Living in Seoul, Korea: Cherry Blossom Festival in April

Well it's officially spring with the cherry blossom festivals in bloom and there are dozens to choose from. We headed to downtown Seoul to celebrate because there's nothing like a cherry blossom tree that says spring and renewal and fragile beauty. It was not pretty getting to the park. The subways were packed--the kind of packed where you literally cannot move and when the train jerks, everyone shifts in the same direction like a wave going back and forth. It is slightly scary and you close your eyes (they are three inches away from someone else's you've never met) and just pray nothing goes wrong with the train. Tens of thousands of people converged at a huge park along the Han River where over 1600 cherry blossom trees line the walking/biking lanes like a three mile long lovers lane. It really was spectacular. The blossoms are in full glory for only a few days. Soon the blossoms will dance to the street floor like little floating pink clouds. The branches from one side of the street cross over and reach out to meet the ones from the other side and form a canopy. At night it even gets better because they have installed special lighting from the ground that give hues of red and purple and green to the trees. Street food and music and performers and artists and fireworks turn this attraction into a full on party. We can't help being drawn to these celebrations--Buddha's birthday up next--but walking off the subway at midnight dragging ourselves home reminds us of our age! The next morning I went for a stroll in our local park and with the wind blowing the blossoms blew off the trees and there was an inch of blooms covering the ground, snow blossoms, just beautiful.

Packed subway trains, but absolutely silent. Every single person is hooked up to their device.

The blonde is my teacher friend Lorna. She's from New Mexico. She's usually the only blonde haired person on the streets in our neighborhood so I can spot her a mile away.

Hold your breath and enjoy the ride!

We've arrived at Yeouido Park.

My favorite part is always the street food. Chicken and pork skewers over charcoal, num.

This is before the hot spicy sauce was all over my face.

Lots of performers. This is definitely not Korean-not sure where they came from.

This is a local favorite found on street corners everyday. It's thick rice noodles like gnocchi in a spicy red pepper sauce.

The skewers are really terrific!

Coconuts? Imported for sure. They belong in a Thai street fair!

They love waffles of all different sizes and shapes filled with ice cream.

Liquid Nitrogen ice cream...what fun!

Look, a waffle piece that produces smoke out of my nose and mouth!

The Ice cream comes with a syringe of chocolate mmmmm.

The scientist in the lab coat preparing our dessert!

Deep fried pork or chicken in a spicy honey glaze. Ver tempting.

Big, huge oysters, too big for me to swallow raw with hot pepper sauce.

Put a cotton candy machine on the back of your motorcycle cart and voila, you're in business!

The park along the river with the downtown in the background. It'll be filled with a million people (literally) the time the fireworks show starts.

A nonstop photo op.

This is shawarma, the Middle Eastern wrap with shaved chicken.

So, so pretty.

Here's your minimarket with makgeolli (rice wine), same price as water!

Looks like the heavens.

Seoul skyline in the distance.

Ya gotta have the freshly picked and roasted chestnuts.

Salty bugs anyone? Super popular here. And they love their sausages in batter (corn dogs).

Almost all Korean holidays are romanticized and couples dress alike and take tons of selfies.

We're all here doing the same thing, taking pictures!

The artists are quite good and we noticed that they all make their subjects look much younger and people are very happy with the results!

Oooooo, cool illumination with the lights!

Music varied from acoustic to rap to traditional about every 50 meters.

Like a campfire, you can stare at this for hours.

Couples and their selfie sticks--short shorts are always in here no matter the temperature. No cleavage, but you can go as short as you want on the bottom!