The beginning of April marks cherry blossoms blooming in Korea....

Busan to Jinhae


Sitting on the bus floor


Eating rice cake in Jinhae


Posing with a selfie stick


Posing with a selfie stick


Posing with a selfie stick


Posing with a selfie stick


Posing with a selfie stick


Crowds in Jinhae


Rain in Jinhae

The beginning of April marks cherry blossoms blooming in Korea. Because I had so much fun last year at the Jinhae Gunhangje Festival (진해군항제), I went to the 53rd annual festival this year. 

Initially, things were great. I had trouble sleeping the night before I was so excited to go to Jinhae the next morning. My boyfriend and I braved the queues with other folks at the Sasang Bus Terminal in Busan. After waiting for 45 minutes, he was sitting on the floor of the bus while I stood in the aisle for an hour on our ride to Jinhae. For 5,100₩ a bus ticket (roughly $4.68 USD), it was a great deal.

Last year, friends were discouraging me from going to the festival for various reasons. Still, I went last year and loved it. This year, not so much. It was super crowded, everyone was in my pictures, the food wasn’t good, and it was a nightmare getting back. 

I now understand why people avoid the crowds of Korean festivals. 

This is first year that selfie sticks have been at every event. I have one myself. I use it (poorly) every now and again. The point of selfie sticks is that you’re not supposed to see them in photos, but I can rarely position it as such. Walking around the people, including their selfie sticks, was additionally frustrating. Again, I have a selfie stick so I can’t say too much about them, but, yeah, I noticed the difference from last year to this year, without them and now with them. People are apt to absently walk around with them which is somewhat frustrating. 

As we started to leave Jinhae, it rained. We thought we could wait it out in a restaurant. Then, we had a bad restaurant experience, including a napkin being cooked in our meal. Still hoping it was just a clean napkin that absently found its way into our food, and not… well, you know.

We ended up waiting 3-4 hours in the pouring rain for a bus back home. For the first hour, we struggled to buy an umbrella. Difficult to sugarcoat that it was a miserable time. Now, we laugh back at it though.