Springtime blooms

I made it!!! I'm alive!!! I have successfully survived an entire Korean winter! For those of you who mocked me... hey, I have lived in the tropics almost my entire life. Korea is known for its extreme weather and we certainly got our taste of it this year. Even by Korean standards, this was an odd year. The winter dragged on for ages and it didn't actually become light sweater weather until mid-April...which was the day I was seen running and frolicking in the streets singing "The Hills are Alive"... well, maybe not quite that drastic, but I certainly was feeling it! 

You may remember my poor little post last year about the cherry blossoms. It was quite sad because I heard about them one day and by the time I got to see any, I had one evening to enjoy them and then they were gone! Sad day. Well, I certainly made up for it this year! I did delete some of the pictures that were reductant in an effort to spare you, but I got more than my fair share of gorgeous cherry blossom pictures. The pictures span about a week, so if you are wondering about different lighting and outfit changes, that's the reason! :) 

Our street is lined with trees, so we got to enjoy the blossoms every time we were coming from or going to the apartment :) 

There's a lovely lake near the University that we visited 2 or 3 times last week because the blossoms were just breathtakingly gorgeous!

 Our first visit was a lunchtime date (it's known as a pretty popular date spot)

Loved the contrast between the dogwoods and the cherry blossoms! 

~Hand's Coffee~ 

Our second visit was when we met a group of new friends... we enjoyed the blossoms by the lake and then moved on to Jikjisa which is a very famous Buddhist temple up on a near mountain. The park surrounding the temple is beautiful and since the weather was near perfect, it proved to be an amazing day spent with great people! 

~Korean Beauty~

Capturing the "snow" falling...

On our way to Jikjisa...

Gimcheon has statues all over town and some of them are just brilliant.

 I grabbed a couple shots as I passed a few... 

The Girls: Me, Tanya, Lynn, Amanda, and Holly 

(Some of the group had already left by this time) 

~ Love being on this adventure with my best friend~ 

After seeing so many cherry blossoms, we relaxed on the second story of a coffee shop with some delicious smoothies and watched the sun go down. 

The third time I went to the lake was with a couple of my co-professors, Stephanie and Jessica. With midterms, we had a little longer of a lunch break than usual so we headed over for lunch and then snapped a few shots of the surrounding nature :) 

The cherry blossoms have almost gone completely now but I can honestly say that I got to enjoy them this year! I am loving the crisp clear weather and am finally getting a little vitamin D from the sun! :) It's been a long Winter and I can truthfully say, I'm not sad to see it go. Hello bright colors and adorable clothes... bring on Spring and Summer!