These shots are from a traditional wedding ceremony we attended as guests of Daegu Rotary District 3700 Group Study Exchange chair Mr. D. K. Hahn.  The origins of this particular ceremony are in Chinese Confucianism.  This kind of ceremony is still fairly common in Korea today but only as a ritual. The “real” wedding is girl-in-dress and boy-in-tux as in the West.  Today’s wedding, however, was the real thing.  There would be no Western-style wedding and dance party. So we were party to something of a rarity.

Difficult to see in the wedding shots above is the color of the sky.  We got the “Yellow Wind” from China today.  According to the nightly news, it was the worst such day Daegu has ever seen.  Everything gets covered with dust, and you have to wear a mask outside if you value your lungs.  This only happens in the spring.  Korean and Japanese Rotary clubs have responded by raising money and traveling to China to plant trees in the arid region where the dust comes from.

 

The GSE team responded by spending the afternoon at SpaValley, a rather upscale Korean bath.  After our massages, whirlpools, and saunas, we stuck our feet in a pool where small fish dined on our calluses. Not sure the calluses are gone, but it was a new experience.  It tickles!  and it’s sheer marketing genius.