Cherry Blossoms!!

The good news: Spring is here! Warm air, bursts of colorful flowers in the otherwise dingy gray landscape, the pink kisses of cherry blossoms. They're all finally emerging! What a long and cold winter. I'm so glad we're (mostly) on the other side of it.

The bad news: I'm sick. Again. *grumble grumble* In an average year I get sick maybe two or three times. Right now I'm averaging about 1.5 times a month (about a week on, a week off). It's pretty miserable. I'm not sure how much of it is acclimating to Korean germs and how much of it is children continually sneezing in my face. Can't wait to get back and be healthy for longer than a month.

Over the weekend we took advantage of the warming weather and scouted out areas for David's cherry blossom photo shoots (he's really excited about them). We went to a big lake in the south east area of Seoul that is ringed with cherry trees. All of them were just starting to bloom. They were really beautiful! My first massive cherry blossom experience. They reminded me of the dogwood trees at home, only with more colors and a good deal more petals.



Cherry blossoms greeting the new spring!!

After our tour of the lake (which consisted of me sitting on lots of benches and rocks while David scrambled around with camera in hand) we took the subway to Gyeongbokgung palace (try saying that four times fast). It is one of the biggest and finest examples of ancient architecture. The palace was originally constructed in the 14th century, but the Japanese tore it down (of course). The place was really HUGE. Lots of wings and different sections of the palace to explore. There were lots of cool stone animals and such. There was also a great changing of the guard ceremony out front performed by reenactors.









We are well into the week by now. The days have been dragging, since it's been a long time since we had any vacation days. Our next day off is in May, on a Wednesday (rather random) for Children's Day. We're striving toward is eagerly. But after that (and one more weekend in May) we're trekking it all the way till the end of July (Thailand baby!). Hopefully I'll have the energy and patience to handle my little ones well. It's so easy to get burnt out when you're teaching 8+ hours a day.

Oh, and by the way, David has started a photography blog. So go on over and check it out!