Death

So the trip to Seoul ended very sadly...

Jin's grandfather died. Later that week he invited me to the funeral.

I was supposed to dress up more... but I didn't realize and wore black with jeans. But apparently it was forgiven because I'm a waegook (foreigner). I bought some white chrysanthemums for the funeral because in Eurpoe and Asian countries, that is the flower that symbolizes death. Which takes me a second to get used to because in America chrysanthemums symbolize happiness and Mother's Day...

So they don't have funeral parlors here. They have a special wing of the hospital where they host the wake. The family stays up for 3 days and doesn't sleep (or tries really hard not to). They stay in the receiving room with the coffin, and the food on the alter to provided to sustain the spirit. The son and the grandson wear special black coats with yellow bands on the arms to symbolize that they are the immediate family of the one who died. The women wear black traditional Korean garments.

Whenever anyone comes in, they sign into the guest book, writing their name vertically in huge letters like you would if you were writing Chinese. Then you take off your shoes and go into the recieving room where the spirit and the family are residing for 3 days. Koreans bow and pray to their ancestors for the person who has passed away--but since I'm a Christian, Jin said it would be ok if I just prayed to God for his grandfather. Then you turn to the family, get down on your knees, and do a traditional bow with your forhead on your hands and your hands to the floor. The family does this back to you as thanks and respect.

It's very formal, yet personal. It's like you're interacting with the family and sharing their grief for that moment together.

Then you go into the dining room, which is a fairly large room with tables set up in the traditional floor style. You eat little side dishes, drink and talk. It's a little hall that the family rents out which is connected to where the family is staying. I wanted to take pictures... but I'm sure it would have been less than appropriate to be sure.

Family members that can't make it send these HUGE displays of flowers with their condolences written in Chinese (which is more formal since it was the language of Kings). When I say huge... I mean huge. They were taller than me. They are like those advertizement signs you see people holding for a huge sale going on at the store down the street. But they were so beautiful. Mostly white, with dashes of color and lillies. I thought that was interesting because lillies symbolize life... and I saw life among all the death.

I enjoyed meeting Jin's family... but I wish it could have been under better circumstances. I felt very honored to be included in such an intimate Korean family tradition. But I do hope I don't have to go to another one again. Death is a sad thing to be sure.

Seoul!

So my first trip to Seoul went rather well. The ending was sad... but that's another story.

Here are the highlights from my weekend in Seoul:

A palace tour! I'm pointing at a map in front of the site showing all the historic places in Seoul

The inside of the main palace where the King sat. The background is on all their 10,000 won bills

This is the palace. It's not really that small. It's quite huge, actually.

Part of the King's "Secret Garden" (isn't that AWESOME?)
It's a pool that symbolizes the connection/meeting of earth (symbolized by the square pool of water), sky or heaven (symbolized by the round island of trees in the middle), and man (symbolized by the two feet of the building sticking into the water).

The Korean Cultural Museum. VERY cool. Too many awesome pictures to post on here.

Korean culture borrows a lot from the Chinese. So these Chinese Zodiac statues were outside of the Korean Cultural Museum. I'm a Tiger.

Then later that night we saw a traditional Korean performance which showcased the different traditional outfits, instruments, and dances! It was incredible! Sadly, there was no photography allowed during the performance. I felt like I was at Disney.

Ahh... on Sunday we found a treat! Something we'd BOTH been craving since leaving the States! COLDSTONE ICE CREAM!

The best surprise, however, was going to the traditional market in Seoul and getting a Korean name stamp. All Koreans have one. They use it to sign their name on important documents like a King or something. So... I now have one with my name in Korean!

My name in Korean. And yes, those are Tigers. How awesome is that?

All in all... good first trip to Seoul.

...

I think I'm experiencing culture shock.

More Food... More Fun

So this past weekend included more food and shopping downtown! Jin decided to be brave and try something new for lunch and got a sweet pumpkin sandwich... and let me try some! It actually wasn't too bad!

Then we filled our Saturday with shopping! *For him* At a shoe store I was so impressed by a certain display of Gortex hiking shoes...

Which turned out to be fake! UGH! The nerve...

Soon after, Jin forced me to take a picture with some Korean historical reinactors--which I'm glad he did cause it was pretty funny! I just wish I knew who they were supposed to be...

Then for dinner we stopped by a Korean BBQ place. Delish! They had a salad bar that came with the meal (which, btw, are NOTHING like American salad bars). Well, at this salad bar... they had banana pudding! I was super excited, until I saw this:

This slimy, jello-y, milky white substance... is NOT pudding. And it barely tasted like bananas.

I tried to explain this to Jin, but to no avail. He's a stubborn Korean that will not accept the Western truth. haha.

On Sunday Jin introduced me to another strange and slightly disgusting phemonena in Korea called a snowcone sundae. When he first told me about snowcones here, I was excited because they're fun for the summertime! However, this is what he actually meant:

Ingredients include: Vanilla softserve ice cream, milky snowcone ice-flakes, red beans, cornflakes, small pieces of pineapple and peaches (?), and balls of rice cake rolled in powdered sugar. YUM!

We did see a funny sight from the store though! It had started to rain just a bit outside, and apparently a few girls didn't have their umbrellas with them. ^^ (Koreans do tend to pull out their umbrellas at the slightest sprinkle of rain...)

Conclusion: Good weekend! (Strange food and all!)