It's springtime in Korea. Being my second favourite season, I can't miss out. Everything is coming back to life after a short and mild (by Canadian standards) winter. All the changes, especially with the plants and animals, get me excited to go out and take photos.
So like usual, I head to my favourite spring spots. Today we visit Chomakgol Eco Park (초막골생태공원). I've been here before and I blogged about here in 2020. These particular pictures are from last spring, 2021-04-11 to be exact.
The main feature of the park is being in a valley. This means the city is hidden from view on 3 sides. Another feature is all the water. This is the main pond. There are so many great opportunities for photography here, all seasons!
I like strolling along all the various paths. In the spring, many of them are lined with tulips and other flowers. Fortunately, most of the paths aren't very steep. However, that means the park does get very crowded. It's not a good place to come if you are in a hurry or want a picnic. Actually, they won't allow you to put up tents or put down blankets in most places (it makes a mess and blocks the path).
The park also has more tradition gardens and fountains scattered around it. And of course, no Korean urban park would be complete without tacky heart-shaped sculptures and other art to express your unique side. Personally, I avoid these areas, but they are popular with people who've been sufficiently lobotomized by social media like Facebook and Instagram.
I come in the spring to view flowers. It's always the best season for this. Here is a picture of my favorite tulip variety of 2021. I always seem to find a favourite and this one just screamed, "photo-me!" Flowers make great subjects for macro photos because they don't move and they are always looking their best.
This flower bed area is less artificial-looking. It was on the hillside by the parking lot. I'm not sure why, but I like these flowers better than tulips and I appreciate the less organized design. Tulip beds look nice and well organized. But there is also something nice about mixing things up a little. It seems more natural somehow.
This is one of my favourite photos. I like that water feature and never had the chance to see it running before today.
The original photo was 3x2 (6000x4000) like all the other originals taken with my Sony mirrorless camera, but I had to turn it into 16x9 because it was over the 25MB limit. I've never had that happen before. There are limitations to wherever the photos are stored by Hive and/or PeakD. Ghetto, I guess I need a solution one day. Fortunately, I keep the originals in storage.
Look how epic it is! Obviously, this is a sculpture and a few of these rocks aren't even real rocks. Also, in case you are wondering, the bronze ducks are real ducks, either. That one large rock sticking out reminds me of that famous rock from The Lion King.
This is one of my favourite cheery trees in Korea. That says a lot because there are lots of cherry trees in Korea. Actually, there are thousands in my immediate neighbourhood. Koreans pretty much only plant cherry trees and Ginko tress on the sides of the road. I'm not sure why, they are only pretty for a couple of weeks and then they make a mess.
Here is another view of the same tree. You can see how big it is. Because it's not on a crowded street, it is allowed to grow quite freely. I like how it overhangs the water. I posted pictures of people standing under it before from a different angle. Unfortunately, these trees don't live very long, so I guess this one won't be around too much longer. But, there are thousands of other cherry trees around.
Now we move on to the ornamental rice and lily ponds. I like these ones because they are set up in a more traditional way and in a steep side valley. Usually, ricefields are in the flat plains and don't have so much space around them (just more rice fields). So, these are very photogenic. I got the light just right in this photo I think. That's not slim, you are seeing, it's cherry petals. I told you they make a mess.
Fortunately, we have a cleanup crew taking care of the mess. As you can see there are hundreds of tadpoles eating the petals. Actually, there were a lot more tadpoles all over. However, I decided that swarms of tadpoles don't really make for lovely photos. It would make a neat video though.
Finally, we can see a nice stream at the side of the valley. I believe this stream is natural. It would of course be dammed so the water can be carefully controlled, but that's just the thing about a place like this. This valley used to be an actual farm area and garbage dump. There is a giant methane gas smoke stack and large powerlines all over the place. But, I guess you didn't notice :)
I haven't been to this particular park in nearly 1 year. I'm going to visit here next Friday. I'll take my son there after his doctor's appointment. Parking is nearly impossible to find on the weekend. I'm hoping he will like it, too.