All is full of Love
MAY 21st, 2006
"Wow, John Kwag is getting married!" This thought kept repeating in my head that whole day. John, the strange friend, every girls best friend, the bubble man, mr long term student, mr giggles, mr nice-guy....he finally got the girl, his partner and it making a go at it. I could not have been more happy. And I never felt more special being apart of something so personal.
Sitting there, at table 1 with only the family, we watched the whole procession
"Granted it was all in Korean but it was still a specticle. There was a live string section, an amazing slide show on the big screen showing their lives and their love, and of course the whole shabang in korean with multiple costume changes and multiple wedding cakes. There was even heart shaped butter. Yes, everything was thought all the way thru. Everything in its right place.
Speech time. I had notes scribbled from the last few days. I had many different ideas on how to honour kwag. Do I do a Bono and use lyrics and induct my bro into the hall of fame?
" no...too lame. As dramatic and emotional I wanted to speech to be, it just wasn't going to ever fly over well because out of the 160 guest at the ceremony, only 12 or so spoke ENGLISH! But it was for John. This speech, this honour was for his laughter, his moment in the sun. The only comment from the speech that was very rememberable was the story of John cracking eggs on his head in school to win class president. Even the priest after my speech asked John is the story was true. Mr. Kwag was sure a star at Seoul International School.
When this ceremony was over, another private, family only ceremony was about to begin upstairs.
" At first me and Ksenia didn't know if we should attend or not. But John's mother insisted on our attendence and we were again honoured to see such an event. Basically the couple takes turns bowing to each member of the extended family and in return they may get "rewarded" in some way. They also had to do yet another costume change for this ceremony. They looked just like those Korea dolls in my parents living room. It was amazing. We sat there in awe in the kids section and waited for everyone to have their turn. When it was over, it was 4pm, exactly 3 hour after the whole day started.
We were glowing afterwards. Such a happy day, for such wonderful people. We all couldn't stop smiling. John was looking forward to his honeymoon which started the that evening, and me and Ksenia were about to start our own independent adventure in Asia. We all took some photos considering how amazing we all looked and then quickly changed to go experience "The land of the morning calm"
What was next? Like usual a non-stop adventure. Seoul Tower, Ill-attempted boat ride, Apkujung, Jazz club, argument, nam dae mun,
" Seoul Palace and than back to the hotel again for one last late night discussion and than sleep. We knew that in a few hours time a private mini-van will be waiting downstairs to take us 5 hours south to the amazing old kingdom of Gwangjeu. A place to see the past, enter the buddah world, and make peace with ones self.
A Time for Seouls and Mates
MAY 17th, 2006
I wake up in the mornings and check my pockets and look in the mirror to notice two facts just staring directly at me. I'm getting old and my friends are getting married. Those tuxedo rentals do add up. Slowly but surely this is the way our lives are heading. But these are things I guess we should be embracing rather than fearing. Esp the friends getting married part.
But what makes this story even more unique is the fact that it involved John H. Kwag. My best bud from years back, the only man I can honestly say I've known since I was 13. He asked me to be his best man at his wedding in South Korea this may. It was my honour to pay tribute to someone whose had such an impact on my life. But of course, how can you write a speech about someone and more importantly about our friendship when there is so much time and unmentionable stories between the pair. Of course, i did what i always do, I winged it.
What made this trip back to my old stomping grounds so special is that John specifically invited the recent star of my exhaustive, dramatic adventure, Ksenia, to the festivities. She of course was not only intrigued by the bright lights of Asia, but also was dying to see me make a fool of myself in front of hundreds of Korea wedding guests. No matter what the reason, her company mixed with our ever implusive chemistry made this trip one we will both remember fondly.
I show up early, on a Thursday to get the groundwork going on the trip. We stay at the Hyatt hotel Namsan which is right across the street from the NamSan apartments I used to live in.
They've torn down the NamSan apartments and looking at the sight where my home used to be was very disturbing....even more so was the fact that my hotel room was overlooking my old home during the whole trip.
I met up with John and his future was Je Hyun in Itaewon to plan out the next couple of days. We had to talk about my role in the wedding, our lives in general, and of course the friday night bachelor party. Of course as one who follows the code of manhood, I'm not going to diverge details of this night....but lets just say it was unforgetible in its own tragic kazmi/kwagster way. In fact every one of these I've ever thrown are stories in their own right.
Ksenia arrived on Saturday and I went to the airport to pick her up. We managed our way back to the hotel in the Korean humitidy and she quickly passed out from the long 9 hour flight. Kwag, his wife and I rehersed the wedding, ate, relaxed, and waited for our Russian guest to wake up before we went out shopping.
We went to the Lotte department store in Myongdong first and shopped our hearts out. Afterwards we went to a traditional Korean old style resturant to try all the delacacies Korea had to offer.
I was later told that there was dog meat on the menu but luckly no one offered this to us. We discovered this amazing rasberry Korea drink that prompted us to buy bottles of the stuff at the airport. After many frantic calls from their parents on being out so late the night before their wedding, we concluded the evening at the resturant and looked forward to tomorrow's wedding. What was amazing is that this was the day before their marriage and the happy couple spent all their free time with us. I'm lucky to have such great friends.
Our evening did not stop as the jet lagged, buzzed emotions of being in such a strange place led us to continue on that night. We explored our strange hotel with its sweeping night views and felt like we were acting out a scene in the movie "Lost in Translation". We went to J.J. Mahoneys, a famous hangout from my old days, and saw huge display of pink poodles stuffed animals. But the highlight of the post dinenr party was stumbling upon a No-rae-bong club or private Kareyoke bar. Being 'intoxicated' with the moment we rushed into one of those rooms, ordered our poisons and sang out hearts out for 2.5 hours.
The songlist was a mixture of terrible sappy pop songs, and modern alternative classics from the 90's. There was this amazing rendition of Losing My Religion that was done by my squirrily friend. It was so impressive and sanguine that i demanded a repeat preformance. "That's me in the corner.......Thats me in the spot light...........losing my religion" Blasphomy never sounded so.....russki
After closing down the bar, and ending the perfect evening, we rushed back to catch a few hours of sleep before the frantic day ahead.
If its not kite flying...its crap
Why not, we spend 50 hours a week at work together, lets try going someplace outside of the country. I was expecting the worse but was pleasantly surprised that me and ksenia got along as we went to London and Scotland for 6 days a few weeks back. It does make sense in hindsight. We are probably used to seeing each other eat and work that it doesn't matter if we have the other person's attention or not.
We had this huge urge to go kite flying. You see Moscow isn't as green or as lush as the English/Scottish countryside. We bought a few kites(stupidly I got a stunt kite!) and went to the shore of the frith of forth in Edinburgh to go have a flight. Was it sucessfull? no....we laughed a lot and realized that sometimes things sounds good in theory but in reality its a lot of work and gets dull after 15min. Same can go for anything almost.
Our Korea trip in a few weeks time (Kwags wedding). Still uneasy....but we'll see. I'll bring a kite just in case.
