Korea: no cherry blossom – but still awesome!

As regular readers will know – my globetrotting business-trip schedule can sometimes be tight: fly in, straight to meetings/hand-shakings/interviews/presentations/dinners, and only then to the hotel. Repeat for two or three days, then it’s back to the airport to fly to the next port-of-call for much of the same. Necessary, interesting, physically rather draining. And that’s how my trip to Korea pretty much started, which I told you about a few days ago. But I’ve a rule: no trip can be deemed complete if there’s no spot of tourism and photography. Thus, here, today – let’s complete Korea! )…

I’ve another rule: the small doses of tourism need to be “correct” in two key ways – in terms of both the places to be visited and the season to visit them. For example – when heading to Asia-Pacific, aim for doing so when the cherry blossom is flowering. I’ve yet another rule: don’t be too hard on yourself (or your trip-organizing colleagues:) if the “correctness of tourism” rule gets broken – you can’t have everything! If a trip needed to be mid-March, it needed to be mid-March – cherry blossom or no! Thing is – we missed the cherry blossom by just a week (it was only just beginning to sprout)! As Homer Simpson would say – do’h!

Not to worry; we’ll just have to come back next time – be that next year or the year after – at least a week later.

Aaaanyway – there’s more to Seoul than cherry blossom, right? Right…

Not far from our hotel there’s the Buddhist Bongeunsa temple. And a beaut it is too: perfect for strolling around…

I wonder if these here paper lanterns are installed permanently (surely not: what happens when it rains?), or whether they’re there for a special occasion (like our visit:)?…

And there’s Buddha – smiling, as ever. Why is it he always looks so chilled, content, serene, happy and charming no matter if he’s stood up, laid out, or sat somewhere – even in a puddle of water?! Must be his supreme state of enlightenment. Ah – and there’s the ever-present pot in front of him. But… how do folks get their small change in there without getting wet? A mystery…

Colorful, all-dressed-up, gala-esque; just what was needed given our six time-zones worth of jetlag on this day…

For some reason there’s no photography allowed inside the temples. Boo. (This one was taken before we found out.:) ->

Photography outside: no restrictions ->

Yes – a swastika. No – not that one, of course; the original, ancient, holy one ).

The pine trees – magical. You get those in Japan too…

And that was that for our short walk around the temple’s grounds. A quick bow to Siddhartha, and we headed to our next micro-tourism spot…

We strolled through an enormous underground mall with a zillion stores and all sorts of attractions to get to… a library. I’ll admit that, when told where we were heading, I wasn’t too excited, but… then we arrived! ->

Oh my grandiose!

And on our last day in the capital we checked out Changdeokgung. Yes that’s a mouthful for many. How’s Changdeok Palace, then – as it’s also referred to? Or how about its literal meaning: the Palace of Prospering Virtue? ->

A rather popular place it is too – especially for selfie-takers in the appropriate attire:

Here’s the main hall, with the emperor’s throne in the middle ->

Still – rather modest in size, I thought…

The Gyeongbokgung palace is larger. Saw that back in 2016. No matter: this one is still perfectly adequate for a pleasant walk around…

And that was that for Korean micro-tourism. Thank you, Seoul (I knew you got Seoul; if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have been there:). As I write this we’ve already moved on to our next city, from where my next post will be coming…

The rest of the photos from Korea are here.