Where are all the cherry blossoms?

Last weekend was supposed to be the big weekend for cherry blossom (known as 'sakura' in Japan and 벚꽃 (beotkkot) in Korea) blooming in Seoul. So we trundle all the way to Seoul (Yeouido, to be more precise) and what do we find? Leafless trees and overcast weather... great. Or so we thought :O

We wander around and take in the area a bit and we see that there is a huge bike route going down the side of the island along the Han River. Sod it, we thought, lets hire out a bike. 4000 won (I think) for an hour rental? Doddle. Bike with a basket or mountain bike? I wanted the one with the basket, but it only had one gear :/ so I went with the more masculine bike in the end, which worked out for the best :P Check out facebook if you wanna see me on the cycling trip because I've just realised that I was taking pictures of my friends on their bikes because we were on bikes and so we could only really take pictures of each other... but here are some pictures of me at Yeouido just wandering :) :



Me posing in front of one of the many Seoul skylines.



The shore we were cycling along - and no, we weren't cycling on the rocks... our bikes weren't that good and I'm not that skilled ;)

After this epic wandering around Yeouido, we taxied it to Yongsan where we had an amazing Italian meal for lunch (I had carbonara :O) in this HUGE mall where they have about 6 floors (no exaggeration) of tech ranging from cameras to TVs to video games. And right at the top they have like a 'nerd floor' where they have a gaming 'arena' - I only saw a stage type room but there were pictures of an arena on the wall - and a huge PC bang. Yongsan is impressive to say the least. Here are a couple of pictures:



Not the best picture, but if you can imagine stands similar to this stretching back quite far on every floor for 6 floors then you can begin to think of the scale of this place.



Oh yeah, and they have a Hooters bar in the adjacent building :P needless to say, we had a beer there.

Afterwards we went to Hongdae (surprise, surprise) and stayed in a 찜질방 (Jjimjilbang) in Sinchon, which was.. interesting :P but amazing! Apparently, we went to a crap one, but you turn up, pay like 9000 won (approx. £5) and you get to sleep in a sauna for the night! The catch is we had to change into 'prison style' clothing and sleep either on mats on the floor or on bunk beds. And it's really hot in there. Oh, and there are about 100 other people sleeping in the same room too, both men and women (I woke up to the sight of some woman's legs..). Had the best sleep I've had in ages - no joke.

Still looking to find a better jjimjimbang in Seoul that might have massaging on the go or a swimming pool or something, so let me know if anyone knows of a decent one please! :D