In Search of Cherry Blossoms

Yesterday I decided that it was high time I dusted off my poor camera who has been waiting patiently to be used since I moved to this city. I realized that I hadn’t used it once since I’d been in Korea and so Saturday became, “get some good pictures of this city” day.

Which turned into a friend and I walking practically all over the whole city in search of cherry blossoms. I took a ton of pictures, the weather was beautiful for the first time since I’ve been in Korea, I got to see cherry blossoms, and ended up in a bar with my friends that had the most beautiful golden retriever walking around greeting people. It really couldn’t have been a much better day.

We started off in Eunhaengdong, an area that’s known in English as Old Downtown.

I met up with my friend outside the subway station and we walked around for a bit looking for somewhere to eat lunch.

 

 

We ended up in an “Italian” restaurant where we ate a delicious combination of spaghetti and Tonkatsu. “Italian meets Korean meets Japanese” food didn’t turn out to be as bad as it sounds.

In need of coffee we, we ended up in a cafe called Droptop.

 

 

We sat at a window on the second floor and people watched for a very long time. Because it was one of the first nice days in a while, people seemed to have their best spring styles on. We talked about Korean fashion, beauty standards, and pointed out every time one of our students walked by. Which was often.

After that we weren’t quite sure what to do but wanted to try to find some cherry blossoms to take pictures of. I had seen some blooming trees on my way so we decided to go back there then take the subway over to KAIST, a university in Daejeon, to walk around campus looking for flowers.

Our first stop had a few good trees but nothing overwhelming. It’s still very early in the cherry blossom season so everything is just now starting to bloom. But we managed to find a few good trees in that park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that park we hopped on the subway and went over to KAIST.

 

 

 

I’ve been wanting to see a university campus here, so this killed two birds with one stone. This university is a famous science and technology school and one of the reasons that Daejeon is known as a technology hub of Korea.

The cherry blossom trees were sparse throughout the campus but it was fun to just wander around trying to spot the next one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After finishing up on campus we headed down to walk by the river and head towards this bar we wanted to try. The sun was just starting to set and we even happened upon a group of people who were all there to play with their dogs. Which made me miss my dog, but was fun to watch for a little while.

 

 

 

Once the cold was starting to get noticeable again, we left the river area and went back towards all the stores and restaurants. We had some time to kill before our other friends met up with us, so we ducked into this little cafe to eat some cake, because that’s a healthy dinner, right? The cafe was precious and the cakes were incredible.

 

 

 

 

 

When we finally walked up to the bar that we’d been wanting to try, there was some very loud, very intense live scream-o music coming from inside so we opted for a different place down the street which ended up being really cool. They had a golden retriever who was walking around greeting the customers so I was sold almost immediately.

 

 

Eventually our other friends found us and we talked here for a long time. It was a really simple day, nothing too extravagant. But for some reason I feel like it was one of the best days I’ve had here. I got out, took some pictures, saw some gorgeous flowers, and got to hang out with my friends in bar that has a dog. Can’t ask for much else.

 

Thanks for reading.