Korea

A recap of events

I won’t lie.  This has been a difficult week for me.  It seems as if my Pusan trip set me back a few days, and I spent the entire week at work trying to catch up.  I got back to the office, and by Tuesday my other colleagues left.  Someone new is working with me now, but they are still orienting themselves to the office.  I was the only veteran staff member in the office this week.  As a result, I worked until after 9 p.m. on Thursday.  On Friday evening I also left late for work.  Our job portfolios also changed, and I started working on my new assignment and had to train the new person on what I was doing before.  It’s a pseudo-promotion that makes me backup supervisor, but it also means that I won’t be out of the office visiting Americans as much as I was.  At work it seemed as if every couple minutes or so I was handed a new, critical task to complete, and I could only finish them every 5-10 minutes, meaning the tasks continued to pile up.  Metaphorically, it feels like shoveling mud in a collapsing ditch or draining water from a sink boat.
To make matters worse, I’ve also been busy as chair of our community association trying to settle some vexing problems.  We’ve been trying to land a new cafeteria vendor for months, and this week we finally found a couple of great candidates.  Unfortunately, another vendor suddenly abandoned their location.  Their contract was up for renewal, and I had thought we had successfully negotiated a follow-on agreement.  However, I was astounded when they let the lease lapse without renewing.  We had no choice but to lock them out, and now I have the very unpleasant task of extricating ourselves from this vendor.  Not only does the association stand to lose out on substantial revenues, but the divorce could be messy.  We may have to call in the legal eagles to take care of the situation.  Plus, we have to go through the arduous task of finding a new vendor to take over the site.  This is not the start I wanted to have as chair.  If I can get through the next six months and take care of these vendor problems, I’ll consider my job a success.  It will get done, somehow.
On Friday, after I got home from work, I passed on writing my nightly blog entry and crashed for the night.  Saturday morning I went for two more negotiations, one with a potential cafeteria vendor and the other for a new business center for our community.  These negotiations were fruitful.  In the afternoon, I took my family for Korean food, and we enjoyed a Columbus Day parade and festivities (yes, the Armed Forces in Korea still celebrate Columbus Day).  The cover band performed a medley of Tina Turner classics; the singer sounded just like Tina Turner.  We rested at home yesterday evening.  Today, we met up with a good friend we met while we were in Virginia.  He lives in Taiwan and had come to visit his Korean girlfriend.  She joined us, along with another friend from Taiwan.  We ate Mexican food for lunch (they said they can’t find good Mexican food in Taiwan) and spent a few hours at our home talking and drinking soju and Bailey’s Irish Cream.  It was delectable.  Later, I dropped our friends off in Insadong.  They suggested we come for a visit to Taiwan.  It apparently only costs about $300 by air from Seoul to Taipei, and we would have a free place to stay.  After this week, their offer sounds tempting!
Fortunately, tomorrow I have the day off and am planning a guy’s night out with a few people tomorrow night.  If I don’t post a blog entry tomorrow night, you’ll know why.

Our Pusan trip

OK, here it is at last–a description of our Pusan trip.  If you recall, I went down to Pusan last Wednesday via KTX train, and my family joined me on Thursday evening.  The train terminates at Pusan Station, and we took taxis from the station to Haeundae, a beach resort town about 14 kilometers east of Pusan.  In November, the BEXCO Mall and Convention Center in Haeundae will serve as the epicenter for the APEC Summit, arguably the single biggest event of the year in Korea.
 
On Wednesday evening when I arrived in Pusan, I didn’t do much other than wander the streets of Haeundae.  It’s a fun town straddling the beach.  Haeundae offers shades of Waikiki, Hawaii with a sandy crescent-shaped beach, high-rise hotels, and a boardwalk that stretches the entire length of the beach.  The beach area is flat, but to the east and west of the beach the Korean coastline grows mountainous and rocky, forming a nice, picturesque coastline.  Haeundae features some western restaurants, including Outback Steakhouse and McDonald’s.  It has a fish and produce market as well as a small shopping area.  Haeundae is not as trendy or upscale as Seoul, although the hotels and beach area are first class.
 
On Thursday and Friday, I worked.  When my family came in around 6 p.m. on Thursday, we went out for dinner at a Korean restaurant.  The highlight of the evening emanated from the train crossing next to the restaurant.  Each time we heard a train pass, my son jumped up and went to the window to watch.  He is so infatuated with trains!  We played a game called, "Listen for the Train."  On Thursday evening, we went out to dinner again, this time to a restaurant reputed to have the best bulgogi (Korean barbeque) in Korea.  The grilled bulgogi was delicious, and the restaurant’s ambiance was stellar.  The restaurant is actually a collection of traditional-style buildings facing a long walkway stretching from the front gate to the kitchen.  It is a very large place, obviously very popular because of its size and opulence.  As is customary in many Korean restaurants, customers take off their shoes at the door and sit on floormats and dine at low-lying tables.  Korean traditional tables often feature large, round openings that cradle woks or cooking pots.  At this restaurants, ceramic pots filled with charcoal grilled the bulgogi.  Most Korean bulgogi is grilled over small propane stoves built into the table.  The best tasting bulgogi, however, is grilled over hot coals.  That, and the special way the bulgogi beef was prepared, made the bulgogi a sumptuous alternative to run-of-the-mill bulgogi.  The side dishes, or panchan, at this restaurant were tasty, but nothing to rave about.
 
During my visit to Pusan, I met many Americans who live in Pusan, Daegu, and Ulsan, among other places.  Most serve in the U.S. military, but some work for companies in remote locations along the coast.  It was especially interesting to meet an American working at a civilian nuclear power plant as well as the family of another American working on an oil rig south of Pusan.  The family came by boat from their remote Korean island just to visit me and ask me questions.  I was happy to oblige.
 
We didn’t have much time to enjoy Paradise Hotel in Haeundae.  I worked all day, and when I finished, my family went out and explored the town.  On Saturday, we checked out of the hotel and took a taxi back to Pusan Station.  We stashed our luggage in a locker at the train station and then spent our final hours in Pusan visiting Beomeosa, one of Korea’s oldest and most famous temples.  Over 1,300 years old, the temple was first built during the Shilla Dynasty period.  It has since been rebuilt frequently.  Only four stone pillars at the temple’s entrance remain from the original temple site.  Built on a mountain about 18 kilometers north of downtown, Beomeosa is well worth the long subway ride.  Take the Orange Line from Pusan Station to Beomeosa Station.  It’s about a 40-minute ride and costs just 1,000 won each way (about $1.00).  We made the mistake of taking a taxi to Beomeosa, and we spent far more time and money getting there by taxi than we did returning by subway.  We did not know what to expect at the temple, but we were happily surprised to find that the temple was hosting a conference and Founder’s Day celebration.  We wandered around the temple and enjoyed the colorful, festive lanterns, free tea and cheap vegetarian food, and watched Buddhist faithful converge on the temple to pray, gather, and enjoy a free music concert.  We also saw a small, lively Founder’s Day parade.  It was utterly fascinating!  The temple was abuzz with more activity than I have ever seen at any Buddhist temple.  I was glad that we stumbled unintentionally upon such a festive occasion.
 
Gaecheonjeol Day (개천절), or Founder’s Day, celebrates the birth of mythical first Korean ancestor, Dangun (단군), who founded the Korean nation.  Although the existence of Dangun has not been proven (the North Korean Government claims Dangun’s tomb was unearthed near Pyongyang), Dangun represents the birth of the Korean nation and embodies the traditional spirit of Korea.  Dangun is an indigenous figure not directly associated with Buddhism.  However, modern Korean Buddhism has embraced Dangun as a holy figure, and in Korea, Dangun, ancestor worship, and Shamanism all have intermingled with Korean Buddhism.  Hence, on Founder’s Day a large celebration of the birth of Dangun was held in a Buddhist sanctuary.  We are not Buddhist, but we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the temple.

Our first Korean wedding

Today we attended our first Korean wedding.  Joey, one of my good friends and fellow University of Washington alumnus, married his sweetheart at a wedding hall in the Jamsil area, not far from the site of the Seoul Summer Olympics.  The wedding ceremony, reception, and photo shoots were fascinating.  I was happy to attend the event, not only to wish my friend and his bride well, but also to experience a side of Korean culture I rarely see.  The wedding ceremony was a western-style affair, although the photo shoot included tradional Korean wedding poses.  The reception was held in a large banquet room.  I was stunned by all the hustle and bustle surrounding the event.  People attending several different weddings simultaneously milled around the reception area at the wedding hall.  We snaked through the crowds and found the check-in counter for my friend, signed in, and gave the attendant our wedding gift.  We gave our friend 100,000 Korean won (about $100) in a decorative envelope.  My coworker told me that guests typically give the happy couple 50,000 won to offset the cost of the wedding; good friends give up to 100,000 won.  Korean weddings are typically very expensive.
 
Joey waited near the check-in counter, and he greeted us warmly when we arrived.  He ushered us into the wedding hall, where Bart, another friend and alumnus, waited.  (I last saw Bart in the COEX Mall at a student emigration fair in March.)  Bart served as our guide for the rest of the event.  We sat to the back of the hall in case we needed to make a quick exit to attend to our son.  Fortunately, he had fallen asleep and slept through the entire ceremony.  I was a shutterbug, taking dozens of photos at the event.  As the ceremony began, I found an ideal location to capture the best moments of the wedding, some of which I will post here soon.  I was struck by how noisy it was during the ceremony.  While the groom, bride, ring bearers, and immediate families marched to the front of the hall and participated in the ceremony, guests sitting at the back of the hall carried on conversations.  The hall doors stayed open, and hallway commotion poured into the hall.  It was an unfamiliar and distracting nuisance to someone like me who is used to sitting through muted American church weddings.  Somehow though, the noise was an appropriate reflection of a Korean culture that values social interaction.  The wedding ceremony was truly gorgeous.  The room was beautiful, and the decor was very tasteful.  A trio of musicians on piano, flute and violin played festive wedding music.  The ceremony was also high-tech, with video of the ceremony projected on two large screens at the front of the room.  The happy couple exchanged vows, and at the end of the ceremony they bowed to their families.  Before exiting the hall, in lieu of a wedding kiss, my friend let out three triumphant yells and stretched out his arms three times.  Although similar to an American-style wedding, my friend’s wedding was uniquely Korean.
 
After the ceremony, we joined the newlywed couple for photos.  Unlike in the U.S., where friends typically pose for individual photos with the bride and groom, a large group gathered around the couple for a single group photo.  I was the only Caucasian in the entire event, and I joked to Bart, "백명 한국사람 하고 한명 백인 있어요!" (Translation–"One white guy and 100 Koreans!"  It’s meant to be a funny wordplay, because the word for "white guy" is similar to the word for 100, and the word for Korean is similar to the Korean word for "one."  Koreans often use Korean wordplays to express humor.)  Bart laughed. 
 
We then went upstairs to the reception hall.  We sat with Bart and Peter, another college friend.  I noticed that the video projected at the reception was a feed from the wedding hall.  Workers in the video were busy preparing the hall for the next wedding.  I thought it interesting that you can watch the next wedding as it happens while you’re at your own reception.  The food was delicious.  We ate galbitang (갈비탕), or short-rib soup.  The table was filled with delicious side dishes, including salmon sashimi and a variety of kimchi.  Partway through the reception, we offered a toast to the newlyweds.  I wish we could have stayed longer to eat and visit, but the reception hall cleared out quickly in anticipation of the next wedding group.  One unfortunate aspect of marrying at a wedding hall is that it can feel rushed and impersonal, almost like an assembly line where you’re herded from one location to the next hurriedly.  Pardon the sports metaphor, but much like golf, a wedding at a wedding hall tees off on time, and the wedding party must move on before the next party tees up.  Still, wedding halls are good at what they do and take care of virtually everything for you.  Imagine not having to plan your wedding beyond your wedding attire.  Wedding halls are professional wedding planners.
 
After the reception, all of my friends gathered for some group photos.  We went to where Joey and his bride and their family gathered to take photos.  They wore hanbok (한복), or traditional Korean clothing.  The newlyweds re-enact excerpts from a traditional Korean wedding and capture the memories in photos.  Following the photo shoot, we joined the bride and groom for a couple of photos.  We were thrilled to be able to participate in something normally reserved for family.
 
On our way home from the wedding, we stopped at Hangang Park along the south bank of the Han River, which runs through Seoul.  We stumbled upon the Seoul International Kite Festival.  The park was filled with people flying all sorts of kites ranging from small butterfly kites to a giant dragon kite and a group of ten kites strung together, one on top of the other.  My family had a great time walking in the park, along the river, and enjoying ice cream.
 
Blog Notes:  I finally decided to post some personal photos of our family in the photos from the wedding.  Enjoy!  Also, my wife says the font I use is too small and hard to read, so I’ll try a different font and make it larger.  Hopefully this size is easier to read.  It will take up a lot more real estate, but I aim to please.