The Yellow Leaf Road

Everything has been turning yellow around me. The Gingko trees along the Hannam-dong lane in my neighborhood. The buses running up and down Nam-san. And of course, my teeth! Ha-ha-ha!  Stains from drinking all those iced cafe mochas.  That's why!


I haven't really gone out these days to take autumn photos, maybe because of my 'been-there,done-that' sort of mentality. Because I have actually been there and done those autumn photos already. 

                                      

So, I decided to think of a spot nearby, where I can just go out wearing my pajamas, make some click-click-click, and then go back to bed. Ha-ha-ha!


Maybe Nam-san's winding road? That path from the Yongsan Library up to the Hyatt Hotel. I must have passed that way in a bus or in a car a thousand times, but never on foot. Maybe it's time I did!

That road is also lined with Gingko trees and some  shrubbery which I could not even name. (I really hated that subject in high school where the teacher wanted everyone to memorize the shapes of the leaves and names of the trees, when the only trees in our backyard were malunggay and papaya. Ha-ha-ha! Do I really have to identify each leaf when I eat my veggies?). 

So I dragged myself out of bed, got into my shorts (which could also double as pajamas. Ha-ha-ha!) and ran to the bus stop with my camera. 


Since it's autumn, most people were dressed like....it's really autumn, complete with jackets, sweaters and even scarves!  Imagine the look on the other passengers' faces when I got into the bus; I was wearing my Bacolod Masskara t-shirt, green shorts and a cap. Very summer-y for bus full of people all bundled up for...autumn! I wonder who among us was dressed  for the wrong season. Ha-ha-ha!

The ride was short. I got off at the Yongsan Library and walked back towards the Hyatt. It was a little breezy with some yellow Gingko leaves already falling and carpetting the sidewalk with Cory yellow.


Cars, buses, bikes and vans were all breezing past me, speeding away and sometimes getting into my frame. And while the sun was slowly settling down, it wasn't cold at all. Au contraire, il fai sait chaud. It was warm!

I just traced the whole winding road, stopping to take photos of the neighborhood rooftops, a church, the homes on that side of the Philippine embassy near the Hyatt, someone's laundry and of course, the colors of the mountain during an  autumn afternoon.

I have traversed Nam-san on foot and on a bus a few times before. But it was my first time tracing the sidewalk on Nam-san's southwestern face, which is undoubtedly the most photogenic side of Nam-san.

I was glad I got out of bed. Or I would have missed all these yellow Gingko leaves on Nam-san's yellow leaf road.

                                                              (A red tree)

                                              (A crowded neighborhood.)

                     (I don't know the name of these flowers. 
               Neither does my  high school teacher.)

   (This steeple is very familiar everyone regularly 
                          passing through Nam-san.)

                             (Green and brick-red rooftops.)

                                   (Somebody's laundry.)

                          (I want to visit this church someday.)

                            (The Hyatt at the background; 
                 the Philippine Embassy at the fore.)