My prison of Korea
Well it's a lovely prison, I must say, But I am still here. I will get to that in a minute, first an update on the genial Cooper, and lovely Hee-Young's wedding! It was two weeks ago, in the southern port city of Ulsan. The Korea Ultimate family that is, was in full form to mark this momentous occasion between two truly awesome people.
The pair has been living in Oz for the past year so it was a reunion time of sorts, with many missing but also some friendly new faces. The wedding was a traditional one, and we were lucky to have our billingual MC Yoonee explain the meaning behind each process during the ceremony.
http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Culture/marriage/marriage.cfm?xURL=ceremonyHere, the beautiful, still legally single Hee-Young awaits for the ceremony to begin. She declines my last request for her hand in marriage.
The washing of the hands here symbloizes the cleansing before the ceremony begins.
The bride covers her face during the ceremony which she reveals during the bowing custom towards the end of the ceremony. Phew , Coop got lucky, she aint ugly!
Typically Korean weddings nowadays are quite western, in that the bride wears the glamourous white gown, and the groom wears the tamer yet luxurious rented tux. Coop and Hee-young went the old way of the traditional hanbok. The hanbok is something you only really see in Korea during the two major holidays, Seolal (Chinese New Year- it was last weekend), and Chuseok (A sort of korean thanksgiving in late September or early October). So it's always pleasant to see these outfits worn, especially when the subject is a white guy.
I gotta give some props to Coop. Under pressure he perfectly executed the acorn jelly chopstick grab, not once, but twice to an eye-gazing audience of several hundred onlookers. He was rewarded with oooooooo's , awwwwww's, and applause, followed by laughter. After 2 1/2 years in Asia and some damn good chopstick abilities I doubt I could match Coop's skill. Acorn jelly is so tender and easy to cut in half if one were to apply too much pressure, yet enough pressure is required to lift the delicacy to one's mouth. It's like eating tofu with chopsticks, but one step above that.
The usual Korean wedding includes the short ceremony (be it traditional or modern) followed by a hurry-up, hello-thanks-for-coming-lunch and that does er. Of course with a plethora of foreigners in attendence we took it one step further. Of course we tried to consume as much free alcohol at lunch as we could, I mean cmon, like we wanted to pay 2000 won for soju at 7-11 after. To illustrate:
Soju Mathematics
(each bottle is $2)
1 bottle- feel good
2 bottles-everyone is your friend
3 bottles - vommiting and start losing friends
4 bottles- rolling in your own vomit, unaware that you no longer have friends
5 bottles-no more rolling, no more friends, you must be dead
After the lunch was the photo shoot,
then back to Dray's to chill out and play some frisbee related games (all other games are inferior).
Some kept drinking and it was obvious who they were by the time we got to the bar at night. The night was full of good times, drinking, flippy cups and more drinking. By far the award winner of the night was Jeff, a newcomer to Korea and Korea Ultmate. Jeff managed to get lost late in the evening at which time he realized the only place he knew where to go was Seoul. So he got the taxi driver to take him to the bus station and he hopped on a bus to Seoul. When he got to Seoul and was on the subway going home, he realized that he forgot his house keys and bags in Ulsan. You see the funny thing is that Ulsan is about as far as you can get from Seoul in Korea, its 410 km. Or a 5 HOUR bus ride! He then had to get back on a bus and go 5 hours back to Ulsan to get his belongings. It wasn't all a loss though because he ended up being 30 min early to our 12 pm frisbee start time and proceeded to get drunk again in Ulsan, Welcome to KUPA Jeff!
Now the happy newlyweds are back in Oz, Good luck, can't wait to see ya again!
Here's where the reference in my title comes into play. Two days after the wedding, I was back in Seoul getting my passport ready, to go to the Chinese embassy to apply for my Chinese tourist Visa. There was only one problem, I couldn't find my passport. After digging, racking my brain, and more digging I realized that my money belt with ALL my i.d had been stolen from my friend's apartment. Upon further thought I deduced my passport was the least of my problems as my money belt contained about $1600 cash and the same in travellers cheques. Luckily I can get refunded for the travellers cheques but the cash is gone. I further became agitated when I noticed that the $1200 in cash that was raised for the Cambodian orphanage was also stolen. That was really the worst part, the money that I was accountable and responsible for was taken while in my possession.
So I must stay in Korea a bit longer dealing with passport and cash issues. I'm starting korean lessons again on March 5 to make up for what I should have learned the past few years. I'm really stoked for that. As for the orphanage money, well at the suggestion of my friends here, we are going to do another one. Hopefully bigger and better. I'm a bit worried about how the original attendees may feel, suspecting foul play or negligence on my part. I don't want these people to feel their donation was wasted. I'm still racking my brain attempting to figure out the best approach to this. However a friend and journalist may help me out in this regard, we'll see how that works out.
All things considered, I'm in great spirits, excited for the opportunites that have resulted from this misfortune. I gotta extend a huge Thank you to everyone here that is helping me out, especially Yong for allowing me to continue to sleep on his four cushions, sometimes forget to flush the toilet (drunken mishaps) and eat his jelly bellies.
