Plum Blossom Festival at Maehwa Village, Gwangyang

Maehwa Village

Exactly, how you describe a paradise? Personally, I imagine one of paradise would be a mountain with full of beautiful flowers blooming where the air feels nothing other than crisp and scent of natural flower. And there is a house, or cottage in the valley, surrounded with nothing except flowers. And Plum Blossoms festival at Meahwa has made my imaginary paradise come the the earth.

Going south about hundreds kilometer from Seoul, there is a city near to the East China Sea. The City is surrounded by mountains called Jiri-san.And there is a large and long river to the sea, made a narrow delta with white sand. The river is unarguably clean with blue and turquoise color. 

In the late winter, just at the welcoming spring, this quiet city transform into one i called a little paradise. Peoples from all part of Korea flock to the city just to enjoy the Plum Blossom that bloom in every part of the City.

The Blue and Clean River

I came to Gwangyang by joining tour from Trazy. I paid KRW 71,000 for Bus and english speaking guide which lot cheaper than I go with KTX.

Departed from Seoul at 06.45 in the morning, I arrived at 11.30-ish due to the traffic jam. The city is full of cars and busses. I rarely see any foreign tourist come here during the weekend, only locals.The good news is no matter how many people come here, the area is super huge so there always be 'quiet' spot to take a picture.

 

Plum Blossom Flower

From far away, Plum Blossom is looked same with Cherry Blossom. But take a closer look, the flower is different in so many ways. Cherry Blossom has a split end at the petal meanwhile plum blossoms are rounded. Plum Blossoms colors usually off white or bold pink and red, meanwhile cherry blossom in Korea is pinkish-whitey.

And of course, Plum Blossom bloom early right the closing of winter and start of spring. In Korea, they peak around second week of March.

With original Korea's kimchi stored

a very huge place

Did I told you that Meahwa Village is very hugee??It's damn huge that can make your feet sore. I suggest you to wear comfort shoes here. There are lot of stairs and hiking is needed in some areas. 

Before reach the village, we passed by local housing selling many different kind of Korean traditional foods and snacks like dried ginseng, plum pickled, chicken satay, mozarella and many mores. 

One of the "Quite" spot

After reached at the top of the hill, just sit at one og the stone at the top or pavilion, and silently enjoy the beauty in front of you. Or you can just held your spouse's partner and talking about how we met at the first time and how we end up in place like this? so far away from home? Well, how we are blessed to enjoy this kind of moment!

one of beautiful pond

White Plum Blossoms

White, Pink and green

My only complain is there are many restaurants in here but not english menu. Also, one more!!From the village to parking area is f.r.e.a.k.i.n.g f.a.r! Eventough the scenery is stunning, but i don't think old people or people (like me) that rarely walk will enjoy walking  3km alone after hiking just to reach the parking lot. The organizer facilitate a small shuttle bus from parking lot to the village, but the frequencies are not many. That's why the queue is quite looooong. It's different with Autumn peak at Naejangsan, there are many of busses.

To the fact that people that didn't like hiking, may be the city can build a cable car to the top of the hill. But then, it is not too high and they may losing the feeling to get lost in the maze of flowers-canopied trees!

The Most important thing,  don't ever forget to take the picture of yours, and show how you enjoy this moment!It is very recommended to visit this place if you are too early to arrive at Korea during spring season.

I'm enjoying it much