Saturday, May 30, 2009

August 04- A wedding in TongYeong

Today we went to the wedding reception of one of Michael's co-workers in the southern city of TongYeong. It was an adventure getting there, but it was so neat to be able to attend this Korean wedding reception. Unfortunately, we didn't get to stay in the coastal city of TongYeong very long, although we'd certainly like to go back. This is the only picture I have of it, shot from the moving car as we were leaving. It really doesn't do it justice, but at least you get an idea of what it looks like. And, yes, it's still monsoon season here, hence all the gray sky and clouds.

We drove in a caravan with another one of Michael's co-workers, Analisa, and her husband and daughter. We originally thought the trip would take us about 2 hours. We left at 9am, but didn't arrive in TongYeong until around 2pm. It was a VERY long drive for the babies who were quite simply just tired of being in their hot car seats. For as long as the trip was, they actually did very well. It was also a great experience driving to the coast. I got to see more of the country, and less of the gray, polluted city. Korea has such an amaze, and beautiful terrain. It's so mountainous and lush. It's just mind blowing to me to see these green mountains with not so much as one little dirt road winding up it. It's hard to imagine that there could possibly still be land in this world that hasn't been tread upon. The terrain is so steep, at some points we had to drive over these huge bridges linking mountains. Very scary! I think I was holding my breath the entire time! When we finally made it to the coastal town of TongYeong, it was so incredibly breath taking. The cliffs just fall down to the bay.

We arrived at the reception late, but better late than never, right? Daddy's two cutest accessories he "wore" to the wedding. You never saw a man so proud to be pushing a double stroller! This reception was for the bride's family and friends here in Korea. They'll have another reception in October back in Texas for the groom's family. Still, there were nearly 400 guests! And again, the twins were a hit. As soon as we arrived we created a commotion when everyone saw the two of them. Luckily, thanks to their ah-jee-mah, they're starting to get used to Korean faces, and they actually smiled at all the people fawning over them. And there were lots of people in their faces, cooing at them in Korean!

The reception was very nice, and from what I could see, not too unlike an American reception. Food, drink, and people gathering to celebrate. The bride is a beautiful and sweet girl, and she looked absolutely stunning in her hanbok, the traditional Korean wedding dress. Aren't the bride and groom beautiful in their traditional wedding clothes? Talk about some wedding flowers.
I can't believe how big this arrangement is. How festive! It was actually perfect that we arrived so late (it started at noon) because we got to enjoy eating with the bride and groom who had been entertaining their guests prior to that. Since the reception ending at 3pm, we only stayed in TongYeong for an hour, then it was back to the car for the trip home. We debated staying there for the night, since it took us so long to get there, but decided we didn't have enough diapers, and such to make it through the night. So we drove the four hours back home. Actually, it was really nice to get home and be able to end the day with some normalcy for Ella and Sterling. We've decided we'd really like to take the bullet train from the train station here in Waegwan back to TongYeong for a long weekend sometime soon.

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