Spring Flower Festival Draws Large Crowds Thousands of visitors flocked to Seoul's annual spring flower festival, held April 15-19 in the Yeouido area along the Han River. The highly popular event spotlighted the city's floral delights that can be enjoyed by visitors every spring and summer. The 6th Hangang Yeouido Spring Festival, with the theme "Flowers, River, People and Art," was held amid blooming Jeju cherry blossoms. The event originally slated to begin on April 9 was postponed one week due to unseasonably cold temperatures. Despite the delay of the festival, there was spring in the air along Yunjung-no, Yeouido's main thoroughfare and Seoul's most famous cherry tree-lined road. The avenue is lined with well-organized pedestrian walkways, and there are numerous popular restaurants and cafes nearby. A 1.7-km stretch of the avenue from the lower end of Seogang Bridge to Seoul No. 2 Bridge was designated as a "Car-free Spring Flower Road," allowing visitors to fully enjoy the experience. The throngs included couples walking hand-in-hand, families with small children, groups of friends and even office workers on their breaks. Visitors marveled at the natural beauty of the cherry blossoms lining the avenue as petals fluttered down in the spring breeze. Over five million people visited Yungjung-no during last year's festival, with approximately 950,000 visitors using Yeouido and Yeouinaru stations. This year, additional subway employees as well as headquarters staff dispatched by the Seoul Metro Rapid Transit Corporation ensured that visitors were able to reach the festival safely and conveniently. Na Yeol, a service strategy manager for the Seoul Metro, said "technical staff and engineers at the heavily-used stations made sure that elevators and other facilities inside the stations operated normally, and we were able to offer safe and timely service to visitors by following our pre-arranged transportation plans." He added that "a total of 214 safety support personnel were stationed near the ticket vending machines, gates and platforms, and we shifted manpower to points where they were necessary to facilitate the management of the greatly increased number of metro users during the days of the festival." Despite a reduced budget because of increased funding for job creation programs, this year's event was widely regarded as just as successful as Korea's other main spring festivals, thanks to enjoyment of Seoul's beauty by local residents and visitors. Detailed information about the festival is available on the Seoul Metro website (http://www.smrt.co.kr) or the Yeongdeungpo-gu Office website (http://www.ydp.go.kr). Additional photographs and videos of the festival, the area's ecological park and the famous Yeouido Park can be seen on the websites for Yeuido Station (http://cafe.naver.com/5678yeouido) or Yeouinaru Station (http://cafe.daum.net/yeouinaru5678). |