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2005
We stayed at the home of Jun-Hak's parents, where
they provided enormous feasts of home cooked Korean food every morning for
breakfast.
An outpost.
 
This mythical creature protects the palace by eating fire. Josh tempts
the creature with Carmel's
flame sandals.
Guards.
Trespassers are customarily tripped.
Our free tour guide and Carmel.
Water represents females. Here is a picture of some chick.
A view of the back palace from beneath the front palace.
Josh and Carmel
in front of their new home.
Suspended on stilts.
Intricate ceiling.
We were forced to wear these stylish sandals inside the palace.
This is where the royal people ate.
Tree on pond.
That's where the President of Korea lived.
Our royal crew.
 
Royal cushions.
Another grand ceiling.
Picture-worthy unknown.
The changing of the guards.
Do not walk this narrow path if you have large ears.
Bi bim bop.
Art building.
 
Random important person parade cuts through the market street.
Chestnut stand.
Cool building.
  
The brand new Seoul Forest was not so much a forest, but a park modeled
after New York's Central
Park.
Fun games for all the kids!
Over the bridge we go.
A professor designed this toy to bring water up to the bucket and drain out
on the slides.
 
Oh deer.
Carmel, Josh
& Sujin.
Sujin tries to hide behind her mask and from the
picture.
 
On the Han River.
Seoul dusk
setting in.
Kalbi at Sam Won.
Carmel is
pleased with her meal.
Clinton dined
here.
Seoul Tower.
These smokestacks were lit to indicate danger. More lit smokestacks
meant more danger. In other words, mo’
fire mo’ problems.
Seoul
nightscape.
Entering Korea University.
Youngryel, Carmel,
Josh and Sujin.
 
Beneath the halls of Korea
University. The
colorful circles contain the phrase, "I love you," each in a
different language.
 
Talking to students from Korea University and Seoul National
University.
The entrance to Seoul
National University.
 
Scenery at Seoul
National University.
Professor Lee's graduate students hard at work.
Doo-Ahn mixes a potion.
Korean pizza!
Carmel and Josh
make funny faces to match the funny masks.
Satisfied group after a meal of Korean pizza and potion.
At the brand new Seoul
"River".
 
The natural environment.
City Hall at night.
There's even Dunkin' Donuts in Korea.
 
Nightlife.
We did a little funny karaoke at the Funny Music Station.
 
California Dreamin.
One of the happening karaoke clubs.
It was a Samsung nation.
2008
Tuesday I awoke at 5am to catch a 6am bus to get to Heathrow at 8am for a
10am flight to Korea. I arrived at 8am on Wednesday in Seoul, where Jun-Hak--my
officemate at Berkeley
for the last 4 years of my grad school--met me. We took the bus into the city to his home,
where I met his parents (actually re-met, I stayed with them in 2005) and
unpacked my stuff in their guest room.
Jun's mom made me one of those amazing
Korean meals where the entire table is covered with small dishes of great
food.
Jun and I set off to meet his fiancé, Yae-Gang, and
then head out to some islands outside of Seoul for the day. This was a good plan for having just
arrived because there was a lot of bus travel that I slept through.
We checked out the islands, and ended up at an elaborate Buddhist temple
tucked away in the mountains.
Just chillin’.
In front of a tree that is important, but I forgot why. Something to do with that it’s really old or
looks like a dragon or something.
Catching up with my good buddy.
Peaceful view.
Heading back down to the water to get some dinner at a random
hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we had fantastic cold noodle soup.
    
    
The next day we hung around Jun's place for the
morning--me finishing up a presentation on climate change modeling, and Jun
finishing up a slide show of pictures for his wedding. He spent a huge amount of money getting professional
photographs made pre-wedding, and every pictured turned out amazing--in each
one he and Yae-Gang look like professional models.
We headed out after a couple more amazing Jun's-mom-home-cooked
meals to Korea University. We popped in to the brand new Samsung
building that contained a nice museum of historic and contemporary Korean
art. Afterwards, we stopped by a
lounge nearby the building that Jun did his Masters at where they had free
wireless and a grand piano with a queue of students at the ready to show off
some excellent piano skills while I polished off one last slide for my
presentation. We headed over to the
old Jun building, talked to his old lab, and went to the room where I was
about to give a lecture. There were
about 40 people in the room, and I delivered my lecture, which took about an
hour.
Jun and I did not expect any questions, being that the audience was a group
of shy Koreans who probably didn't understand my English, but actually, at
about 30 minutes after my talk ended, I had to stop questions because Jun and
I were late for another engagement.
We left as quickly as Koreanly possible to a chorus
of thank you's and more questions, and ran out into
an absolutely pounding thunderstorm to meet Jun's
parents, pick up an incredibly important package, and catch a cab to the
other side of Seoul where Yae-Gang's family was
eagerly awaiting our arrival.
We arrived not too late, and suddenly I became an integral part of a
traditional ceremony. For this
ceremony, the groom requires a close friend to carry the elaborately
decorated and incredibly important package to the bride's family's home. I took the package and Jun took my
backpack. I joked that my backpack was
probably worth more than his package because my backpack contained my
laptop. Jun informed me that I was
wrong. I carried the package on my
back while holding some traditional pseudo-torches into Yae-Gang's
home, turned around and Jun presented the box to them.
We ate another marvelous dinner then the package's contents were
revealed.
In the box were treasures and jewels presented from Jun and his family to Yae-Gang and her family.
Among the necklace and earrings of pearls was the final treasure: the
wedding ring.
After a bit more in Korean, the ceremony was over, I was presented with a
not-so-small token of gratitude, and we were off.
Friday was pretty mellow. Jun, Yae-Gang and I met up with my buddy, Wes, from Berkeley
who was in Seoul
for a month. We went to go see a Korean
Drumming performance called Nantak, but it was
nothing like traditional Korean drumming.
It was actually really similar to Stomp, but was set entirely in a
kitchen. [photo] All their beats,
which were still in the same rhythm of the traditional drumming patterns,
were done with kitchen instruments while they attempted to cook a meal along
a comedic storyline. It was a good
performance and hilariously funny.
Afterwards, Jun and Yae-Gang had to get to
their wedding rehearsal so Wes and I grabbed some drinks at a coffee house
and chilled for a bit before walking around some fun neighborhoods and
grabbing dinner at a famous fish restaurant.
We finished off the evening with some drinks at a biergarten.
Saturday was the wedding day. I caught
a cab over to the venue at Korea
University. The place was absolutely packed and chaotic
in a natural way. Jun said he expected
900 people, which is normal for Korean weddings. The wedding hall itself had only about 100
seats so people were lining the walls every which way. The wedding was not long, with the
highlight being a song performed by Jun.
I zoned out during a lot of it as it was mainly in Korean, but a lot
of people I had met from my 2005 Seoul
trip found me to say hi. Afterwards
was a massive lunch in a room that held about 400 people, so still there was
not enough room for everyone; people had to stand around and wait until
someone finished and left so they could get a seat. Next, Jun and Yae-Gang
were whisked away to a private traditional ceremony whereby each close family
member is greeted individually with elaborate ritual. I got the rare chance to observe the
ceremony. At one point in the
ceremony, Jun had to carry Yae-Gang on his back for
a lap around the room, set her down, then do the
same for his mom. And that was it for
the wedding--they had their bags packed for their honeymoon in Singapore and Bali,
and they headed off to the airport.
The rest of the day I hung out with Doo-Ahn, who
visited my lab in Berkeley
for a year, and another one of the grad students, SoRa,
from Jun's old lab.
We went to check out the tallest building in Seoul, called the 63 Building for its 63
floors.
You actually only get to go up to the 60th floor, but the views were still
nice.
With admission to the building came included entrance to Sea World, which was
located on the bottom floor of the building.
It was actually a lot bigger and nicer than I would have
expected.
The seahorses looked like musical notes on these bars.
A Korean marriage ceremony with the crab carrying his wife on his back around
the room.
Finally, we were given free admission to the Imax show on Egyptian
Mysteries. It was all in Korean and I
fell asleep for some of it. Turns out
that Doo-Ahn and SoRa
fell asleep for most of it. We left
the 63 Building and headed to Insadong, which is a
fun neighborhood of Seoul
that Doo-Ahn knows well. We walked around for a bit, then went to a famous noodlehouse
for homemade noodle soup, dumplings and soju.
We decided to go drinking at an old nook that I had visited in 2005. The specialty was a witch’s brew cauldron
of rice wine potion, which we paired with an excellent Korean pancake/pizza
(mainly spring onions, onions, and seafood).
We had a great evening and got back to my hotel around midnight.
I awoke to my last day in Seoul
with a phone call at 11am from SoRa saying that she
and two other grad students were waiting for me downstairs. I madly got myself together and packed up
all my stuff to check out of the hotel (I was staying at a different hotel
Sunday night). Still not completely
awake nor exactly sure what was going on, I was informed that we were going
to a pseudo-traditional fusionesque Korean village
near the North Korean border. After an hour of driving, we reached the
village. The buildings were all
artistically designed by the top architects of Seoul, and inside each building was some
sort of art exhibition or some completely random activity or event. We spent a bit too much time painting
pottery (the 3 girls were really into it, but I was the slowest), and we had
to rush back into Seoul
as quickly as we had rushed away from it.
Outside our lunch stop.
Mmm, Korean-fusion food.
I approve!
The folk toy museum.
Looking for inspiration.
SoRa and I examine previous work.
Artist hard at work.
Putting on the finishing touches.
Checking out an exhibit all on teddy bears.
Looking for photos and love.
Friendly service.
We met Doo-Ahn and Professor Lee (Jun’s old professor and head of the GIS/Remote Sensing
group at Korea University) and went to dinner at an
outdoor summery bbq place. I wasn’t entirely sure what we were
eating—they kept saying “duck” but I was hearing “dog” and then I think they
thought that maybe I wanted to eat dog.
It was nonetheless good, and we drank a bunch of soju
while discussing future collaborations.
  
  
Afterwards, we headed to a neighborhood “pub” where we were supposed to drink
5 kettles of rice wine. With our
drinks came a whole other massive meal that we struggled to get in. After drinking and eating way too much, we
headed to—where else—karaoke! I made
the 3 girls sing SES, which was a 3-girl Korean pop band that I was
introduced to as a Freshman undergrad by my Korean roommate. The girls made me sing Justin
Timberlake. The Karaoke machine also
gave a score out of 100 at the end of each song, though I’m not exactly sure
how it produced the score. That night
we only got 2 scores of 100—both from duets by me and Doo-Ahn
on Surfin’ USA and Twist & Shout. We all kind of fizzled out at the end,
dispersed, and SoRa and Doo-Ahn
took me to my hotel. Without going
into graphic detail, I had a rough night of sleep, finally nodding off around
4am for 2.5 hours of sleep before my 6:30am wake-up call to get to the
airport.
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