HAPPY WADDING

Saturday, October 20 I was (for some reason) invited to the wedding of one of my Korean co-teachers, Ally. Her wedding was in Incheon, which is about two hours away from Seoul by subway. I had planned to meet Naomi Teacher at the subway station and travel to Incheon with her, but she decided not to come and not tell me. Luckily, three of the other teachers from school came through the station while I was waiting there (which was good luck, since I had no idea where to go).

Our ride to Incheon was interesting. It’s the last stop on the longest line, so we were on for quite a while, but we weren’t without entertainment. We met a very very drunk fellow, who we called Mr. Kim (because odds are that actually IS his name). Keep in mind that this is about noon, and that we could smell his boozy breath over everything else in the crowded subway. He kept talking to us, about what I can’t even remember now. At every stop, he would say “This is your stop! Follow me!” We weren’t very smart, we told him where we were going.

After about five attempts by Mr. Kim to get us off the train, we actually did get to where we had to transfer, and you better believe we RAN off that train. We went downstairs and outside to get on our transfer train. When it got there, the doors open and we got on to find, smiling up at us… MR. KIM! Somehow. Eventually, he got off, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

When we got to Incheon, we took a taxi to the wedding hall. It cost about 10 bucks or something. We told this to Grace Teacher, one of the Korean Teachers, and she was so shocked! “The subway is right next door!” We got a little bit lost, I guess. Or they like to rip off white people—

The wedding hall started amazing me even before I went inside. Hanging outside are enormous banners, emblazoned with HAPPY WADDING. Yes, wadding. English clearly isn’t their forte.

The wedding proper was quite an interesting event. It all starts with some flight attendants (???) who lead in the parents of the bride and groom, by ushering them with giant swords they hold in the air. Then the flight attendants walk back down the red carpet, and usher in the groom, and then the bride. Oh, and all of this took place on the top floor of the building, and it has a retractable roof. They couldn’t decide if they wanted an indoor wedding or an outdoor wedding, so they moved the roof back and forth every few minutes.

The guy who was performing the ceremony was a good friend with the groom (whose name is Seoul, by the way, like the city), but he wasn’t very close with Ally. So, he spent some time talking about Seoul (part of which, Grace Teacher translated, was about how his hair is "like cabbage"), and then moved right on to the vows. Without mentioning the bride at all. Then Seoul sang to Ally. Only he’s not a very good singer. And also, it was a duet with another man. Luckily, not a lot of people heard it, because unlike a North American wedding, you sit at a table with other people, and you can just talk to them, and no pay attention to the wedding at all (some people went downstairs to eat during this, because it “gets busy after the wedding”).

Ah, yes. The food. We go downstairs after the ceremony, and into the dining area. You don’t have to wait for the bride and groom, you just go in, eat, and leave. The food was actually pretty amazing. There was rice, soup, salmon, something meaty, something chickeny, something fishy, don’t know, don’t know, some vegetables, don’t know, don’t know, etc. Plus you can just keep eating it, and they’ll keep bringing more. We didn’t though (boo--) since the Korean teachers were waiting to take us to the subway, so that we didn’t get ripped off again – or maybe in case we met Mr. Kim again.