Lost in Korea: the longest day

I had an interesting blurry whirlwind of a day today...a seemingly unending day in that it began with me waking up at about 6:30 this morning and not coming home until well after midnight tonight.

To begin with, I rushed out to Namdaemun Market early this morning to meet a friend at the infamous black market located in one of the basements of a department store in that area. We were there to look around at whatever goods were being offered and I in particular was on the lookout for some medicine from back home that is not so easily found here in Seoul. After about an hour at the market we decided to get going along to the next destination on our winding journey of today.

The first stop was a wedding of a friend of ours from back home who was marrying a Korean girl he met here about a year ago. It was a pretty classy affair, complete with a drum procession and a buffet table about a mile long. It was held outside at a wedding temple in southern Seoul and all of the participants wore traditional Korean clothing throughout. It was quite a sight to behold because it was one genuinely Korean experience that I have not had the pleasure of experiencing as of yet. In any case it was a wonderful opportunity to witness the strange and fascinating coming together and melding of two very different cultures. I was very glad to have been invited to such a unique event.

Following the wedding, the groom, some of his friends and I left in a taxi and headed to Gangnam for some post-ceremony drinking and festivities at a local micro-brewery. The place was fairly big and was easily able to accommodate our rather large party. We stayed there for a long while drinking meters of beer and chatting among the friends and family of the wedding party. Koreans don't traditionally have a reception afterwards so I suppose this was as close to that as we were going to get. Even so, it was still a lot of fun and I had a great time.

After the semi-reception, I left with two friends of mine to go to a pub trivia-night fundraiser in Suwon that a bunch of foreigners were sponsoring to raise money for a local orphanage. I must say, I wasn't expecting it to be that much fun, but in reality I had a great time! My group was a perfect mix of Americans, Canadians, Koreans and one girl from Ireland. Between the six of us we were able to answer most of the questions correctly. I even ended up winning a Starbucks gift certificate with which to further feed my need for legal addictive stimulants. It was just a great atmosphere overall and I loved every minute of it.

To finish off the evening we headed to an after-party at a nearby pool hall and danced for a bit before calling it a night. Right now it's past 3am and I can say with some certainty that I am well and truly spent. I haven't had such a full day as this for quite some time.

And now, I am tired...and my head is still reeling from having taken in so much in just a day's time. I'm not use to so much social interaction in such a short amount of time, which for me is a genuinely exhausting experience. To compensate I think I may have to stay in and sleep all of tomorrow. I just can't deal with so much all at once.

In short, I need sleep, but it was still a good day overall.

Only in Korea...

Pics of the wedding ceremony: