Korea Spring 2019 - 4/8 : Spring Hunting! a Day Trip to Gwangyang Maehwa and Gurye Sansuyu Festival

"Love the people God gave you

because one day, He'll take them back"

Plum Blossoms at Gwangyang Maehwa Festival 

Day 5 - Tuesday, 12 March 2019

We booked a tour for Spring hunting because we went to Korea during Spring but it's kind of earlier to see cherry blossoms at Seoul so we looked for a place where we can see the blossoms and it said at south part of Korea, Jeollanam-do is greet spring earlier than any other cities in Korea, you can see white Maehwa Plum Blossoms and yellow Sansuyu, then we headed that way via tour - day trip. I wondered if it's bloomed already or not and hope to find a good news once we arrived there. We booked the tour from Trazy (Rp 760k/person).

GWANGYANG MAEHWA FESTIVAL

We went to a meeting point at Hongdae, Hongik Univ. Station Exit 4 in early morning at 6 AM, they picked us up by mini van and they went to some meeting point (Myeongdong and Dongdaemun) to pick up others people. I slept during the journey since it took a while to get there, like 2 - 3 hours. Once we almost arrived at Gwangyang, the view was spectacular, along the way we found the plum blossoms. 

Our Transportation this morning

inside the car

Rest Area

We arrived around 12.30 PM and we had about 2 hours to explore the area, the view was so beautiful like I could stare at it a whole day, yeayyy finally I can see Spring at Korea. I was worried if there might not blooming yet but I was so grateful. We went in a group around 10 peoples and we hiked together at some point then we got a free time for about 2 hours to explore the area.

Arrived at Gwangyang

Can you spotted your idol?

The area was huge, we started explore the area, wow it's so beautiful! Plum blossoms are everywhere when you walk around. In addition, the weather was super nice at that time. We spend few hours to go around before heading back to the meeting point. I tried and bought Plum Makgeolli, so refreshing. You will find a lot of people there and most of them are local people, some people also exciting to do hiking there, so crowded but lots of fun!

Soooo beautiful!

I love Spring!

Picnic under the Plum Blossoms 

lovely <33333

Gwangyang Maehwa Festival

Filming Location

2,000 won/glass

I took a lot pictures at Maehwa, what a wonderful place!

GURYE SANSUYU FESTIVAL

It took around an hour from Maehwa to Gurye Sansuyu. Once we arrived this place, rain was coming so we waited for a while. This place was not blooming as much as Gwangyang Maehwa, since the flowers also different. In here you can find some yellow flowers, Cornelian Cherry bloomed. We went around that area, not too crowded like the first place. I like the first place better. The weather was so cold since it's also raining. We enjoyed eating Odeng there, our survival snack during cold weather like that. Back to our van then heading back to Seoul, we fell asleep in the car since the journey will took few hours but we were happy with the tour service and happy to catch spring in Korea.

Yellow Sansuyu!

Yellow Sansuyu (Cornelian Cherry)

DONGDAEMUN DESIGN PLAZA (DDP)

We decided to get off at Dongdaemun Design Plaza, it was around 9-10 PM because I want to check the LED flowers at Dongdaemun. The first time I checked LED Flowers was at Central Park. And I haven't check the one in Dongdaemun. Strolled around the area and the building looks nice and modern. There are so many LED flowers around the building and it looks very nice. You can also find the well known signage for I Seoul U in front of the building.

I Seoul U at Dongdaemun Design Plaza

Dongdaemun Design Plaza LED Flowers <333

So perfect to see at night :)

SHOPPING AT DONGDAEMUN

Then we headed to shopping mall around Dongdaemun, this area was famous to shop until early morning. We went around and went to Migliore to the 5th or 6th floor, here you can find some interesting things to buy. I bought quite a lot here until we almost late for the last subway to Hongdae. It's really cheap in here and the quality also nice.

I think this was around 5th-6th Floor at Migliore

Such a long day since we had a day trip to the south part of Korea to hunt Spring, below is our airBnB, Moca Guesthouse, the place was nice, affordable and the location is perfect, not really far from Airport Line Hongdae and Hongade Station and the surroundings area was really nice too. Our room was located at first floor just next to front door, so we were happy since we don't need to take much stairs haha.

Our Guest House, Moca Guest House

me and Gie at Gwangyang Maehwa Festival

Thank you for reading my travel diaries and see you soon. Anyway by the time I post this, I just want to say : take care wherever you are and hope everything will be back to normal soon!

Cheers,

MJ