Day 396: Spring Is In The Air

Well it looks like winter has *finally* been broken! After what seemed a long and particularly dull and bitterly cold winter, it actually feels like it's starting to warm up here in Korea. There were only two snowfalls all winter long here in Ilsan and neither of them stayed on the ground for more than 24 hours. And when I say cold I guess it isn't all that bad. I mean cold here in Korea is not like cold back in Thunder Bay! (Maybe I've just been spoiled by all those years in balmy Vancouver?) It's just that during winter here everything is brown and grey and dead and ugly. The trees are bare, the hills are absent of colour or life, and living in a sea of highrise apartment towers you really only do see about three shades or tones - withering brown, putrid beige, and soulless grey. Jamiopso! (Korean for 'not fun!')

But not things are a-changing. The air is a bit warmer. I don't need mittens or a scarf when I walk to work. I don't need to have the heat cranked in my apartment everyday now. I can actually hear birds when I walk to work. And today for the first time I saw some buds on the trees. Yah!!! Spring, like every other season in Korea, usually arrives specifically on one day, bringing about an instant transformation and sudden and complete change. I remember last year just waking up one day in April and it was like the world here had just exploded in green overnight. Here's hoping for a repeat performance of that trick this year!