is a reminder of how incredibly lucky I am to be living in this city right now.

How else would you describe this feeling of walking with your face to the sun, peeking at the most serene sky with puffy clouds floating across its chest from under the dense umbrella of pink blossoms, so delicate that the slightest hint of breeze dislodges them from the gnarly branches and sends them earthwards in a flurry of petal showers.

Suddenly your regular walk in the park is not so regular anymore. It has improved by a million degrees. At the end of each day when you’re home contended at having spent hours experiencing this unbound beauty, you find a petal stuck in your hair or coat. And at that very instant you pine to go back the next day. And the next. And the next. It’s never enough. Not just because cherry blossoms are spectacular, and when describing them you runout of superlatives but also because they are ephemeral.

They don’t last long. And while their beauty is always laced with a sense of impending loss, I take comfort in the fact that for now, the city is abloom with thousands of cherry blossom trees, not just in the mountains, parks, gardens, royal palaces and the long stretches of pedestrian roads in certain neighbourhoods which are the best places to view them in abundance but simply everywhere.  You don’t even have to look hard. Just look around! Against a dark coloured brick house, by a lamp post or partly hidden behind the grocery store you find these lone soldiers bobbing their pink heads.

It is such a treat to be out and about at this time of the year!

For the last two weekends I am having my fill of the cherry blossoms by going everywhere my two legs would carry me. And so are hundreds of people, as you can see in my sketch. I drew it from an wooden bench on Yeouiseo-ro Road, right behind the National Assembly. It is undoubtedly one of the most easily accessible (National Assembly Station, exit 1) and best places to view the blossoms, 1886 Korean Cherry trees in bloom to be exact. From infants in prams to geriatrics in wheelchairs, the whole city is here and in awe.

The other places where we viewed the blossoms were in Yeouido Park (Yeouido Station, exit 3), at Jungnangcheon Cherry Blossom Road (Walk 15 mins from Gunja Station, exit 1 in the direction of Gunjagyo Bridge) in Dongdaemun-gu, stretching 3.4 km from Gunjagyo Bridge to Baebongsan Bridge, around the Seokchon Lake next to Lotte World ( Jamsil Station, exit 2 or 3), and inside Gyeongbokung Palace (Gyeongbokung Station, exit 3).

There are many other popular as well as lesser-known spots across the city to satisfy your cherry blossom cravings in Seoul but if I had to pick one, I’d scoot off to the exact same spot in Yeouiseo-ro Road from where I sketched this view. If you’re planning a visit, I suggest you pick a bright sunny day and don’t look at your watch while you’re there.

Just be.