This festival takes place at Maehwa Village near Gwangyang city in the Daap-myeon region of Jeollanam-do province. The area is famous for having the largest amount of Japanese apricot trees in Korea, and in fact the village takes its name from these trees. When the maehwa trees bloom they produce beautiful white flowers, known as ume flowers. The sight of these trees blooming throughout Maehwa Village and the surrounding Baegum Mountain is very picturesque, and every year people come from all around to walk beneath the blossoming trees and to purchase the organic maehwa (apricot) products that are produced in the region.
You can also visit the actual Plum Festival website at: http://www.gwangyang.go.kr/maehwa/. Though the website is in Korean, you can click on the 4th section of the banner to see professional pictures from the festival.
Here are a few pictures that I took.
So, why the title of Korea's Next Top Models? My friend, Anna, and I were the only foreigners at the festival as far as I could tell. As we were looking at a traditional Korean home, a photographer stopped the two of us and asked us to pose at the house. He had us do several different poses. Other people were polite and stayed out of the way so that he could take our picture. One kid who probably spoke limited English even told us to "smile".
As we were leaving the house area, we had to climb a relatively steep hill. At the top of the hill were more people with cameras. Not wanting to be in the scene and ruin their pictures, Anna and I stepped to the side. Oh, but that wasn't what they wanted. They wanted us to be in the picture. They had us go half-way down the hill 3-4 times so they could get some good shots of us talking up the hill and talking to each other. Again, people stayed out of our way in order for the men to take our picture. We felt like celebrities! haha! Anna and I both agreed that we are going to have to start working on our runway walks! lol!
Beautiful pictures! And work it girl! :)
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