Morning Calm Garden, Day Trip in South Korea

Not sure if I've posted this yet, but I wanted to make sure I shared this picture with you:

I love the random appearance of soldiers in Korea, doing random things, like holding their girlfriends' purses at shopping centers, or goofing off on a subway platform, during their weekends of leave. This is my all-time favorite, though:



Next: Girlfriendoseyo took me to a place called "Morning Calm Garden" the very weekend after reading A Geek In Korea's glowing review of it. I took a ton of pictures, and here are the best ones for you. This was one of the prettiest botanical gardens I've ever seen (and I've seen a few). It's only 15 years old, and I'm sure as the trees mature, it'll only get better, but this was the absolute optimum day for fall colors -- both because of the date (everything was rich red) and because of the weather -- the grayish sky meant I never had to worry about backlighting while taking most of my photos, and then right near the end of our trip, suddenly the sun came out and I got a few blazing glory shots, too.


In a garden, open spaces are crucial for balance.


in the sun, those white spray-thingys look really great. I'm bad with remembering plant names, but in the same way not knowing musical theory doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good symphony, not knowing plant names hasn't impeded my aesthetic appreciation of them.


In the gift shop: this is what happens to a Korean kid if they wet the bed. They have to walk around the neighborhood knocking on doors and asking for salt. I imagine the public shaming might be a good disincentive.. then again, the fear of shaming might lead to bed-wetting level anxiety.


A mother rubbing her sick baby's belly. Girlfriendoseyo asked if I knew what was happening, and I helpfully informed her that Korean moms are not the only ones who rub their sick children's bellies. (snarky comment goes here.. but I'm trying to be less snarky)




I like wacky, crooked "1960s batman" angles when I take pictures.


A waterfally stream.


here's another picture of the stream.



green and red.


I love variegated colors like this, fading from one shade to the other.






stream bed


This tree had the most awesome colour fade I've seen in a while. Look how it pretty much hits every color on the fall spectrum, from its tips to its center.




from the lookout point, I played with setting the light filter lower, so that the brighter colours showed up more brightly in contrast.


lighter filter setting. Learning what my camera can do has been a fun process.


The rock-pile garden was fascinating. One guy had a pile so tall it was above his head! (you can see it poking up, a bit left of the center)






Kids were playing. They made me happy.








I also like pictures of backlit leaves.






The sunken garden.




More leaf fades.


Just to prove I was actually there:
Girlfriendoseyo likes to frame her subject on the sides of photos.


as you can see.


the pavillion lake.


had a continuous string of people using these benches to pose.


these reminded me of the Pines of British Columbia


Maybe my favorite picture of the whole lot:




a great people-watching moment I caught:




as usual with Korean sites, crowds were de rigeur... but the scenery was so nice, I didn't mind a bit.




Yeah. so that was nice.