Jinhae Cherry Blossoms

Wednesday was Election Day, a national public holiday, and the perfect day to travel to Jinhae (formerly known as Chinhae) to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom.

Jinhae is home to the largest collection of cherry blossom trees in the world -- 340,000! Of course I had to take advantage of my day off and witness the cherry blossoms at their peak. According to CNNGo, two locations in Jinhae are of the 50 beautiful places you must visit in Korea.

#17. Yeojwacheon Stream (여좌천): The cherry blossom trees form a tunnel around the stream. The bridge in the center is the famous "Romance Bridge" because it is recognized from a Korean drama called "Romance."

#5. Gyeonghwa Station (경화역): The cherry blossom trees form a tunnel around the tracks such that when the train whizzes by, the petals rain down from the sky. (The station no longer operates, but is still frequented by tourists.)

Woke up around 5am to catch the 6:35am bus to Gwangju. Arrived there in an hour and bought tickets for the 8:20am bus to Masan. Shirley met up with me at Gwangju bus terminal, and we rode the bus for ~3 hours. Across the street from Masan Station, we took local bus #760 to Jinhae Station. For anyone who discovers this blog in the future, I hear #162 and #762 will take you there as well. The ride supposedly takes 40-50 minutes, but it was far shorter when we took it because there was hardly any traffic. We actually took the bus all the way to the end of the bus route because we were waiting for 40 minutes to pass. The walk back wasn't so bad.

Even though the festival ended on April 10th, we found several tents still standing in the town circle.

mmm candy

고래고기 = Whale Meat
That's definitely imported from Japan!

Cherry blossoms up close

SPOTTED: Daffodils!

Jinhae Tower in the back

We took the 3,000W cable car up to Jinhae Tower to overlook the city. 

That brown patch of land is the town circle.

We could see the ocean from the top of the tower

The day started off very humid & cloudy

Pensive pose

When we got down from Jinhae Tower, we asked for directions to Yeojwacheon Stream (여좌천). A man working at the tower gave us a map printed out from Google and told us to walk there. We walked for about an hour or so, got lost, and realized that the map said to walk 1.43km ... which explains why we walked for so long and felt so lost. We decided to cut our losses and hail a taxi. The driver also told us to walk, but we still didn't know how to get there. He kindly drove us down the hill that we just climbed and dropped us off at a busy intersection that we passed on the way up. Oops.

View of the tracks at Jinhae Station

artsy photo

Finally found Yeojwacheon Stream!

I had a pretty funny idea ...

... pretend to be Smeagol trying to catch a fish!

Someone was blowing bubbles from the bridge

Pink cherry blossoms against a pale blue sky   :)

We took a local bus back to Jinhae Station, then another local bus #320 to Gyeonghwa Station (경화역). Rush hour was upon us and we only had a couple hours to visit this site then commute back (via 2 local buses) to catch our 7:05pm bus back to Gwangju. I was stressing out! Meanwhile, we hadn't eaten since 8am because we didn't have time to stop and eat. We were starving.

We have matching MyB cards. Korea is all about couple sets!

We finally made it to Gyeonghwa Station and gorged ourselves with random street vendor foods such as ice-cream cones, sweet Korean pancakes (호떡), and red bean pastries. It was like we were in an anime -- stuffing our faces with sweets in the midst of so many cherry blossom trees as their petals fell around us. And at the same time, I managed to pull off the urban hipster look. Oh haaaay.

Geek Chic

20-30 minutes later we were on the #320 bus back to Jinhae Station. From there we waited for ages to catch the #760 bus to Masan Bus Terminal. The view was nice though. As the sun sank down on the horizon, the wind and passing vehicles continued to pull petals from the cherry blossom trees. Huge gusts of petals swirled around the street corners and collected like snowflakes on the curb and on windshields. We finally arrived at Masan Bus Terminal with enough time to eat dinner at a restaurant across the street. We were exhausted. I didn't get home until 11pm or sleep until midnight, but it was totally worth it. 


Incidentally, the cherry blossoms are blooming in Mokpo. They are less abundant, but no less beautiful than in Jinhae.