Any quick Pinterest search of South Korea brings floods of images of bright green rolling hills filled with perfectly manicured green tea hedges, specifically those belonging to the Daehan Dawon Tea Plantation. That said, upon my arrival in Korea it didn’t take long to hear about the unbelievable tea fields that lay within the sleepy town of Boseong. Once discovering the fields were on the southern edge of Korea, I immediately made it a goal to visit on the first long weekend once the weather got warmer.
During my time spent in Korea I fell in love with taking little weekend getaways to explore all of the nooks and crannies of the country. It was so nice to get away from the city every once in a while and rediscover that I was in fact living in Asia, rather than just in some odd part of the States where nobody seemed to speak my language.
While my love of exploring continued to grow, I can’t say the experience of getting to the final destination ever got any easier. Let’s just say that navigating a foreign country with about a preschool level vocabulary of the spoken language can get quite interesting at times. While I’d been living in Korea for about nine months at this point and had visited numerous small towns, the journey of getting there and back was always an adventure which required the help of dozens of kind locals along with a great deal of luck. However, those weekend adventures brought me to the southern most regions of Korea as well as within swimming distance to the norther border, and I loved nearly every minute of it.
Back to this trip in particular, the journey to find the famous and picturesque tea fields.
After an early 6am start and a bit of traffic, my friend and I finally made it to Boseong by late afternoon.
We walked around the small and snoozy town for a bit to get our bearings and find a place to stay for the night then found a cozy little restaurant for dinner. After managing to order some bibimbap from the Korean menu and enjoying our side dishes we decided to explore the town a bit more before heading in for the night.
The next morning we woke up eager to make our way to the tea fields. After driving through dozens of small rice farms I was expecting to arrive at a small, yet somewhat touristy, tea field. What we actually arrived at was something that seemed like it could have been a small tea-themed park at Disney. The plantation owner definitely capitalized on their land, though I can’t blame them because the fields are truly spectacular. Though the initial welcome is somewhat contrived, once you begin to wander into the actual fields the experience becomes more personal as you take in the incredible scenery that is in front of you.
The park is actually much bigger than I had anticipated and is more than just tea fields. We wandered through fields to find cedar lined trails, water falls, and even some late blooming azaleas. After exploring the grounds we decided it was time for some green tea ice cream.
Just as we were about to head out for the day something caught our eye. A small forest of bamboo trees. Not to discount the tea fields, which were beyond stunning, I actually think that exploring the small section of trees was my favorite part of the day. This area of the park is much more secluded and we were two of just a handful of people who seemed to find it. We got to enjoy the small trail pretty much alone amongst only the noise of some cicadas and a woodpecker hiding in the trees.
Finally, we made our way out of the park and slowly back into the bustling streets of Seoul, happy to have had some moments of quiet and seclusion outside of the city.
After a quick and adventurous weekend in Beijing I flew into Tokyo for a two-week tour through Japan. I started with two days in the capital city before moving down to Kyoto for the rest of the week.
Himeji is a city in Japan that lies just a few hours train journey away from Kyoto or Osaka and is home to this centuries-old gorgeous white castle. I caught a late morning train which put me in Himeji in early afternoon; perfect timing for exploring. After buying my ticket I took a self guided tour through the six-story castle climbing up the steep staircases with the rest of the visitors.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m obsessed with cherry blossoms and have been since I was very young. I remember visiting my grandmother’s house growing up and staring out the window into her backyard each spring admiring the beauty of the blossoming trees in bursts of pink and white wishing they could stay that way all year round.
The following day we went straight to Nishiki Market to pick up some souvenirs and a little breakfast, and then we were on our way to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. While the shrine didn’t have many cherry blossoms it was definitely a priority of the weekend.
Just about a year ago a group of friends and I headed south for a weekend of festivals. We spent Saturday in Jinhae for the 
We woke up Sunday morning in Busan which was incredible enough on its own. Busan is a seaside city and always makes me feel like I’m in California rather Korea. It has a much more laid-back vibe than up north were we live.
Once everyone in our group picked up their color packets we ventured into the mass of people celebrating. Indian music was blasting, people were dancing, and color was everywhere. There were hundreds of people, some tourists, some fellow expats, and many transplants from India who were more than happy to share their culture with us; pulling anyone into the circle that seemed to be drifting away.
As signs of spring are starting to appear in Korea, I’ve been reflecting on weekend trips taken last year and starting to plan what I hope to do this spring. I’ve been revisiting photos of various getaways and one in particular that stands out was the weekend spent in a southern city of Korea, called Jinhae, for their famous cherry blossom festival.
Once we had finished eating and walked through all of the tent lined streets, we started exploring to find the river we’d all spent the week dreaming about via Pinterest and Instagram. Seeing as there really were thousands of people at this festival it wasn’t terribly difficult to find. All we had to do was follow the masses in hopes of making our way to the front of the line to take a photo of the brightly colored river umbrellaed by blossoming pink and white trees.
We spent hours walking along the river and eventually made it to a coffee shop around dusk for a quick rest and caffeine fix. As the sun set we ventured back out into the crowds and found that the paths had been lit up by arches wrapped in white lights making the small town seem just a bit more magical.
bbm travels 