Mother Nature

           Two famous nature attractions in Changwon are the Rose Park and the Junam Wetlands. About halfway to work there is a peaceful park filled with thousands of roses, all different colors. This was a great place to surprise Courtney near the end of her visit. By the looks of the park only about 50% of the roses were in bloom either because of the recent high temperatures or maybe different roses flower at different times of the year. Regardless of reason, there were more than enough flowers there to look at.



"Jong Mi Gong Won" is Korean for Rose Park

 

The park center



The coolest rose in the park



A stone path with varying textures. Koreans will walk on these barefoot as they believe different pressure points on their feet are related to body organs.

            About 15km west of the hotel at the very edge of Changwon is the Junam Wetlands. These wetlands are famous for the migratory birds that stop there as they continue to their next destination. The wetlands were vast and also a very peaceful sight. There was a cool two story lookout tower to climb for a better viewing angle that even had five or six tourist telescopes to look through and identify birds. Unfortunately there weren’t many birds there but on the other side of the road was a very large lotus field. The lotus’ were in bloom and gigantic. Never before have I seen such large petals on a flower.

Junam Wetlands



Lotus city



Courtney matched with the Lotus'

            Both nature scenes helped to show that although Korea is constructing so many buildings and roads they still respect the land they live on. Roughly 70% of Korea is mountains and with my guess another 15% is for growing rice. With such little land to actually settle on, Korea really goes the extra effort to make sure their surroundings are beautiful and a good escape from their hardworking daily lives.