south korea (part 8 of 9)

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9

South Korea 2010: A day by day retrospective

I'm at the finish line. I don't have many words left in me...

Day 8; whoops, I screwed up.

I'm pretty sure Emmelle and I went to check out some of the famous palaces during Day 7, specifically Gyeongbokgung Palace. I could talk about some of its history, but that would be boring. All I know is that the Japanese destroyed it multiple times; you'd think my smart people would have erected something more secure after the first invasion, but hey, who am I to judge? It's quite beautiful.

So what exactly did we do during the eighth day of our trip?

I'm not exactly sure. I recall walking around many neighborhoods in the oppressive heat and having my one male-PMS meltdown during our vacation. Everyone is preemptively sanctioned one per trip, aren't they? Sorry, Emmelle. I also distinctly recall battling my camera time and time again. Things picked up later in the afternoon when we ate jja jjang myun (black bean paste noodles - sounds delicious in English, I know) for the first time during our stay and met up with Emmelle's aunt to pick up our hanboks.

Afterwards, for the first time during our vacation, Emmelle and I parted ways. For Emmelle, she was going to have another feast with her family. I took the subway to Seoul Station where I met my cousin to take an express train to Daejeon to visit my dad's lone sibling in the country.

I had a memorable time with my dad's side of the family, even having the opportunity to eat hongeo (fermented skate fish). Skip to 3:10 of this Andrew Zimmern Bizzare Foods clip to see what I'm talking about. Its served with a variety of accoutrements to mask the pungent ammonia-like taste and smell of the fish. When in rome...I had a couple of pieces without anything else, and while it's not the most pleasant thing to eat, it is edible and entirely unique. I'm glad I got to try it. I'm not glad that I was burping ammonia on the return flight to California the next day.

But my dad's uncle, the third son in the family and closest in age to my dad. I've heard many tales of how he would always follow my dad around. He still speaks very fondly of him and asks about him in a deferential way. He also resembles my dad physically. My favorite uncle. Cute kids now both in college, home for summer vacation. Clean, peaceful home in a safe community. It's a small glimpse into what life may have been like had my parents not made the decision to emigrate to the United States. All these thoughts are a bit disparate and disjointed, but I can't piece it together cohesively in a satisfactory way. At the end of the day, I'm grateful that I was able to spend some time with my family and awfully embarrassed I intended not to see them due to the brevity of the trip.

Shame on me.

....

I knew there would be some errors in my recollection; I shouldn't have waited so long to conclude my thoughts on this experience. Ask this pretty lady what else I messed up.

Thanks for stopping by.

Return to the GreensandBrowns home page.