Today we headed to a city called Jinhae for its annual cherry blossom festival, the biggest one in Korea! We had heard that getting there might be quite difficult due to the amount of tourists it gets but we decided to go for it anyway. We headed for the nearby city of Masan before changing onto a city bus to Jinhae. It became clear that most people in korea had this same idea as when the city bus pulled up at the stop it was engulfed by about 80 korean tourists with no conception of queueing. Waiting our turn in line as polite English people do actually proved to be in our favour as we were the last two people let on the already hugely overcrowded bus meaning we got the extra space of standing in the doorway. We had a front row seat for the ride into Jinhae through streets lined with beautiful cherry blossom. As we turned the corner into Jinhae for our first sight of the blossoms, the entire bus let off an "ooooooooohhhh" so it became clear we wouldn't have to worry about where to get off. We were really lucky with our timing too, as the trees are only in blossom for 2 weeks a year and it was lovely weather. The city of Jinhae was filled with stalls and tents surrounded by the blossom trees. In one of the stalls, we were offered to have our picture taken in traditional korean outfits which we thought was too great an opportunity to miss. We tried very hard to keep straight faces and look the part.
Nina also made a flower out of paper but needed more help than most of the children at the stall. While walking around all the restaurant tents we noticed that every single one had a hog roast so we decided to treat ourselves and did not regret our decision! While eating we also realised that whale(!) was on the menu, something which we thought was illegal! Here are some photos of our trip to the festival:
Finally, we've had a busy weekend as we have moved into our new apartment. It has its pros and cons as it is bigger and cleaner with a working washing machine and brand new appliances, however the living room and bedroom are combined into one big room which will take a little bit of getting used to! Now Nina can never escape! Here are a few pics:
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