The 52nd Jinhae Gunhang festival which is a world-class cherry blossom festival begins on April 1st. Gunhang festival will be running opening event, commemoration event, military music honor guard festival, artistic event, special event beginning with eve, with the slogan, ‘enjoying 360,000 cherry blossom tree, sharing Spring feast’, with the theme of ‘Flower – Luminary – Hope’ around Jinhae-gu, like Joongwon rotary.
In March of lunar month, Jinhae Gunhang festival takes place, it attracts springtime picnickers to naval port city embracing the quiet sea. Jinhae Gunhang festival includes the event of commemorating the spirit of general Lee-Sunsin and main events, e.g. eve, scenery and customs market of 8 provinces, artistic culture performance at Joongwon rotary as the theme event of cherry blossom tourist attractions and the event of offering fl ower to the statue of admiral Lee-sunsin, commemoration ceremony, victory marching
parade at Bookwon rotary.
In addition, military music honor guard festival, which is characterized as naval port city, takes place on Friday and over the weekend and is the military art performance with the fusion of military music and honor guard showing the viewers powerful marching and honor guard in a wonderful uniform that you can see only at Jinhae Gunhang cherry blossom festival.
You can visit to Naval academy and Jinhae Admiralty port which are not usually accessible and have a various experience of museum of naval academy, watching a turtle ship, naval vessel, photo exhibition, wearing a naval uniform, boarding on a yacht cruise etc and fully enjoy a great cherry blossom at the age of over 100 years old with the aspect of Korean naval base
The cherry blossom attractions are Naesumyun ecology park, Yeojwacheon, Gyeonghwayeok, Jinhaetap, Jinhaeru etc. When you take jehwangsan monorail and overlook the city from Jinhaetap rooftop, the area spreads to the east and west, with the mountain like a folding screen upward, quiet sea downward lying around. Around Palgeori of Joongwon rotary, there are 100-year-old buildings and 360,000 cherry blossom trees together being coexistent with past and present and you can enjoy the nice and peaceful city at a glance.
In Jinhae-gu are three rotaries, Joongwon, Bookwon, Namwon, at the city center and there are eight driveways starting with each rotary.
Each alley at Joongwon rotary is dotted with the relics of modern culture, e.g. over 100-year-old buildings such as Jinhae post offi ce, Sunhak beef bone soup, Heugbaeg coffee shop, Ppojokjip. Gunhang village history hall, which you are going to visit as a time travel of Joongwon rotary palgeori alley, is the place for viewing pictures of naval port development started since 1902 and old city scenery and hearing a storytelling directly to make you feel
fascinated by another facet of Jinhae of cherry blossom.
Jinhae Gunhang festival came from the commemoration ceremony held annually with the statue of admiral Lee-Sunsin the fi rst time ever on April 13th, 1952 in Korea and there was a simply ceremony held initially at Bookwon rotary where the statue of admiral Lee-Sunsin is located, however, it grew into the festival of cultural art to promote a local culture art based on the patriotic and loyal spirit of Lee-Sunsin since 1963, further, has been developed into the event of enjoying a cherry blossom through 1980 to 1990 having its 52nd anniversary this year.
Jinhae Gunhang festival has been developed annually into the world class cherry blossom festival with over 3 million tourists in and outside of the country and Changwon city will continue to make every effort to fulfi ll the worldwide celebrative event where more tourists are happy to visit in the coming years ahead.
Changwon city official blog in Korea 