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We missed the wedding.
Yes, THAT wedding. The one we flew into Korea for. The one we planned this trip around. The whole point of this trip. We missed the ceremony.
We didn't realize traffic would be so bad on Saturday afternoon, and it took us an hour to get from lunch in Gangnam back to our hotel. After quickly changing into something more formal, we called a taxi to take us to the wedding venue. That's when the downpour started, and it really was coming down hard. It took the driver 50 minutes to get to our hotel to pick us up. We got into the car just around the time that the ceremonies began in the rain.
We were more than a half hour late in arriving at
King Sejong Memorial Hall (세종대왕기념관), and the ceremony had just finished minutes earlier. The bride and groom were starting to take group photos with the guests, and I guess at least we made it for that! This was pretty much what happened to another wedding in 2001... when I flew across the Pacific Ocean, met up with the bride and groom before the wedding, only to arrive in time for pictures post-ceremony. Oh well.
I made sure to congratulate Mikamama and Mikapapa, and complimented how fine he looked in his pink
hanbok (한복). Mikamama told me that she had gotten the person responsible for introducing Mikacina to her now husband to guarantee that Mr. P would be a good husband. Well, I can't say I know Mr. P very well, but I do believe he loves her very much.
We found our way to restaurant upstairs and dug into the buffet, and there were lots of hungry people swooping in for the food.
Spicy garlic friend chicken (깐풍기) -
kkanpunggi (깐풍기) apparently originated from a Shandong dish called
ganpengji (乾烹鷄)... and here I thought this was just sweet and sour chicken.
Fish chili (피쉬칠리)
Royal ddeokgalbi (궁중 떡갈비) - these were decent. I didn't understand why the word "royal" was added to the description, but I guess it made sense at a memorial hall named after a great king. Interesting to learn about the origins of the dish.
Royal Oriental medicine galbijjim (궁중한방 갈비찜) - I took one small piece of the short rib, and it was unfortunately overcooked and tough.
I know that some of the other picky eaters did not seem too interested in the buffet, but I was happily enjoying the selection - especially the
japchae (잡채). I even went back for seconds!
The bride and groom brought their own selection of alcohol and snacks for the "after party", and since I wasn't very keen on soju and beer, I kept to the sparkling selection:
de Chanceny Crémant de Loire Brut
It was good to catch up with a few old friends, and much to my surprise, we got re-acquainted with Steven - Sang's friend whom we met on our very first visit to
Born and Bred back in 2017. He was surprised that Foursheets and I still remembered him.
The party eventually wound down and the core group was going out for
soondae (순대). Since that's not something Foursheets would enjoy and I wanted to get out of my suit, we decided to head back to our hotel. But since Foursheets didn't eat much and was kinda hungry, we decided to stroll around the hotel to see what there is to eat. Insadong looked pretty dead at this time of night, so we crossrf to the other side of Jong-ro and eventually ended up at
Kal Noodle Bar (칼누들바).
Soup with fishcakes and shells (물총뎅탕) - this wasn't bad at all. Classic fishcake on skewers, and plenty of little clams to make Foursheets happy. Just enough food for her not to go to bed hungry.
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