On to Seoul

Mom and I blatantly breaking the rules in Jinhae!
Some blossoms up the hill in Jinhae
Cuttlefish, anyone?

At the end of spring break, my mom, Linda, and I took the hour-ish long flight over to Seoul. I had to work that whole next week, so mom and Linda went out and saw the city. Then that next weekend, we took a Royal Asiatic Society trip down to Namhae-do, a small island in the south of Korea that is known for its cherry blossoms. Even though there's a super fast train to Busan, which is very close to Jinhae-do, we took a bus instead. So it was a very early morning and a 7-hour bus ride down there. We got to go on a boat tour off the coast, see Korea's most famous beach, walk up to a beautiful Buddhist temple up on a hill, and eat a very Korean dinner, all on that first day. We stayed in a hotel that night with Korean and western rooms. The main difference was, in the Korean rooms there were bed rolls, but no beds, and that's what we had. Luckily I was so tired that I got a good night's sleep!

The next morning we went to Jinhae, a small city that's like the Annapolis of Korea, because that's where the navy academy is. It's also a big cherry blossom place and we got there right during peak cherry blossom time, so it was us and apparently the entire population of Korea! They also had the annual cherry blossom festival going on, so there were tons of food booths set up, mostly with food I wouldn't eat! But we hiked up a hill to a lookout tower and wandered around the downtown part of the city before getting back on the bus and heading back to Seoul. So it was a very long weekend, but a fun one.