Dum dum da dum... dum dum da dum!! Alice, Laura's Korean co-teacher, invited Jenni, Laura, and I to her wedding Saturday March 27th. It was such an honor to have been invited, because these events are usually done fast and only with close friends and family.
Alice has been an awesome friend to all three of us. She is very busy being the head teacher at Laura's school, but she has managed to make time to have lunch with us every so often. We met Alice and two other co-workers at her birthday party Laura held for her, where we ate Laura's famous spaghetti, drank wine, and went out to sing karaoke at a Noraebang. It was such a fun night and I think Alice really appreciated having a girl's night out in the midst of all her wedding preparations.
The wedding was held in a huge wedding hall, which is the most common place for Korean weddings. It isn't a church, but a huge building with several wedding rooms so that many weddings can happen at the same time! The entrance way into this building, reminded you more of an airport entrance with the hustle and bustle of people using hand phones (cell phones) and rushing to get to where they need to go. Coming from a rural environment, this place felt like a marriage factory with hardly enough time to breath before someone was married! Wham Bam thank you ma'am, you are married! The wedding lasted less than a half an hour. Before you could gather your stuff, the next wedding troop lined up to start their wedding, pictures of the wedding couple were replaced outside the door, and you were politely scooted out of the room.
During the wedding, we couldn't hear a lot of what was being said, but sweet Alice did bring in a translator. After they said their vows, they bowed down to each of their parents, listened to a beautiful song by a couple of singers, and posed for a gazillion pictures. We were able to go up for the friend picture. Alice looked absolutely gorgeous and so happy!
"Fighting" picture. That is what sports teams here usually say when they compete.
The lovely couple with their parents. Their mothers are wearing Korea's traditional Hanbok dresses.
Afterwards, we went downstairs to the buffet where all the people from the different weddings gathered for lunch. The food was delicious with it's various types of sashimi and kimbap, fruits, vegetables, mandu noodles (boiled dumplings), songpyeon (rice cakes), traditional soups, noodle and rice dishes, and so much more. It was amazing. The foot traffic of the dinning hall was a bit intimidating with the unconscious bumps and pushes that I am still not used to. ha ha. How can you complain when it is a little old grandma, half your size, making her way through the crowd to grab some shrimp!
Alice and Fred came to visit us in the dining hall in their traditional hanbok. Ha ha... one of the English teacher's from the Philippines brought her son who was such a little rascal! He kept creeping up on people to throw napkins at them. Speaking a bit of Konglish, it was fun to hear him talk.
"Spider man," as he likes to be referred to, in throwing action. He was bombing us in the middle of the picture.
