Cherry Blossoms- Jinhae

** Side note** You guys on April 19th marked my 8th month in  South Korea! OMG!!! 62 more days…I can’t wait to move on ha ha….seriously >.<

The weekend I went was the last weekend for the the festival. Everyone kept telling me that I was going too early as the cherry blossoms trees were still naked. And its true, many in my neighborhood still were, but Ulsan seems to be behind the times on everything.

Jinhae was about  2 hours from Ulsan. But the buses go to the Masan terminal and from there you take a local bus to Jinhae.  I easily purchased my ticket from the Ulsan Bus terminal in Samsan-dong. I decided to take the 8am bus because another thing that everyone talked about was the traffic there and back. Since millions of people would descend on the tiny province during this final festival weekend, I thought the 8am bus was a good start. The bus ride was cozy and I had good company(Renae!). Oh and yes! I did bring and wear my face mask during the ride. 

Once in Masan my friend and I scoped out the area to find the bus stop then decided to get some eats 🙂 After all it was breakfast time! We grabbed a quick bite at Lotteria and people watched then headed to the bus stop. 

In Masan we  needed to catch bus number 760 or 162. There was a serious crowd of hipsters, Ajushi’s and Ajuma’s waiting for the bus. I looked at my friend then thought to myself “this is going to get scary”. 

The thing is, old people in Korea LOVE to push you out the way to get on the bus. And I mean PUSH!! Sometimes I wonder if they have robotic attachments under their track suit’s sleeved arms >.<

I don’t know why because I don’t speak Korean and didn’t understand what the driver said. But when the 763 came and all the Koreans started running towards it…we ran too!  By the grace of kimchi we made it on the bus with minor injuries and got the final two seats in the back of the bus:)

The ride from Masan to Jinhae was 40 minutes. The view all around was mountainous and breath taking. It was quite nice actually. And it made up for the fact that it was still so early in the morning. 

When we arrived to the Jinhae bus stop, we got off because everyone else got off ha ha. We just walked around with the crowds until we found the festival entrance. 

There were so many people. We took some pictures with two Korean ajumas from Seoul. They were excited to meet black women I guess. 

 In Korea they just stare at me like I’m an alien. Its actually very very annoying. So this is why I was surprised by those two ladies.  Pleasantly surprised 🙂

We walked and explored all the tents, ate some food, found the romance bridge, and even watched the 2pm cultural show. It was a good day. I’m glad I made it out to see the cherry blossoms. Because the following weekend the trees were practically bare again 🙁

Coming back to Ulsan was another adventure. We waited for almost 2 hours at the Jinhae bus stop for the bus back to Masan. We decided to follow the group of Koreans that we were waiting with on to the 164. This bus will drop you off in downtown Chungwan (or Changwan…*shrugs*) by the departments stores. You can either walk to Masan station, which we did and it took about 20-25 mins, or you can take a taxi 🙂

A helpful site I used to plan this trip was the official Korea tourism site. If you are interested in traveling to Jinhae it might be very useful to you!

 Here are some pictures of my lovely spring day.

Me and my friend on our way to Masan!

I ate Korean corn (it was mushy and over cooked) and this potato stick.

Orange you happy to see me!..ha ha I know I’m corny :-/

 What’s your favorite part of Spring?