Since Kevin and I are early risers, we decided to wake up real early (I woke up at 4am) and start our hike at 5am towards the foot of Baekhwasan in town. I estimated that by the time we arrived at the peak we would be able to see the sunrise. Well things didn't go as planned. Once we reached the top, the skies were cloudy but it created a really nice calming atmosphere since it gave the surrounding landscape a shade of blue. Setting up my camera and my tripod, I started shooting away. Here are the results from early this morning.

The weather this week hasn't been the best and fearing that the rain might destroy the last of the remaining cherry blossoms, David, Dylan and I decided to visit one four major temples in Chungcheongnam-do, Gaesimsa (개심사) located in Haemi Eup, Seosan City. The original site was founded in the Baekjae Dynasty but was destroyed in a forest fire in 1475 and rebuilt in 1478, which are the buildings that currently standing today. We took the 522 bus which left Seosan Bus Terminal at 09:15 and it dropped us off at the foot of the temple around 35 minutes later. Lanterns were up along the trail as well as around the temple in preparation of Buddha's birthday. There was a prayer session going on at the temple, hence the lack of photos of the buildings. Seeing that there were more and more people coming to the temple to see the cherry blossoms, we decided that we did enough exploring around the area and started to head down to the main road. Along the way there were was a lane lined up with cherry blossoms trees in full bloom. Since most of the tourists headed directly to the temple, it was a wonderful opportunity to take photos knowing that a random ajuma won't walk through your photo. Once we were finished, we continued our way along the trail which followed an agricultural reservoir. Although it was a bit foggy, the light was soft and the scenes around us looked like as if they were paintings. We're defiantly coming back to visit the temple and the trail later on once the area is green again. If you happen to be in Seosan during the weekend, this place is one of the city's best kept secrets that you should explore.

In 2012, I took a small detour to work in Hong Kong but things didn't go as planned hence I came back to Korea. It was at Hong Kong when I started to experiment with street photography since the place is a massive urban jungle. I didn't had the chance to visit the natural side of Hong Kong up in the New Territories since I never really had the time to venture out that far. Therefore I spent most of my time wandering around in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Most of my photos were converted into black and white at that time, but as I went through them again today, I decided to re-edit them to see how they would look in colour. To be honest, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Here they are.

Due to the warm weather that Korea has been getting lately, the cherry blossoms have bloomed earlier than expected. Seeing that I might miss my only chance this year if I continued to wait for the flowers to bloom in Taean, I decided head out to Seosan Lake Park, where I knew that most of the trees were in full bloom. Words cannot describe how beautiful these delicate white flowers are, especially when the white petals gracefully dance among the wind. I think I'll stop here and let you enjoy the photos.

A few weeks ago when I making my way down for the top of Baekhwasan, I noticed this clearing which I though to myself would be a great place to get another photo of the sunset. Noticing the weather might be suitable today, I headed up to that spot after work and patiently waited for the sun to set. Once I started taking photos, things didn't go as planned since the sun disappeared under the hazy skyline just before it dipped under the mountains. At least I got a shot which I'm happy with and here it is.