The Wedding

So we had to get up extremely early in order to go to this wedding.

We were up at around 10 AM!

Unbelievable right?

When we arrived the bride was waiting in a small room.  She was already doled up and looking rather nervous.

On a side-note, the venue we were in consisted of four separate wedding areas.  Are they chapels?  I don't know.

Each area had two weddings, totaling eight.  I don't know how much each wedding cost, but I think it's a fair assumption that they make an awful lot of money!

On a personal note, I rather like this picture.  This is the groom (is that how you spell it?  I've never read about, willingly listened to or thought  about a wedding before, so I've not a single clue about wedding terminologies.) amid the sea of chaos that is his wedding.

I'd never met either of them before, but they're awesome.  (I went with Amanda, who knew the bride from her previous job.)

I don't know what the groom is looking at *ahem*.

The man in the picture is the official photographer.

I was the unofficial photographer.

I wanted to show you the camera he was holding, and at some stage link the camera I was using.  Serious penis envy.

I wanted to get in close for this picture, but then you miss the psychadelic background and their literally perfect attire.

I know people go to all kinds of trouble to get the perfect look for their wedding, but jees, this must have taken hours to put on.

Not the hair though, Koreans love making their hair look like this every day.  (It's the same with the Japanese!)

There were some obligatory cutesy photographs.

Interestingly they both work with foreigners, I believe teaching English (don't quote me on that) so their views are quite progressive.

Therefore this display of Asian cute was rather embarrassing for all involved, but I guess the real photographers picture was good enough.

If I had access to a computer with some kahoonas I would edit the following orange images, levelling the colour balance and making them substantially less orange.

On the flip side, I enjoy these pictures because of the way in which their standing, and general composition.

I took a few different shots at different zoom levels to try and find what worked best.

The further out you go with the zoom, the more distorted things look.  This is obvious (look at the crazy toppling buildings you see with small numbers on your own cameras!) in theory, but leads to some complicated effects in practice.  I guess the difficulty comes in knowing when to use these different properties and when not to.

Another shot with Amanda and the bride.

I probably should have placed them both central - something I could do in post using any photo editing software.

If only I had a computer!

Now this is the real reason I agreed to take photographs!

Korean hanbok (sp?) is the traditional clothing in Korea.  Unlike Japan however, you rarely, if at all, see people wearing them.  Just like Japan they're extremely expensive; unlike Japan they're somewhat plainer albeit more frilly.  To clarify, I mean plainer colour wise.)

After talking to the bride for a few minutes, I realised what this recessed cave actually was.

It's a picture frame!

This would work a little better if your eye wasn't immediately pulled through the illusion to whomever is sitting inside; as the frame requires a wider perspective.

Nice idea though!

Being forced to sit for hours on end must be tedious; but there were no shortage of people on hand to ensure not a single strand of hair was misplaced.

I'm serious.  It was immaculate.  Perfect.  Whenever a hair fell out of place, three people jumped up to correct it.

Having never been to a wedding myself, this was the first time I'd seen the procession.  (Is it called that?  I honestly don't know)

I'm not entirely sure what was happening, but someone (presumably her dad?) walked with the bride to the altar, a lot of talking was done, and then everyone left.  (There were a number of photographs taken not including the man and wife.)  (I assume they're man and wife at this point, and not simply bride and groom?)

This was the best part!

The food was pretty nice, but I was forbidden from taking the free beer that was on offer home.  It was three PM, and I simply couldn't stomach the thought of drinking then; so I wanted to take a few bottles (that no one else was drinking either) home.  I was told off.

I wasn't told off by staff or bouncers or anyone official - but by my date.  How very galling.

In a random segway, here is a woman on the wii fit.

We went Christmas shopping after the wedding, and they were advertising the wii fit.

I've seen this thing in four different countries now, and the buxom wenches always wear the same thing.

I wonder if they ship the clothes around the world to save buying new ones for all the people who do displays for them.

She wasn't exactly enthralled by her positions as head performer of monotonous tasks, but she was good.

Really good.

How good?

See if you can do the 'stand on one leg while bringing your other leg up to your chest and holding it there for five seconds,' routine and get a score this good.

I defy anyone to.

Above:  A random building that looked cool, lit up like that.

This is a random picture I took of Amanda looking out of the window on the bus.  The  bus ride was looooooooong, so there was tons of time to mess around taking pictures and generally annoying the Koreans - who think it's a national crime for a Korean person to date a foreigner.

Interestingly, she's not Korean.  The dumbass Korean folk can't see outside of their little country though, and assume everyone who looks asian is Korean.  Statistically speaking, they're more likely to be chinese.

Learn some maths please, Korea.

This is the disfigured cake that was eaten afterwards.

There should be an extra ear and paw, but I got hungry and started eating.

I was rather enamored with this particular cake, hence the multitude of pictures.

The pink tasted like strawberries!

 

And finally a picture of the happy couple and an intruding presence.  They changed from their wedding garb to these matching, traditional  hanbok in record time.  I'm told that some weddings can necessitate four or five clothing changes, depending on which religion(s) they're choosing to observe.  I suppose your best bet is to always appease as many gods as possible; especially with divorce rates being what they are now.

Summer Holidays and Games

So I've somehow started playing an absurd amount of table tennis.

I always assumed china was the hotbed of table tennis, but Koreans quite enjoy a game or two.  They all use the pen grip (I may have made that name up) just like the chinese, and the national average ability is pretty good, assuming the four Koreans I've played are indicative.  One man said he started playing in the army, and based upon how good he was, I can only assume he didn't fire any guns; he was ridiculous.  We played in a relatively confined space, with walls along two sides.  I would knock seven bells out of the ball, with the craziest spin I could muster, and he would hit it against the wall onto my side of the table.  When someone starts doing that, you know you're beaten.  His service game was impenetrable, and after only three points, he realised I was not Asian, so toned his game down somewhat.  He still played off the walls and ceiling though.  He's the general manager of the gym, and is generally an awesome guy.  He was generous with his praise, and not once did he lord his dominance over me - verbally anyway.

The ultimate aim of these games being my matchup against the landlord.  He set the game up between me and a couple of other teachers last week, and I was chomping at the bit.  The first game was a complete washout, in his haste to play against me I was abruptly awoken from a pleasant evening nap, my eyes were still bleary when he won.  I can't remember the score, but it was (probably) humiliating.  What I didn't expect was his reaction.  Every point was accompanied by myriad noises from his end, ala womens tennis.  Not only did he play more seriously than a professional, he wasn't quite as gracious about his victory as one might expect from the Asian tradition.  His words during the match ranged from: (Exact quotes) 'Wow bad shot,' to 'wow you bery bad.'

It was on.

The second game I took the lead, he took the lead, we were tied on a number of points.  It was intense.  Every point I won I shouted in his face, the same way he had done to me; I think this got the point across, as he was completely silent after that.

So he was leading 20-19, match point.  I served a net, so we replayed the point.  Everyone was silent, the atmosphere intense.  I served a humdinger, it completely threw him off.  He scrambled across the table, hitting the ball with his finger.  The point was over.  Except he hit the net, and the ball crept over.  It hit his hand, and he fluked it over the net.  For the record, he fluked five points by hitting the net in the game.

So he beat me with some Korean Jam on top.  His exact words after the match:  'Wow, you bad, me good.'

Mum would be proud for the restraint I showed.  All the foreigners just looked at me with a combination of fear, for I might decapitate our landlord, and wonderment for not doing so.

I'm going to purchase a bat, without the extra lumpy pen grip thing, and rubber on both sides (western style) and play against him again.  If I win, I will rain the foulest abuse unto his ears, and maybe, finally, at age forty, he will understand that there is such a thing as being a terrible winner.

Boy, What a Day

So as has been my custom since coming to Korea, I awoke at 5AM.  My routine is actually surprisingly healthy, as I've a lot of time to prepare food in the mornings.  Today however, I thought I'd push the boat out even further and do my first clothes cleaning; what a mistake.

I'll go right ahead and say it, I didn't check the washing machine outlet.  I assumed it would drain into the drain, which, in fairness, it kind of did.  The problem is that the drain in question was covered by a recessed plastic block, meaning twenty centilitres of fluid filled the recess, while the rest poured out all over the floor in the utility room.  This was happening while I was having a shower, and by the time I'd finished, there was water everywhere.  The room is quite small, and the washing machine is enormous; the resulting pool could have housed any number of aquatic animals.  They would have to be washing machine safe, of course, but I might well have kept an aquarium back there.

So this happened around twenty minutes before I was due to leave for school.  I didn't know whether the utility room was entirely waterproof (it is thankfully) so I started bailing out with the bin, (the only waterproof container I could find) running to the sink and back, getting almost as much water in my flat as in the sink.

So eventually I just gave up, and headed to school.

Sports day was great fun - the Korean teachers (and some children) played the English teachers; (also with some children) but the score was rather unsatisfactory.  I'm talking football now, by the way.  It was a 1-1 draw, and it is only in playing football that we are reminded what a loathsome game it is.

I was initially afraid of hurting the Korean teachers, being somewhat larger than they were - but I need not have feared.  They were throwing shoulders and barges while being nippy around the park.  The whole thing was good fun, and the kids loved it.

After school I had my customary hospital visit, for the health insurance scheme.  I had three blood samples taken, (I didn't pass out or vomit for the first time ever!) eyesight checked, (which was funny, because the woman only knew the numbers 4 and 7, and the letters X and C, so I had a 1/4 chance of guessing correctly anyway) hearing test, blood pressure taken, height measured, weight measured, (85kg, +5kg since Christmas, I think my new target will be 90kg) the pee in a pot test, (for what reason, I don't know (answers are welcomed)) a chest x-ray and a basic dental check.

The whole thing was pretty painless, except of course for them taking all my blood.  One of my colleagues even asked me what the hell happened after I'd come out of the hospital, because my eyes were sullen all of a sudden.  That's what drastic blood loss does to you.  Three vials.  Was that really necessary?

So I came back to the room, drained the utility room (it transpires that a simple bung removing operation was the solution to the flooding.  Wish I had known that earlier!) and am shortly going to take a shower.

After today (27 deg C Humidity unknown, but pretty high) with all the stress and running around, the lesson plans for next week can wait.