{"id":259,"date":"2016-04-19T05:34:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T12:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/?p=259"},"modified":"2016-04-12T06:03:56","modified_gmt":"2016-04-12T13:03:56","slug":"koreas-cherry-blossom-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/2016\/04\/19\/koreas-cherry-blossom-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"korea&#8217;s cherry blossom festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Cherry blossoms are a huge thing here in Korea, as they are in Japan. I&#8217;m really glad that I came during cherry blossom season so I could really experience how pink and fluffy the streets get!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/YGVvpW8.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"301\" height=\"577\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The first place that I went to to see the cherry blossoms was <a href=\"http:\/\/english.visitkorea.or.kr\/enu\/ATR\/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=1064767\">Yeouido Hangang Park<\/a>. They have a cherry blossom festival there, so I went with Claudia on my day off to go and check it out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/zGhGI3a.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"266\" height=\"473\" \/>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/TlzcidE.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"316\" height=\"473\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I&#8217;m not sure if my expectations were way too high but it wasn&#8217;t as nice as I expected it to be. They were still nice nonetheless but I think the ones in Vancouver are comparable to the ones I saw &#8211; maybe they weren&#8217;t in full bloom yet?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/BVbR9UF.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"295\" height=\"525\" \/>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/5l9tqcg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"294\" height=\"523\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I always thought that the Starbucks in Asia were so much better than the ones in Canada; they have so many more different flavours here. However, the downside is that they&#8217;re so much more expensive than the drinks back in Vancouver. I decided to give the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.istarbucks.co.kr\/index.do\">Cherry Blossom Cream Frappucino<\/a> a try &#8211; they also have a latte and a hot white chocolate. The price was absolutely ridiculous, though &#8211; 6 100KRW for a tall frappucino.\u00a0<em>A tall!!\u00a0<\/em>I now know where my money ISN&#8217;T going &#8211; to Starbucks. I&#8217;ve found that coffee and other drinks that are made to order are generally pretty expensive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/Kcv3t8k.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"334\" height=\"739\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I have never had anything cherry blossom flavoured before so I didn&#8217;t know what to expect. The drink wasn&#8217;t bad? It looked pretty but it tasted more like a rich, sweet chocolate. It wasn&#8217;t bad, and I wouldn&#8217;t mind getting it again if not for the price.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Finally, Vivian, Claudia and I had the chance to go to Jinhae for their <a href=\"http:\/\/english.visitkorea.or.kr\/enu\/ATR\/SI_EN_3_2_1.jsp?cid=700520\">cherry blossom festival<\/a>. Estevan and Stef also went &#8211; Estevan went when they weren&#8217;t finished blooming, and Stef went when they were in full bloom. Initially, I thought that since the blossoms in Seoul were still so pretty the ones in Jinhae would be the same&#8230; but it&#8217;s a lot warmer down there so most of them had already fallen off when we arrived \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/jAj4Xwm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"373\" height=\"663\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We decided to take the KTX from Seoul Station to Masan Station, and then take a bus from there to Jinhae. Since we&#8217;re foreigners we were able to puchase the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.letskorail.com\/ebizbf\/EbizBfKrPassAbout.do\">Korail\u00a0Pass<\/a> which lets foreigners ride the KTX an unlimited amount of times within one day.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/MzD32ad.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"276\" height=\"491\" \/>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/ds1LDry.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"277\" height=\"492\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Even though the blossoms weren&#8217;t as pretty as we thought they would be, I&#8217;m still glad we went and we managed to take a lot of beautiful pictures.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Plus, being able to see Sungmin, Shindong, and Eunhyuk of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Super_Junior\">Super Junior<\/a> perform &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw\">Sorry, Sorry<\/a>&#8216; as well as JYJ&#8217;s Jaejoong perform made everything worth it! Super Junior used to be my favourite boy group (I don&#8217;t have one anymore) and I literally never thought I&#8217;d be able to get the chance to see any of them perform live, let alone my favourite. Vivian&#8217;s favourite member was also there so obviously the two of us were extremely happy. We were sitting less than 200 meters away from them!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I know that there are cherry blossoms on most university campuses, but I really think the ones in the Yonsei Sinchon Campus are really nice and fluffy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Being able to see so many beautiful cherry blossoms just makes me even more glad that I decided to come to Seoul in second term instead of in first term. Everything is so much prettier in the spring and summer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cherry blossoms are a huge thing here in Korea, as they are in Japan. I&#8217;m really glad that I came during cherry blossom season so I could really experience how pink and fluffy the streets get!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32883,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,241,1293333,1293334,78115,1158995,174152,1642,1293331,524089],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cherry-blossom","tag-food","tag-frappuccino","tag-jinhae","tag-place","tag-seoul","tag-spring","tag-starbucks","tag-yeouido","tag-yonsei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/kwongkat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}