Lotus Flower Garden

August is the time for the Lotus to bloom in Korea. Recently, we went on a "stroll" to a Lotus flower garden with some members of our hiking club. We took a long, meandering bus ride out to a rural section of Gyeonggi province. The are was named Semiwon, which the hiking club director says "means to purify your mind seeing water" or "get beautiful mind in seeing flowers." The park was quite lovely, as it is located at the merging point of two rivers: the Nam Han river and Bukhan river.
We got off the bus and walked through the town through an organic food fair. Two young Korean salesgirls, aged about 7 and 9, called after us in their elementary level English to "come eat [their] toe-mate-oes! "
The park was green, blooming, and gorgeous. There were large fountains built to resemble traditional Korean ceramic vases. The bright, unique lotus flowers were worth the trip. As in many other scenic spots here, there were also young Korean Romeos photographing their young Juliets with flowers. After about an hour it started to pour, so we took refuge in the greenhouse. There is a professor in our hiking club who knows many Korean legends. He found one red bloom in the greenhouse and told me this story:
On that red flower, the bloom and leaves never come out of the ground at the same time. The flower is thus named after a beautiful Korean lady who fell in love with a pious Buddhist monk. He loved her,too, but had committed to a life without women, so they could not be together. The lady became miserable and died soon after of a broken heart. The monk lived on to meditate on his sadness. The bright red petals of the flower represent the beautiful woman. Then the petals die and fall away and the leaves, representing the monk, come out of the ground separately. The petals and leaves can never bloom together, just like the lady and the monk.
...Sad saga! I will post a picture of the flower he mentioned.
After taking just a few shots, my camera battery died out (bummer). So I borrowed my boyfriend's camera a to snap a few pictures. Here are some pictures that he and I (the better ones are his, truth be told) took that day.