Nic Trips

If you can get past the yellow dust coming up from China and the heavier seasonal rains, you'll see spring is a beautiful time of year in Korea. The warm, sunny days and drizzling, cool nights provide the perfect environment for the plants to grow green and bounce back from winter. It's now that you begin to realize how many flowing plants there are in Korea. It seems as if nothing is grown (on purpose) or planted unless it produces blossoms at sometime of the year: the most common being spring. Thus my walks around the city, either for transportation or simple enjoyment, have been filled with flowery aromas and wonderful colors from the array of flowering growth. Cherry blossom trees can be seen everywhere. For the Koreans, they are both a beautiful signifier of spring and a sorrowful reminder of the Japanese (who planted them during their occupation of Korea). Taehwa River, and the many tributaries leading to it, seem to be a central point for many of the gr