April 10 - Cherry Blossom Festival

 

So it is finally springtime again.  I love this time of year with the trees beginning to bloom and the improving weather.  As way to kick-off spring, a the city of Jinhae has a Cherry Blossom Festival.  It is supposed to be a popular tourist attraction for Koreans every year, and the traffic did get pretty bad.

The project put together a bus for all of us to ride to the festival, about 2 hours away.  I am glad I didn't have to find a place to park, let alone drive.  Sometimes it is nice to just kick back and relax while someone else does the driving.

We left Okpo around 9 AM and arrived a little after 11 AM.  We were there for 5 hours.  A little too long, but it was just fun to be out and seeing some places in Korea.  Jinhae is also home to a Naval Academy which we got to see.  For the trip we walked probably half of the city.  We climbed a local peak to get a view of the surrounding city, walked all the way to the Academy to see some ships, and then wandered through the city.  It was fun to see what the street vendors were selling, as well as just see the cherry blossoms.

Enjoy some of the photos from the trip:

This is one of my favorite views of Jinhae.  We hiked to the top of a local hill to get the view.  I thought the flag was fitting.

We were standing in the main square of the city looking towards the Naval Academy.

The top of the hill with the building is where we hiked to.  We took our pictures halfway up the building.  On the climb the steps counted exactly 365, one for each day of the year.

This is some of the stuff that they were selling at the street vendors.  Dried tentacles.  Mmmmm . . . I didn't try any.

 But I did try this.  A corn dog with fries fried into the dough.  That was delicious.

Another cool spot on the hill we climbed.

These were some of the ships at the Naval Academy.  I think it was also family day or something when we got there, as there were a lot of sailors having picnics with family and walking the Academy.

A cool street in the Academy.

Traffic cop at the Academy.

 What speaks more of the Korean Cherry Festival then Native Americans?  The best part was, they were playing native instruments to the music of Simon and Garfunkle and other stuff.  I just thought this was weird.

One nice shot.