whirlwind weekend

We had Friday off, so I decided to go on our school's kindergarten field trip to the aquarium instead of wasting the day away. Jordan (other foreign teacher) and I rode in the school van with all the little kiddos. They are sooooo cute, as you can see - especially in the fake Burberry uniforms. Some of them are the little brothers and sisters of my elementary students.


Most of the kids are really sweet, but of course there are a few troublemakers. Like Judy, the girl on the far left. Can you see her evil eye?






Sadly, the display titles were in English, but the explanations were not.




There was a cameraman on hand to record the kids' every move for school publicity.



The place was jam-packed with school groups. I actually felt like the aquarium wasn't too different from just walking down the street in Korea and seeing all the edible sea-creatures on display.




Checking out the shark tank.



That Friday night, a group of us stayed out way way way too late. I'm talkin til 6 in tha mornin. Ya. Then on Saturday, we had a wedding to attend. MJ's good friend, whom she met studying abroad in London, said that she could bring along any of her foreign friends to witness a real traditional Korean wedding.



Wedding crashers from left to right: Maggie, me, Dave, MJ, and Paul.


The wedding was held outdoors on some beautiful grounds which used to be a home of a famous admiral. I thought the catfish pond was cool, since you could throw fish food into it to see them battle it out.

Paul had somehow volunteered to be one of the 4 men to help carry in the bride. And he decided to wear some traditional German garb as a joke, which the groom loved.



Here is the procession with Paul at the helm, bride in a cage/box (?, we couldn't quite figure out what to call it).

The ceremony was about an hour long, with some people standing and some sitting. It's not considered rude for people to chat during the ceremony. And most people give cash as a gift when they arrive.



We were invited to the reception luncheon afterward, and they even wanted us to be in their photos! The couple was really sweet.

After all of that, Paul, Dave and I went to a big bookstore with a fairly large section of English books. We made some purchases and hung out for several hours at a coffee shop, talking intermittently about life, the future, and how damn tired we were.

Instead of calling the day quits, we invited more people, so Hannah, Lucas, and Emily joined us. We all went in one fun group to a DVD bang. After watching Hotel Rwanda, we were all feeling a little disillusioned and depressed, but still Emily, Paul, Dave and I carried on.

We ate at a san gip sa grill restaurant, where you grill your own pork slices at your table. yum. It was funny though because our waitress couldn't take our order without laughing and running away. Not sure why. I think she thought the guys were cute. Also, the mascot of this restaurant chain is this fat cartoon man with a buzz cut, and I could swear that the man that the cartoon was based on was eating in there right under the poster. So we had a good laugh. Apres, we went to a bar for "one beer." This turned into a few since we were enjoying ourselves so much. Very good company, very good day.

On Sunday, Emily and I decided we wanted to go to the beach and we wanted to eat greasy American food. So we jumped on a bus for Haeundae, the touristy beach area here and ate a delicious, expensive meal at Outback. Then we just hung out around her neighboorhood for the rest of the day, checking out some new places and doing a little undercover work, as usual. I am so so happy to have my best friend here.