Today, my host mom took me to a Korean wedding. It was one of her co-teachers from school. I really wanted to go because I wanted to see how different it was from an American wedding.
It was at one of the community centers about 30 minutes away by subway. I was soooo impressed by the decorations that I could not even begin to describe them. You will have to look at the pictures to get the full effect. The grand ballroom had tables all around it. There were triangular tall pedistals with white roses and candles at the top. Instead of an aisle runner, there was a long piece of glass and under the glass in the floor, was blue fabric bunched up in places with pearls and crystals all over. It looked like the ocean floor. There were crystals hanging everywhere from the ceiling and white fabric draped all around the room. There were lights that changed colors that rotated around to light up everyone. I loved it soooo much.
When we first got there we went to the waiting room to meet the bride. There was a room off the grand ballroom that had this gorgeous chaisse lounge and castle type drapes around it. The bride was on the couch and everyone was allowed to come in and take pictures with her before the ceremony. I thought that was a really cool idea. Her dress was absolutely gorgeous. Same style of dresses in the U.S. but she just glowed with love and joy. When we got into the ballroom I realized that there was definitely not enough seating for everyone. Then my host mom explained to me that half the people sit inside where the ceremony is and the other half go downstairs to the buffet and eat and watch the ceremony on a big projector. This way you could eat when you wanted and you didn't have to be smashed in with everyone all at once. I thought that was a little weird.
The best part about the wedding was that after they had their first kiss, the wedding coordinators brought out bunches of balloons. Every guest was given one balloon and then they opened the ceiling. It was gorgeous how everything retracted to make a roof-less room. Then on the count of 3, we all let go of our balloons and announced the couple as husband and wife. I might steal this idea for my wedding because I thought it was the coolest thing ever!!! I can't think of any other notes to write about the wedding except that there was probably at least 800 people there if not more. The groom works for Samsung so my host mom said they were probably a lot of his bosses and such.
After the wedding we went shopping in Myeong Dong. It was really cool seeing all of the street vendors. There was so much to see and definitely not enough money to spend. I probably could have spent all day there shopping and wasted all of my trip money, but instead made it safely out with only buying two dresses. We were really tired from the chaotic wedding that we decided to call it a day and head home.
Of course we missed the train when we got into the subway station so we had to wait about another 15 minutes for the next one. Not only was the next one completely crowded, but the air conditioner went out! It was soooooo hot from having no air and being about 1 inch from the person next to you, behind you, and in front of you. We impatiently waited until our stop, wishing that it would come sooner. When we finally got off we were dripping with sweat and of course, the air conditioner started working right before we got off. Weird! Oh well....
Tonight is going to be a low key night.... just going to get some rest for our day trip tomorrow. Just outside the city, the government built a replica of what French cities look like. We are going there tomorrow because my host mom really wants to see it. I told her I could make a good judgement about whether or not they did a good job.
Also, I'm posting some pictures I forgot to do before of my house and my homestay parents!
More tomorrow.....
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