blossoms, tea, and chocolate...

"The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all."

- Mulan

     Last weekend Beth, Lindsey, and I joined a tour group to go on a weekend cherry blossom tour, yes I have become a middle aged woman joining a bus tour to check out flowers.  We boarded the bus on Friday night at midnight and drove through the night.  That part of the tour was terrible, I really need my bed and sleep.  We arrived at 5:00 AM Sunday morning to the Seomjingang River cherry blossom festival.  Unfortunately we were about 1 day too early for the cherry blossoms, they opened the next day.  It is amazing what you can accomplish when you start your day at 5:00 AM.  After looking at the cherry trees, we then visited wetlands, temple, and a garden.  Then spent a very cushy night in a boy scout camp sleeping on the floor with pillows made of drinking straws.   

Korea is full of blossoming trees.  So while the cherry blossoms weren't open we did get some other blossoms.  

I didn't realize where we were actually going when I got on the bus.  Turns out we actually drove all the way to the southernmost point of the Korean Peninsula.  I was very confused why half the wetland was just mud until I looked at the map.  Turns out we were looking at tidal plains.

The next day we woke up bright and early again.  The tour guide was nice enough to change our itinerary to take us to another place with cherry blossoms.  Then we visited green tea fields.

The park near the blossoms had a sign advertising the place.  If you don't recognize them those two people in the photo are Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield, two Hollywood actors.  I am 100% sure these two have never been to this town in Korea.

Koreans love their green tea.  I personally feel that it tastes like grass. Either way the fields themselves are beautiful.  We first went to a family owned organic farm.  We were taught how to properly drink tea and then we got to make our own chocolate!

If you look closely at the picture on the right you can see the sea on the horizon.

My photos are out of order but these were taken at the garden we visited.

The woman on the right was the wife of owner of the tea fields.  She became a chocolatier because of the similarities between how tea is made and chocolate is made.  Basically we were given pastry bags of melted chocolate and could make whatever designs we wanted with it.  

This was my most perfect chocolate.

I love this photo.  We stole this pose from another group.  We look like wack-a-moles.

It was a fun weekend but I was so excited to get home and sleep in a real bed, with a real pillow filled with feathers.