Blossom Festival

The Gwangyang blossom festival takes place in the Maehwa village every March. The village has the largest concentration of apricot trees in South Korea, and the village is very proud of this reputation, so they hold a festival when the trees start blossoming. The festival originally began to bring in revenue to the village, and now it’s a huge tourist attraction. People come from all over Korea to see the trees.

Knowing all this, Andrew and I decided to take our first journey out of Gwangju to see the blossoms. We went to the Gwangju bus terminal and got a ticket straight to the Maehwa village. We had to wait about an hour for a bus, and almost got on the wrong one, but we made it. It took the bus about half an hour to work it’s way into the village because there were so many people there.

I thought it would be a little festival in someone’s apricot orchard, but that’s not what it was like at all. The streets were lined with vendors pretty much selling the exact same foods and products. There were stages set up for music and performances. We saw a drum circle, a string quartet, Korean rock music, a man singing with 10 guys in chef uniforms behind him, and an over-acting pseudo male stripper.



We hiked up the streets on the sides of the mountains and up numerous paths throughout the village where the blossom trees were. Unfortunately, because it’s been unusually cold this Spring, a lot of the trees had just started to bud. There were a several that were in full blossom, but not as many as I had hoped. That being said, no one seemed to care much about the lack of blossoming trees. The Koreans scoped out the fullest ones for the photo ops, and the festival was still packed.




There was a building set up to buy little trees and plants, pictures, and other goodies. I wanted a plant, but I tend to kill them all so I passed. I went near a table eyeing some artwork that I considered buying, and two or three Korean women took my arm and pulled me over to an area where children were playing with a canvas. They were all smiling and laughing and pointing to the steps showing me how to draw a flower with a big brush. It was a beautiful flower, if I do say so myself, and they all clapped and smiled when I completed it.

So we had been there for a couple of hours, and though we had apricot ice cream, we were starving. We went near one of the many festival tents where we saw a large pig roasting on a spit. Two of the women came over and pointed and said “barbecue” so we agreed to have some. It was absolutely fantastic. Beyond fantastic. Happy with our purchase, we go to pay, and end up paying an OBSCENE amount of money for a plate of pork and some spices. 31,000 won. 31,000 won for one plate of food. That’s about $26. Now that it’s written, we never want to think about that again.

When we got back, after being helped by multiple Koreans, one whom we’d heard speaking English to her son fluently, we went downtown to meet some friends. We went to their favorite restaurant, First Nepal, and had absolutely incredible Indian food. Beyond incredible. Then we went out to some foreigner bars and had a great time.

Today, we’re focusing on being lazy and doing laundry. We should be set up for actual Internet tomorrow and posts will become more frequent, with more picures.