西洋오랑캐

Fist of the North Star was/is a fairly famous comic book / cartoon / franchise in Japan, and apparently it was popular enough in other areas to warrant a South Korean live action version. Much like the live action Korean Street Fighter, the production values of this show are well…lacking, but if you like your Korean men with facial hair and kicking with trailing effect, then definately check this video out!

On the morning of June 14th, after some three and a half hours of sleep I awoke and after a quick shower, headed off with my father-in-law to meet up with my family, as today was the day they were returning from wence they came. Since Jinhui had to return to work on this day, she did not accompany us, and instead got to stay home and sleep. I was totally jealous.

So after a fairly quick ride to the hotel we met up with the rest of my family. I assisted them in checking out, and luggage with chucked into a van, and off we went! Again after a short ride we were at the airport. My father-in-law parked the car, my family members got boarding passes, and I wandered around drank a coffee and attempted to guess the nationality of various white people at the airport.

Eventually boarding passes were issued, my father-in-law returned, and Jinhui phoned in an apology and her good-bye. Hugs and thanks were given and then my family went through some gates and were gone. In a way I was glad, because I had nothing left to do that day and could spend the afternoon sleeping…something I longed to do.

But it was not yet time to sleep. Instead of going directly home my father-in-law and I headed over to Jinhui’s uncle’s house (my uncle-in-law) to return a borrowed van, which of course turned into eating lunch, which turned into coffee and conversations. Some three hours later I was finally back home, and in bed. It had been a long week.

Check out photos of my family departing if such things pique your interest.

On the 13th of June, we kicked off the day with a trip to the Korean Folk Village (aka 민속촌). The event was fairly decent and we saw a lot of awesome stuff like traditional drummers, acrobats, poop, and donkeys getting it on…your basic trip to the Korean Folk Village. After an afternoon of traditional stuff we headed into the city which took at least 100,000 hours. This was because of the fact that today was Korea’s first offical World Cup match, so the entire country was on high alert.

Since my family had to depart the next morning, the parents stayed at the hotel to pack up their loot and the books about poop I was making them take back to the United States. The younger people in the party headed out to City Hall for a little soccer madness. So we rendez-voused with Sunhee and after a quick dinner, and a brief stop at the local 7-11 for brews and chips we headed over to the soccer viewing area and watched some soccer.

The soccer match was pretty decent, but the party! Holy Crap! My brother, not much of a sports fan, had a blast. Brews & Interviews! Woot! Woot! Anyhow Korea ended up winning which was outstanding, but on the way home I told Jinhui that we would be watching all future games at home. My siblings under the orders of my sister Rhiannon, left before the game actually ended and were able to get back to their hotel in about 13 minutes or so.

Jinhui, Sunhee, and I stayed until the end (which happened a little before 12), and ended up getting home at something like 3:30 in the morning. I’m not really sure how we got home, and I’m even less certain about how all three of us were able to snag seats on the bus, but we all did.

Anyhow if you want to see pictures of donkeys having sex, or traditional drummers, or an army of Koreans in red t-shirts drinking beers in the street check the photos located right here! And for those of you who are sick and tired of reading about me being a tour guide, fear not, the next post will be the last of this sort!

On this particular day we tried to go to the DMZ with my family, but apparently it’s closed on Monday, so we went to Imjingak and then the Unification Observatory. Imjingak was decent save for the elementary school kids that assaulted my clan with shouts of “Hello! How old are you?” (As a quick aside at least one of the kids knew that “How old are you?” is an inappropriate question to ask a middle aged woman and chided her classmates).

So Imjingak…we saw North Korea, I got yelled at by some dude with a machine gun for going to close to some fence, and I bought some awesomely kitchy North Korean stamps from the 1970s featuring North Korea’s 1970 vision of a space program. The stamps were utterly insane and in reality warrant a post of their own…perhaps such things will come to pass.

Following Imjingak we headed to the Unification Observatory and observed some unification…or looked at some North Korean television, played school in a mock North Korean classroom, looked across a river, and then purchased North Korean alcohol. Oh also I made my brother have a hard time because I busted out all manner of Korean while I was purchasing some sort of North Korean wine. My brother, being throughly unable to speak Korean (I believe at last count he knew the words for “beer,” “hello,” “thanks,” “Attention!” “Bow!” and “bulgogi”) went up to purchase something from a woman that now mistakenly believed all in my party could speak Korean.

Following our trip to as close to North Korea as one can go on a Monday we grabbed some dinner at a Taiwanese restaurant. The dinner was outstanding and enjoyed by all. Following dinner we headed to Namsan Tower to get a view of the entire city under cover of dark. From there we parted way and headed back to our respective domiciles.

Link to photos is here.

The 11th was the big day…again since I already was married back in January, but today was the day in which I had to go through all the pomp and circumstance.

Basically the day began when I woke up at 4 am, took a shower, and then went and got my hair done. Also I wore makeup, which I rationalized as being okay due to the fact that ancient Korean warriors known as 화랑 also wore makeup. I made the girl performing my ablutions aware of this little piece of historical fact as well. Also I told the lady doing my hair to do my hair in the fashion of King Sejong…only slightly more cute.

With hair and make-up all in check, much like that Busta Rhymes song, we arrived at the wedding hall. From here I don’t really remember much since the actual wedding basically consisted of various people dragging me around and telling me to hurry up. What I do remember is that prior to the actual ceremony we had to go get some photos taken in which my wife wore some gigantic wig that was several pounds in weight and wrecked her neck’s shit. I do know that my brother also had to sport some sort of wig that was a fake topknot of black hair…which matched so well with his natural hair color. And the third thing I remember is that prior to my grand entry I was worried that I was going to mess stuff up.

As for the wedding ceremony itself, it was a lot like the time I had a bit part in the Shaker Junior High School production of Hello Dolly. “Wyatt, I don’t understand.” Oh, I never told you, I once played a court stenographer and a cop in junior high. “No. No…how was it like middle school theater?” Ah! It was kind of like a middle school play in that I was wearing makeup, worried about messing up my part, and there were insanely hot spot lights on me…and there were song and dance numbers.

Also it was further like a middle school musical in that I knew there were a ton of people in the audience, but I could not make out the faces of any of them…nor could my wife. At one point in the ceremony, Jinhui leaned over to me and proclaimed, “The only person I can see is Nathan because his mustache is so outstanding.”

Following the wedding the family (families) were lead into a small ante-room (everyone else got to eat), where Jinhui and I had to bow to my parents again, and then they threw nuts at us…also I had to give my parents booze. Then I had to drink brew with my wife, and then carry her on my back and walk around a table. If you think I’m making any of this up, check out the pictures I have posted at Flickr.

After the wedding we had to greet everyone and thank them for coming, I kind of felt bad because I had to rush around at this point (since there were a lot of people) and didn’t really get to spend enough time with the people that I wanted to thank / take pictures with. So to my friends, if I didn’t give you a “Thanks for attending dude!” or a high five or a “와 주셔서 대단히 감사합니다,” I am truly sorry, but thank you for attending. HIGH FIVE!!!

After the wedding, we hung out and were lazy and then I went to Myeong-dong with my siblings for shopping, dinner (만두 and 칼국수), and then had some beers. The photos are here. Due to the fact that Korea has no such thing as an open container law, my brother consumed brew in the street in front of a cop car. Then we stuck them on a bus and we headed home.

I’m taking a break from the normal rocking jams I hit you upside the head with to bring you a Korean pop video. Now before all the fans of BoA or H.O.T. start going ape-shit and proclaiming their love for various dudes, I should warn you that thie is 1980’s Korean pop music. For those of you old enough to remember pop music from the US or Europe in the 1980s take that and move it to Korea and add shirts with frills…then you’ve pretty much got the jist of this video.

The song is called “어젯밤 이야기” (”Last Night’s Story”) and the group is 소방차 (Firetruck). Take it away boys!

On the Saturday prior to my wedding, the plan was to have my clan attend a dinner held at the home of my in-laws…so 진희 was made to stay home and cook all day. I headed out to meet up with my family and do some brief sight-seeing. The only problem with this was the fact that it started pouring. So we went shopping instead. During the shopping trip, Ailinn got herself hooked up with a decent Korean-English / English-Korean dictionary, my brother got himself hooked up with a pair of odd Converse sneakers, the likes of which he had never seen Stateside, and I got my aunt hooked up with some ginseng for a friend.

In addition to this we ate the item known in Korean as 토스트 (”toast”) which in reality is more like a toasted egg sandwhich than the item westerners know as toast. It was pretty decent, and the guy at the toast stand was macking it to Ailinn…or maybe just making polite conversation in Korean. Either way it was good for her.

Around 4:00 my father-in-law arrived in a van and took us away to the hanbok shop. The hanbok were all ready, so we picked them up and then carried on to his home. Due to the rain, the commute was a real pain in the keister, and after an hour and a half or two hours, we arrived at the homestead.

When we arrived, I saw that far too much food had been prepared: 불고기, 잡채, 갈지탕, salad, brews, chicken…and I could go on and on. So we sat down and got to work eating. Everything was awesome! Following dinner, there was a hanbok fashion show during which members of my family tried on their hanbok, were shown how to tie it together, and too many photographs were taken.

Some gifts were given and then my family got taken back to the hotel, since tomorrow was the big day and there was a lot of things to do.

So ends this part of my wedding adventure. If you like pictures and such, check this out yo!

Please indulge me in this brief detour from the stream of consciousness entries based on my family’s trip to Korea, but I have a quick note I need to deliver to all the Dads in the world save for my Dad…and I suppose my father-in-law as well.

Hey dads! You see that t-shirt?! That shirt is for the number 1 dad in all the world, and guess what: You ain’t it! That’s right suckers, you might have had a pretty decent year, but this time it’s my dad that’s going to get to go on stage and tell everyone how he couldn’t have done it with Cameron Crowe and his co-stars, and above all else Jebus, and also get this awesome shirt!

So what’s my dad got that none of the other dads had? Plan and simple: Class! And nothing says class like a shirt proclaiming, “I’m the man!” I know my dad’s going to be all modest and say something like, “Nah, I’m not the man…I’m just a man.” But I say don’t be modest Dad! You truly are the man! So enjoy this awesome t-shirt. Happy Father’s Dad and junk!

On the morning of the ninth, 진희 had to get a massage, so I headed off to meet my family and spend the morning with them. After getting a quick bite to eat together, the family and I head back to Insadong, since we had cut our previous visit short due to having to pick my sister up at the airport. Insadong was all about shopping on this day, and I was seriously playing translator due to the fact that aside from my sister and myself, no one in my family can speak a word of Korean.

Basically anytime a member of my family had a question beyond “How much is this?” I was summoned into action like I was some sort of Pocket Monster. “FAMILY MEMBER WITH KOREAN LANGUAGE ABILITY…I CHOOSE YOU!!!” My family seemed to enjoy the shopping and picked up a fairly random assortment of loot. Also Ailinn bought some meat on a stick.

At roughly 1:30, 진희 appeared and we all headed back towards the area in which I now reside. The women were going to go with 진희 and get some sort of spa treatment…the men were left with me, and I intended to do something “manly.” So after a way too lengthy bus ride we were at the beauty salon dropping the ladies off. I then headed off with the men.

We first stopped off to get our eat on. The menu du jour: “New York” style pizza, which my brother rated as “Pretty alright,” and my aunt’s fiance (a current NYC resident) rated, “amazingly cheap.” With something lining our stomaches, we headed to a bar / cafe called Goodfellas, but since it was decided that “What happens in Good Fellas stays in Good Fellas,” I’m not really at liberty to discuss what happened there.

At the appointed time we ran through a sudden rain storm to meet up with the ladies. They were all throughly refreshed, as were the fellas, so from there we headed off to Jamshil to ride a boat on the Han River. By the time we arrived, the rain had stopped, which was totally awesome. We got on the boat and got our cruise on, learning all about the various bridges along the river, as well as some King that wanted to live with seagulls and built a pavillion in order to do so…though perhaps I heard that tale wrong.

At the end of the cruise, we headed to the 63 Building for some dinner (돈까스), and then we intended to view the city from the observation deck. Unfortunately the observation deck was broken, or under repair, or just closed for the evening, so a viewing of the city was scratched and we all headed back to our homes.

So concludes part 3 of my wedding. If you want to see some of the photos from the days activities, be sure to check out my Flickr account, and tune in next time for even more tales from my wedding!

The day of the 8th began with a drive to the hotel to meet up with my clan. After a quick, disgusting, and way too expensive breakfast at the hotel, we all piled into a van and headed off to the hanbok shop to get my family fitted with some traditional Korean outfits to sport during my wedding ceremony.

Entering the hanbok shop with a platoon of non-Korean people was pretty odd, and there was a lot of stares being thrown in our direction. That being said, the hanbok shop was pretty outstanding, or at least my mother thought so. I lost track of how many times she uttered, “I love this!” or “It’s so beautiful!” The other members of my family all seemed to enjoy it as well, but were far less vocal in what they thought of it. With everyone suited up in hanbok, we headed over to Gyeongbok Palace (경복궁), for some tourism and site-seeing.

As luck would have it, upon our arrival it began to pour. Real cats and dogs nonsense. Fortunately there was a new museum that had appeared right outside the palace grounds and was included in the admission price. So we totally checked it out and stuff. I had to pretend to be a tour guide as I explained various historical artifacts to my family. By the time we had finished with the museum (it was very small and didn’t take that long) the rain had finished as well, so out we went to check out the best example of a Korean palace in Seoul.

I think I’ve been to Gyeongbok Palace like five times now (you could go back and count for me if you really wanted to), but each time I still enjoy myself. Around we went, I explained some stuff, random kids there on field trips asked my dad for his autograph…because he is so famous, my brother scowled so no one asked him for his autograph, and some Chinese tourists asked me to take a photo for them. When we had had enough of palace life, we headed off to get some eats.

After a short walk we ended up in Insadong (인사동) and we grabbed some bibimbab (비빔밥), which wasn’t a huge hit: aside from Jinhui and myself, only my father was able to finish his bowl. While the bibimbab wasn’t a hit, the plum tea (매실차) served after dinner was. With lunch finished some people headed back to the hotel while others among us went to the airport to pick up my other sister.

We gave ourselves enough time to make it to the airport, so that there was not a repeat performance of the previous day, but it didn’t really matter, since her plane was delayed an hour. I was a tad nervous at this point. For those of you that don’t know my sister, she doesn’t really have what one might call an easy-going personality, so I thought this hour delay coupled with an insanely long flight would have rendered her a surly beast (think the Incredible Hulk with a rage disorder).

Man was I wrong! When she got off the plane, she was the most cheerful, amiable person I’d ever encountered! I am under the impression that this was at least in part due to the fact that as she was coming through the gate I threw Jinhui (a person she’d never met before) at her. From the airport we headed to the hanbok shop to get her fitted. I thought this was going to be trouble as well, but again I was surprised. She was once more totally game for it. “Sure! Let’s go! What color can I get?” My jaw was on the floor.

My sister’s hanbok fitting was fairly uneventful, though she thought the women there were talking about the size of her chest. They were not. From there we took her back to the hotel and then we headed home for the night. On the way home we stopped off for some kimchi chigae which was so nuclear hot that I burnt a good chunk of my lip off, but it was so delicious!

Anyhow, this concludes part 2 of my wedding. Don’t forget to tune in next time for more madness, and if you like pictures, have I got a treat for you! Follow the above link for pictures of the day’s events.

This past (insert whatever day the 7th was), while the rest of you were working or drinking cool ones by the pool and listening to “Rock Lobster” by the B-52’s, I was running around like an animal. The day started off like every other day: I had to go with 진희 to meet some of her friends for a meal (this time the friends were former co-workers and the meal was lunch).

After a lengthy bus ride into the city we met up with said friends, watched them eat lunch (since they were eating at McDonald’s and neither 진희 nor I want to consume such stuff), bestowed unto them some wedding invitations, and then briefly stopped in at her old office to say “What’s up?” to some other co-workers and allow me to dazzle them with my minimal knowledge of the Korean language. It was then a quick lunch for us and we were back on a bus headed for home…so we could head off to the airport.

“Why were you going to the airport Wyatt?”

Well for those of you that missed my previous posts about the fact that my entire family was coming to Korea for my wedding, the reason I was going to the airport was that my entire family was coming to Korea for my wedding, and they were arriving by airplane on the particular day I am writing about, that day being 06-08-2006…but I digress.

We got home later than we should have, and while I could blame that on the fact that 진희’s old boss was kind of weird and kept asking her to host exchange students or some such nonsense after we move back to the US, I’ll put the bulk of the blame on the traffic on the way home, which was God awful. Anyway, 진희, her father, and I busted a move towards the airport and arrived there only a couple of minutes after my family’s flight was scheduled to get it.

I check the board to see what gate I needed to wait at and saw that their flight had come in early…some 50 minutes early to be exact. So I Six Million Dollar Man-ed it down to their gate and found the bulk of my family sitting on luggage, looking slightly disgruntled. We all apologized and then loaded them into a van and took them to a hotel. After dropping them off 진희, her father, and I consumed some tacos before returning to the airport to pick up my aunt and her fiance (since they were arriving on a different flight).

This pick-up went much more smoothly since the flight was on time, as were we. After dropping my aunt and her fiance off at their hotel and bidding everyone adieu we returned to our home, slightly exhausted.

This is the conclusion of part 1 of my wedding, tune in next time for the next exciting installment!

Although I was married under Korean and American law back in January of this year, this past Sunday I had my wedding ceremony, thus becoming offically married in the eyes of all of Jinhui’s family members. Anyhow, my family flew in and between wedding related stuffs and being a tour guide, I’m slightly worn out. In the next few days I’ll begin to work on updating this site with exciting stories about traditional Korean weddings, going to a hanbok shop with my parents, my brother drinking a beer while standing next to a cop car, a soccer game and the trip home which followed, and more tourist attractions than one could shake a stick at. Peace out yo!

Apparently this is what the nightlife is like north of the 38th. I don’t know if it is exactly what one might call “Awesome!”

I now know what K-1 fighter, Mr. Shark does to train for big matches…he beats up on members of Korean boy bands. This here is the music video for the song, “별책부록” by the lads in NRG featuring Mr. Shark…and underground fighting.

Editor’s Note: And as a quick aside, my family is arriving in Korea in like 8 hours, so posts of any sort of substance are going to be far less frequent for the duration of their visit.

I’m seriously turning into a sports fan or something. It’s only a matter of time before I start posting about fantasy baseball leagues, office pools, and the big game. God help me!

So last night I watched some sort of soccer match between the Korean national team and the team from Ghana. Korea ended up being defeated (3-1), but that’s beside the point. This game was held in Scotland, but looking at the crowd in the stands (or the signage for that matter) one would not have known it. A good 90% of the spectators (or at least 90% of the spectators shown on television) were Koreans sporting Be The Reds or Go Togethers t-shirts bellowing “대~~한민국!”

As I watched this game I got to wondering about the crowd. Were these people Korean that happened to live in Great Britain? The continent of Europe? Or were these people that flew from South Korea to go watch a warm up in Scotland? So if you have any information about this (population of Koreans residing in Great Britain [Scotland in particular], number of flights from Incheon International Airport to Scotland, ect.) please leave a comment.

For those of you that have studied Korean, the name Kim Min-su (김민수) should instantly be recognizable. For those of you that don’t study Korean, allow me to quickly explain. Kim Min-su is sort of a Korean everyman. He’s featured in most Korean textbooks geared at teaching the language to non-native speakers, and is always doing things like going to birthday parties, worrying about test scores, attempting to make phone calls, and telling guys with names like “Mark” and “Steve” things like “This restaurant is famous for bulgogi.” Apparently this fellow somehow also has the time to compete in mixed martial arts competitions.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon watching K-1 with my father-in-law. He’s all about it. I know of a couple of fighters, and have occassionally watched some matches on TV, but I’ve never really been all about it…until I learned of the existance of Kim Min-su: Professional Fighter. I’m not sure what it was about him that made me totally about him. It might have been the fact that he had a totally awesome theme song and came out to the ring with members of Korean hip-hop group DJ DOC. It may have been the fact that he had a sweet nickname: Mr. Shark…I mean how badass is that?

But I think the real reason I was all about him was the fact that like his Korean text book counterpart, he was just a pretty average guy. He wasn’t 7 feet tall like some fighters or a 500 pound monster. Nor was he the fastest or most powerful fighter. He kind of just seemed like a guy. But somehow he kept winning, and made it to the championship round in his division. I was seriously on the verge of being a sports fan with the amount of “Hit him Mr. Shark!” and “Crack his bald skull!” I was shouting. Unfortunately Mr. Shark came up short and ended up getting KOed in the second round. But thanks to him and his antics, I’ll be sure to check out further K-1 matches with the hope that one day Mr. Shark will become a champion…much like fellow Korean Choi Hong-man did yesterday (though neither my father-in-law nor I were quite sure how he did).

Ah ramen (or as it is known in Korean, 라면)! The food of the college gods. Well, in Korea (as well as other Asian nations), ramen is a perfectly acceptable food item that has no stigma of total poverty attached to it…instead it carries with it the stigma of a lack of time or a lack of cooking skill. Today for your pleasure, and no other reason, I give you this 1960s ad for ramen.

Yesterday was the first time since May 2003 (the date of my graduation), that I actually put my degree in World History to practical use…I mean for something other than yelling “Who is Cortez? Dumbass!” at my television while watching Jeopardy. Somehow I got roped into tutoring a Korean-American high school student in history.

Oh how awesome it was! I mean I like teaching English and maybe it was just a nice break from the normal routine or maybe it was the fact that I didn’t get the “I don’t understand, please rephrase it,” blank look, but I had so much more fun teaching history. Things I need to consider when I head back to graduate school.