I love the fall. The cool crispness of the air. The feeling of a new chapter. The sense of possibility, of transformation, growth, and change. Here in Korea, we are reveling in the magic of autumn. The weather over the last few weeks has been a fairly consistent clear cool crispness, about mid-60s to low-70s. Today in particular is the quintessential fall day: clear day, sun shining, crisp temperature, and brisk wind that makes the autumn leaves blow all around us as we walk around.
The simple act of walking to the subway station from our apartment has been a joy: giant leaves larger than my head lying around the sidewalk in a panoply of colors (see Exhibit A, below) -- which are super fun to jump on and hear them crinkle under my feet (while Tyler first wondered what the heck I was doing the first time, now he's on the constant lookout for good ones for me to jump on).
I'm still learning all the various trees here. We're thinking these big leaves come from maple trees. My new favorites are the ginkgo trees, which have been painting the sidewalk with striking golden yellow hues. Walking home from church today, I had the most amazing time shuffling my feet through the leaves (when I turned around, I saw that I had started a trend, with cute little kids following gleefully in suit).
Yesterday, we decided to go on a fall foliage safari. Our original plan was to head a couple hours from Seoul to Seoraksan Mountain, which we heard was gorgeous during autumn. However, some friends in town from DC said that many of the leaves on the mountain had already fallen by last weekend. We considered going anyway, but between my precarious back and Tyler's innate desire to climb to the top of all tall things, we decided to stay local instead.
So we headed up north to Samcheong-dong instead (pronounced: Sahm - chong - dong). I had read a blog about it being a nice area to soak up the autumn atmosphere, and it did not disappoint. Trees with leaves in various shades of yellow, orange, red, burnt sienna and green lined up the pedestrian path, along with a beautiful stone wall road that passed through the palace and side streets dotted with small galleries, restaurants, and cute shops. An a capella group singing for peace and other street musicians made our walk feel like we were in our own music video.
We stop for tea along the way, and take everything in. While we love living in the south, which to us represents modern Asia in our tall skyscraper building, the north has incredible charm. Samcheong-dong in particular is a really unique mix of both old architecture and modern galleries existing side by side.
We have dinner at a branch of our favorite noodle joint, this time breaking out of our norm and trying Mongolian noodles (Tyler is in heaven -- they are ultra spicy; I'm pleasantly surprised my taste buds have not been permanently burned off in India). We head home, still marveling at the trees along the way against the midnight blue sky.
The simple act of walking to the subway station from our apartment has been a joy: giant leaves larger than my head lying around the sidewalk in a panoply of colors (see Exhibit A, below) -- which are super fun to jump on and hear them crinkle under my feet (while Tyler first wondered what the heck I was doing the first time, now he's on the constant lookout for good ones for me to jump on).
I'm still learning all the various trees here. We're thinking these big leaves come from maple trees. My new favorites are the ginkgo trees, which have been painting the sidewalk with striking golden yellow hues. Walking home from church today, I had the most amazing time shuffling my feet through the leaves (when I turned around, I saw that I had started a trend, with cute little kids following gleefully in suit).
Yesterday, we decided to go on a fall foliage safari. Our original plan was to head a couple hours from Seoul to Seoraksan Mountain, which we heard was gorgeous during autumn. However, some friends in town from DC said that many of the leaves on the mountain had already fallen by last weekend. We considered going anyway, but between my precarious back and Tyler's innate desire to climb to the top of all tall things, we decided to stay local instead.
So we headed up north to Samcheong-dong instead (pronounced: Sahm - chong - dong). I had read a blog about it being a nice area to soak up the autumn atmosphere, and it did not disappoint. Trees with leaves in various shades of yellow, orange, red, burnt sienna and green lined up the pedestrian path, along with a beautiful stone wall road that passed through the palace and side streets dotted with small galleries, restaurants, and cute shops. An a capella group singing for peace and other street musicians made our walk feel like we were in our own music video.
We stop for tea along the way, and take everything in. While we love living in the south, which to us represents modern Asia in our tall skyscraper building, the north has incredible charm. Samcheong-dong in particular is a really unique mix of both old architecture and modern galleries existing side by side.
We have dinner at a branch of our favorite noodle joint, this time breaking out of our norm and trying Mongolian noodles (Tyler is in heaven -- they are ultra spicy; I'm pleasantly surprised my taste buds have not been permanently burned off in India). We head home, still marveling at the trees along the way against the midnight blue sky.
No comments:
Post a Comment