the urban willow

Cherry blossoms in Seongsan Park

One of the best perks about being out of school: holidaying in spring. March holidays don't count, especially since they somehow always coincidentally end just before common tests.

I love spring, apart from the hayfever and my sinuses running a continuous marathon. Spring has the best food (durian/shellfish/strawberries/white asparagus season), gorgeous flowers and amazing climate, which means amazing clothes. And while we have the whole clean-and-green-tropics thing going on back home, bougainvillea and frangipani can get a little old after a while; endless summer sounds nice in theory (and on Phineas and Ferb), but we all know how icky that can get too.

Since the weather permits getting up close and personal with all this picturesque fauna, these couple of trips that I've managed to squeeze into the spring months have each involved walking through some patch of inner-city wilderness.

Seoul

We'd initially planned on going to Nami Island to view cherry blossoms, but the hour plus journey convinced us otherwise, and we settled for Yeouido Park/Yeouido Hangang Park instead, which is famous for its Spring Flower Festival. The festival ended just a few days before we'd landed (it usually takes place early/mid-April), but the food stalls were still pretty active and we lunched on squid lollipops (basically huge calamari) and tornado potatoes.

Yeouido Park is pretty large and located just across the street from Yeouido Hangang Park, which stretches a fair length along the Han river. Although cherry blossoms can be easily spotted in both, Yeouido Park itself is more of a traditional park (ahjummas fast walking, people dazing on benches, lots more trees) while the Hangang Park is more of an open expanse where people can picnic and admire the skyline.

On our first full day in Seoul, we also chanced upon a little gem of a park called Seongsan park near Hongdae, while searching for duty-free products for Ruthanne's aunt. This one involved a bit more effort to reach since it was way hillier than Yeouido Park, but it seems relatively untouched by tourists and has a less cultivated atmosphere. We were mostly alone in our wandering of the park apart from the few local passer-bys who would awkwardly stand around waiting for us to finish spamming our barrage of self-timer shots.

 Emphasizing height disparities in Seongsan Park

Sapporo

As idyllic as the Japanese countryside can appear, it's sad to say that most of Sapporo looks like a cross between a largely pre-fabricated American suburb and Sylvania houses. Think plasticky and boxy in various shades of brown, the skyline strewn with multiple telephone wires, making it look like some kid went crazy with a can of grey silly string.

Nonetheless, the Japanese can take their horticulture pretty seriously, and I've seen quite a few zen-looking bonsai gardens amidst the concrete-and-neon Tokyo background. If you're looking for something similar in Sapporo, or just a place to get a breath of fresh air, the two options closest to most of the hotels and Sapporo station would be the Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens and Odori Park.

The Botanical Gardens were closest to our hotel - right around the corner - so as we passed by the morning after we landed, we decided to drop in and take a stroll after an udon brunch. There's an entrance fee of 400 yen for adults and 200 yen for children, but the experience is rather pleasant and quite well worth it, in my opinion. Apart from encompassing a sizable stretch of greenery and a wide diversity of plants (although we didn't bother venturing into the tropical section), the Gardens also house a couple of museums, including one full of taxidermied animals and another containing a small but comprehensive exhibition on the Ainu people (Hokkaido natives).

In comparison, Odori Park seemed broad but had less of a lost-in-a-forest feel; it was more of a grass-covered gathering square or plaza dotted with tulips and fountains. Passably pretty, but what I saw was nothing much to write home (or blog) about in terms of scenery. My impression was that it's more of a community area, stretching from the Sapporo TV tower to cover an extremely wide area of about 12 streets, including play areas and statues.

While it's probably not much of a surprise, Hokkaido's best natural scenery still lies in the countryside. The past couple of days after leaving Sapporo and driving down through Hokkaido have really shown us some spectacular sights, and frustrated us to no end while we stuck our camera lenses out the car window trying unsuccessfully to capture them.

 Tulips in Odori Park

Wandering the Botanical Gardens. Photo by Kassandra Lee

 My sister was laughing at me so hard when I thought those carvings were just tree bark markings at first.

Hi.

The people in Sapporo have been incredibly nice, and it's not just the impeccable service. We were sitting in this udon shop having brunch, when this middle-aged guy sitting at the next table asked to see my sister's and my cameras. Some kind of conversation involving a lot of sign language ensued, and he eventually gave my sister some kind of Sapporo collar pin. I guess he felt that it was unfair to not give me anything, so he dug in what he called his "Doraemon bag" and emerged with this adorable Rilakkumma phone sock that he used as a bottle warmer. So now it's warming my own mini water bottle. About ten minutes after his group had left the shop, he came back down specially to pass us a couple of Japanese paper doll peace charms, one of which is now safely sandwiched in my notepad to prevent crushing on the way home.

 The phone sock/bottle warmer in question. Just basking in the spring sun.

Of course, Sapporo doesn't only have two parks, but these were the two pointed out to us as the most centrally located. For a more traditionally Japanese experience, a little bit below Odori Park is Nakajima Park, which houses two shrines and a teahouse, while the Hokkaido Shrine in Maruyama Park was an item on our to-visit list that we regretfully didn't manage to cross out.

There's just so much to cover about Hokkaido that I'm not even sure how many posts it'll span, but one thing is consistent at least: the food. So far, almost no meal has disappointed, and I'll probably be crying over the Singaporean take on Japanese food for the next few months after the end of this trip.

One last plea on behalf of my animal-rights-activist sister: if you're visiting Sapporo and come across a horse-drawn carriage service, if possible, please try to avoid using it. The poor white horse that we saw pulling the carriage looked utterly exhausted and thirsty, and a childhood reading Black Beauty has called up a few unsavory notions as to what the treatment it receives might be like.

Locations:

Seoul

Seongsan Park | Hongdae
Near the Mapo District Office, in Seongsan-1 Precinct
Free entry

Yeouido Park, Yeouido Hangang Park | Yeouido
Yeouido Station (Line 5) Exit 3, or Yeouinaru Station Exit 1
Free entry

Hokkaido

Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens | Sapporo
Nishi 8 Chome, Kita 3 Jonishi
Around 1km from Sapporo Station (Toho, Namboku Subway Lines, JR Hakodate Main Line/Chitose Line)
400 yen for adults, 200 yen for children

Odori Park | Sapporo
Nishi 1 to 13 Chome, Odori
Around 1km from Sapporo Station or around 650m from Odori Station (any subway line, Sapporo tram line)