend. |
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| magnolias and traditional houses near my school |
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| even the trees that line my alley (dodgy looking shortcut to the subway near my apartment) have turned out to be flowerers. |
Today I visited the second-to-last day of the cherry blossom viewing festival (bot go jukje) in Yeouido park on the Han River. It was so nice! The weather was a perfect near-70 degrees with pleasant breezes off the river. And the park was big enough to disperse what was touted to be “millions” comfortably so that only at times did it feel overcrowded.
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| ahjummas under a parasol enjoying the day! |
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| posers |
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| the cherries are so beautiful! |
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| cherries and forsythia |
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| street vendors incurring the business of a LOT of pleasure-seekers. they were selling sweet bread and churros among other things |
I have been reading the Anne of Green Gables books for the first time lately. They are sooo wonderful! Anne has sparked a renewed appreciation for good friends and family and many happy remembrances of growing up in a small woodsy town. She named the white-flowering tree that bloomed outside her window "the Snow Queen" and I thought of it all day today looking at all those gorgeous flowers.
Also, I have decided not to renew my contract to take on another year. It was a tough decision to make, as I love Korea very dearly and have been very happy here this year. But, heading back to the career path, family, and the comfort of not being stared at and called "foreigner" every day is something I'm looking forward to. As much as I've loved it here, it is really a side-track to a fulfilling career. I love kids and I think I've done a good job teaching them, but I'd like to get back to a job that uses more of my brain.
I'd also just like to get back home for a while. Since graduating from college, I've gone to Boston, Barrow, and Korea. I wouldn't change any of those steps for anything and value those experiences immensely, but my nomadic ways are starting to get wearisome! I'm going to try out being close to home for a while. And if I get a good job, I'll get my own place and a CAT! oh, the joy!
Hope you enjoy my pics of the Snow Queen(s) in all her glory :).
Kay
Fabulous flowering trees!! Your last post about the recipe prompted me to look up kimchi recipes, and I have been making it. I tried to replicate Sam and Lee's recipe and have come pretty close. It's not authentic, it's more of a salad, but yumm-eeee!
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