Saturday, April 9, 2016

Spring Flowers Seen Clearly

Springtime: the peninsula wakes from its winter slumber, color splotches and splashes the landscape, the sun shines and Tuttle publishes some pictures of flowers.


This year, the floral display is of particular significance to me. For the past several years, my vision has become more and more compromised by cataracts, until it reached a breaking point when I "lost" my glasses to a wave on Koh Phangan during my holiday. The past few weeks, I have made numerous visits to the hospital, leading up to surgeries this week (Monday and Tuesday) to remove my cloudy old lenses and replace them with plastic intraocular lenses.

It was scary, well, the first one was, but after two follow-up visits and a few more simple procedures to come (removing the stitches, mainly), the process seems to have been a success, according to Doctor Song. According to me, it's unbelievable!! I cannot believe how bright and colorful everything is--not just flowers. There was an hour or so when I had one old lens and one new one, and it was jaw-dropping--one "world" hazy and yellowish, blurry and dingy, the other one white and sharp and clear!

I've always loved the flowers, and they've taken up a significant acreage of the Seoul Patch, but now I can appreciate them so much more! And speaking of flowers, here are a few more:


Above, a magnolia, an azalea and a cornel dogwood (Korea's first spring blossom), all taken on my school grounds. Finally, a couple of ornamental cherries I pass by every day on my way to and from school:


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