Spring at Seoul Forest

Spring in Korea means warmer weather (alleluia!) and flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. The cherry and plum blossoms were popping out all over the place, so I felt the need to find a new place for  some pictures and fun. One lovely day last week (which turned into two days, after we had so much fun the first time!), Michael and I headed off to Seoul Forest to explore.

Seoul Forest is a large area near Ttukseom consisting of five parks - ecological, nature study, cultural art, riverside, and wetlands. There are a ton of things to see and do there, so I knew we'd have a full morning.

We found the kid play areas, so our first stop was a romp in the sand pit.

Nearby is this cool sculpture, called "Love Letter" when translated, and the word for "love" is carved on it in 95 different languages...none of which is the English word "love" (this had us Moms giggling a bit as we told the kids to keep looking for it...).

Our day was made even better by the music that was playing throughout the park, through speakers like this one.

The large art culture park has some pretty interesting art pieces:

After wandering for a bit, we finally found what I had been looking - the flowering trees - so beautiful!

The above picture was taken on a Monday. As you can see, the blossoms were already starting to fall and these trees were almost completely bare by Wednesday. Spring moves along quickly!

Our journey continued through the park...

We passed this pine tree, which was 50 years old when planted in 2008 to commemorate cultural exchanges between children of South Korea and China.

We found a koi pond and heeded the signs to not feed them...especially since all we had to offer were goldfish crackers.

Two paths diverged in a wood...

...and since they both led here, we chose the shorter one! This climbing sculpture is awesome!

Michael made some new friends on the first day's climb and romp at the large kid area:

And had some fun in a cement tunnel:

He was eaten by a snake..

...but soon conquered it.

Glad we didn't meet any of its live cousins...or bees.

We tried to visit the deer to feed them, but that section was closed.

That didn't keep me from leaning over the gate to take this photo, however.

On our second visit, we met up with some friends and actually managed to get the kids together for a nice photo:

No deer this day, but the bunny area was open. Unfortunately, they did not stand a chance against...

...the exercise equipment. It's always a hit.

Hold on!

At this point, we said goodbye to our friends and headed into the Bug House (yes, there's one of those, as well!)

He was very concerned that this bee was not moving. That made for an interesting talk about things being alive and dead...oy.

The chipmunk was alive, thankfully.

The butterflies were not, but he was happy to be one for them.

And then we found the butterfly house, so all was right again.

The last room in this building had an assortment of reptiles, arachnids, fish, and amphibians. The tortoises, iguanas, and even this tarantula, lost all appeal once we found the pool of crabs and tadpoles.

It took quite a bit of doing to pull him away from there, since it was pretty cool to see all of the tadpoles with legs sprouting.

Hope you enjoyed our spring tour!