China Wind Blowing Through My Seoul

Greetings

Since moving here last summer we've been waiting patiently for spring time to arrive. Being of fan of all things Kurosawa I've been dying to actually see his beloved cherry blossoms in person. For those of you that don't know, Japan and Korea are full of cherry trees that fill the streets with beautiful rows of white clouds every spring.

We've been enjoying their presence for the past couple weeks and figured that it was about time to document it on the blog. We set out to do just that the other day but unfortunately fate was not upon smiling on us. Ladies and gentleman, please meet hwangsa:



That lovely photo is one that I borrowed from Google and it depicts the hwangsa winds as seen in China. Every year giant waves of sand get picked up by the wind in the deserts of Mongolia and China and crash down upon East Asia. The yellow sand/dust even makes it to South Korea and gives the country a fresh coat of disgustingness each year. Lately they've been smacking Ulsan around and as a result our pics of the trees look less than stellar. Not only do the dust winds make it hard to breath, destroy vegetation, and dirty up the place, but it seems that they also ruin beautiful shots of trees.

But alas, on with the blog.


In a moment of insanity Jo and I decided to walk up a 6km hill that leads to a small ocean community (think Malibu minus all of the rich white people). Here's a shot of the tree corned road on the way up:


Even though the weather's terrible, and the skies are full of dust, you can still get a feel for how beautiful the trees looked.

Here's a random shot of a cherry tree (it would probably look better if it was ilumuniated by sunshine rather than dust clouds, but what can ya do?)


This next shot turned out pretty well. It was our first time experimenting with our camera's macro options.


A great shot of Jo surounded by cherry trees and rose bushes:



They've planted tonnes of rose bushes on the hill and it makes for a really nice contrast in colours with the cherry trees.

This is probably my favorite shot as it shows just how dominant these wonderful trees are. They fully surround both the road and the car.

Ulsan's such a comercial/industrial city that it's nice to see nature fighting back a little.

This shot shows a local farm lined by the trees:


The trees really are everywhere and our pictures don't do their beauty justice. I'm hoping that we'll be able to get out there and grab some more photos of them before they wither away for another year.

Our time here is slowly running out and we still have so much to see. We're trying to plan a small trip for every weekend we have left so you can expect some interesting blogs in the near future.

Anyway, hope this finds all of you well.

Cheers

Shayne