April's Eye Candy!

What a week--the attacks in Boston kept me pretty riveted to the internet for part of the week, since, as you may know, my son's finishing up an MFA in screen writing at Boston University.  But most of the week was so, so lovely!  The weather was mostly warm and sunny and I want to share.

They're everywhere--the brightest Azaleas I've ever seen.  

Pots are making a showing in front of homes and businesses.

Here's one of the prettier residential gates in town.

 Dotted with these gorgeous bright flowers, the rock walls I already love are inexplicably appealing.

Pink and red aren't normally colors I'd think go together, but here's proof I'm wrong.  

After feeling awed by Wednesday's walk, on Friday Sherry Anderson and I brought cameras.  

We walked through San Sung park again, home of the tall pagoda, and these lovelies greeted us.  Even though we walk together 2-3 times a week, we're both surprised by 

how dramatically these colors deepened, seemingly overnight.

While many of the more delicate cherry blossoms have already blown away, there are plenty of other flowering trees.  April's blossoms are richer, fuller and mixed with reds, russets, and pale greens.  The combined effect makes Spring, hands down, my favorite season in Sacheon!

We walked through 2 parks on Friday.  San Sung is closest, and the pagoda is just visible behind the small pavilion, rocks, flowers and trees in this photo.  But the second park Sherry introduced me to beyond San Sung (neither or us knows what it's called) has some special features, like exercise equipment, so Sherry references it as "exercise park."    

But its most charming features include wood-supported, 

earthen stairs and cut in walk ways, lined with flowering trees,

and pergola-style roofed sitting areas (there's a word for these in Korean too--don't remember it). 

Gnarly, twisted climbing vines in full bloom with wisteria-type flowers 

will make these densely shaded havens soon. 

In between the bright red Asian maple and cherry blossoms, Sherry's using a giant hula-hoop.  My friend, Erin, introduced me to these last year.  They're so fun, but my sides are bruised because not used to them!  I took photos this time and left the hula-ing to Sherry!

But I've gotten over being scared of swinging over the mountain side!  

It's a steep drop, and at first, I couldn't stomach the butterflies.  

But as of Friday, I finally learned to love it!  

Thank you, Sherry--Weeeee!

Gardens and Farms are coming back to life.  This is one of my favorites.  It's around San Sung park and planted not just in rows, but teers.  Typically Asian, but not typical anywhere I've ever lived in the US.    

Saturday was windy, cold and rainy, just as April likes to be, wherever there are four seasons.  But, I met a new pair of friends in nearby Samcheonpo, who are here teaching from Canada.  They've been in Korea for about 3 years, but just moved to the area.  We didn't go on the hike we'd planned, but had a great time getting to know each other anyway.  So, to celebrate meeting Bharathi and Don (happy birthday, Don!) and close out a chilly Saturday, I went through photos from 

gorgeous Friday to post and share instead!
"We do not remember days, we remember moments."  -Cesare Pavese