Yeouido | Adventures in Korean

I mentioned in an earlier blog post about the importance of getting out and seeing the different Korean festivals. There are a lot to see and, aside from being fun, they’re a great opportunity to experience aspects of Korean culture that you don’t normally have access to.

On April 16th, I stumbled onto the Yeouido Flower Festival (여의도 봄꽃축제). I overheard some coworkers talking about going to a “cherry blossom festival” and decided to see if there wasn’t something like that going on in Seoul. I had been planning to go to Yeouido that weekend anyway, since I hadn’t been there for a while and it turned out there was a flower festival there. The festival was started in 2005 to celebrate the couple of days in spring when the cherry trees along the Han River are in bloom.

Seoul Framed with Flowers

The prime place to see the flowers are along Yeoiseo-ro (여의서로), a street that has a fantastic view of the Han, the trees and also the business buildings of Yeouido, including the famous 63 Building. It was pretty crowded there, even for Korea. I was basically sandwiched between people for about an hour until I got to a slightly less crowded street. Where I found a delightful art display. The street was lined with artwork from university students that were using flowers to make sculptures. They were probably the highlight of the trip, actually. Enjoy!