Exploring -사육신묘

Emerging from the Noryangjin Subway


노량진 - Noryangjin

Noryangjin is the neighborhood right next to Andrew's school, and where the majority of his students live. It's a small, busy area filled mostly with coffee shops, restaurants and bars (like every other neighborhood in Seoul). But the real attraction to Noryangjin is the concentration of street food. There is a stretch of a couple of blocks that's packed with stalls selling everything from fried rice to kebabs to dim sum, all cheap and almost all delicious.

Street Food

Savory Pancakes
Pictured: Pizza Pancake & Double Cheese
Not great, but not terrible

Vegetable Toast
A toasted onion, carrot and mushroom omelet sandwich.
Pretty tasty.

We had originally set out on this exploring mission to grab a street snack, and then head into the large fish market, but in trying to find the entrance to the fish market, we stumbled across a hilltop park with shrines and tombs.

Koreans doing what they do best: getting their hike on

Fall in Korea

Of the parks and 'natural' areas that we regularly visited/drove past in Ulsan, most of the vegetation was coniferous or just weeds, so we never really got to see the full impact of the seasons changing. Most of it was green, gray and brown year round. After an Autumn without much change, it was really nice to walk through a park filled with the vibrant colors of the season. That being said, there were many a tree and leaf picture taken...

A shrine for somebody...

Leaves

She's got the Captain in her

More leaves

Korean recycling station

Views of Seoul from across the river

And one last leaf picture

Ulsan After the Wedding

Once the wedding festivities came to a close, we met up with our friends Sam, Matt and Korey to do the only thing there is to do in Ulsan, eat and drink.

Lotte Department Store's Christmas display

Sam and...that guy?

Matt & Liz

Somebody told a good one!

No clue who those two in the background are

Story of Andrew's life...

홍성기 & 위수연 - The Ceremony

울산 MBC 컨벤션웨딩
MBC Wedding Center

The MBC Wedding Center is a huge complex in Ulsan designed for the sole purpose of marrying off Koreans, and marrying off lots of them. The venue has a main hall, with many wings branching off from it and a huge buffet and dining area on the second level. Each wing on the first floor has two, fully decorated rooms for the ceremonies, so at any given moment there can be 10 couples getting married under the same roof. Weddings have become quite the industry in Korea!

An empty ceremony room

The sign marking Sungki & Suyeon's area of the center

Just beyond that sign, we found Suyeon sitting on a purple, velvet chaise taking pictures with all her guests. Of course, we jumped right into the line!

신부 - 위수연
The Bride - Wi Suyeon

Us and Suyeon

Teachers from Andrew's school, Mrs Shin and Mrs Jo

Some of Andrew's old 6th graders

Kerry and Suyeon
Kerry is Sungki's co-teacher and good friend

신랑 - 홍상기
The Groom - Hong Sungki
Look at that tux shine!

The "I do's" (maybe?)

Andrew's former co-teacher, Myungkyo and her son Seungyun

Suyeon's class preformed an adorable song for the newlyweds!

During the ceremony, there was a slide show going on. Some photos included an oversized bow-tie and suspenders. They were really cute!


As in all weddings, during the ceremony, the groom was handed a microphone which he used to serenade his new bride. Luckily for the audience, Sungki has a great voice.

Man & Wife

Sungki's ROTC buddies held down the isle

When they came to each pair, their swords would go down and they would make the couple do something embarrassing. (All this happened in Korean, so after the fact we were told that the things they did were embarrassing.)

Push-ups with Suyeon on his back

Eugene, the photographer

Playing with Judy

The Families

The buffet that followed the ceremony

In their post-ceremony, traditional attire

"C'mon, let's go!"