78) Cherry Blossoms

Last weekend I went back to the cherry blossom festival and met Chip and our friend Gloria there. I had high hopes of taking a lot of pictures, but after about a half hour my camera started to malfunction. The same problem had occurred a few days before at the school, but I thought I had fixed it- apparently not.

Exactly what I will do with the camera I am not sure, but I will probably sell it at one of the huge “digital markets” in Seoul, and upgrade to a better camera. I would rather just keep the camera, but to get it fixed is costly… and confusing.

I did end up with two pictures from that night that I liked. The first one is just looking down a section of the street. The flowers were much better the first time I went. The day before this picture was taken saw some rain and high winds- knocking some of the flowers off the trees. The only nice thing about that was all the flower petals on the ground and bushes, it was beautiful.


The second picture is of a section of a crowd that gathered to watch a street musician. I was standing in the back with my head down sending a text message when I heard “Hello!” It sounded to me like it was the musician, and as a sort of natural reaction I looked up, and sure enough, he stopped his performance to say hello to me. Now I have the eyes of around three hundred strangers on me while this guy continues to talk to me. I could feel my face turn red and my hands get even sweatier than they already were. But in the end I was happy for the little conversation, and thought it was one of those things that could only occur in a foreign country. I usually forget just how much I stand out in the average crowd here, but little things like that bring me back to that reality- usually just momentarily.