This morning we decided to hop on a bus and take a trip into downtown Seoul in hopes of seeing the fall colors. Sadly, we were too early for the autum leaves, but we were happy to be in such an exciting city on a beautiful fall day. As we wove our way through town we came across a street where all the stores were selling Buddhist stuff - monk robes, bells, drums, etc. Then we saw this...
At first we thought it was a flower show, but once we went in we came to realize two things: this was a Buddhist temple (hense the stores), and the sea of flowers through which we were walking were all chrysanthemums. It turned out that we were fortunate enough to have stumbled upon the annual chrysanthemum festival at Jogyesa temple - and it was AWESOME! Everything was made of live flowers, not cut flowers - living plants that were carefully arranged into topiary-like sculpters.
The green hand holding the flower is about as tall as me
It was an eye-popping spectacle, and everyone was taking pictures with their selfie-sticks and cameras. Just look at these wonderful living artworks...
The "tree" in the background is over 20 feet (sorry, 7 meters) tall
I love the green monk
Okay, so the crane isn't made of flowers, but the mountains behind it are
Look at how realistic the mountains are
It was almost blinding at times
check out the peacock in the background
some aujumas enjoying the shade of a chrysanthemum umbrella
Some people chose to come in their traditional hanbok attire
And some people wore this!
And then it was time to leave
It is wonderful to live in a city that is so full of surprises. I wish we spoke better Korean so we could ask people to explain the significance of what we see - but in a way, the mystery just adds to the allure.
Hopefully next time I'll have some fall colors to show you, but then again, you never know what's coming your way.
