A wedding in Korea

Last weekend my boyfriend and I were invited to a wedding in Seoul. This was the third wedding I've attended in Korea, but this one was kind of a big deal for me, because it was my boyfriend's cousin who was getting married and that meant I got to meet my boyfriend's parents, his sister and other relatives :)

There are roughly two types of weddings in Korea. The traditional kind where the bride and the groom wear wedding hanboks and all... and the non-traditional wedding that is a bit similar to the weddings in Europe or America. The first wedding I attended was a traditional one. It was my Slovenian friend getting married to his Korean girlfriend. The second wedding was a non-traditional type and it was my classmate from Korean class (he's Korean, but lived in America most of his life) getting married to his Korean girlfriend. And this one was also a non-traditional one. My boyfriend's cousin (the bride) and the groom are both Koreans but live in Australia.

Korean weddings usually take place in special wedding halls. You can see lots of them everywhere in Jeonju. They are these huge buildings with lots of wedding halls inside and there are usually a lot of weddings taking place in the same hall on the same day. So when you walk in the building there is a type of schedule on the first floor that tells you what wedding is taking place at what time and on what floor. This one started at 5:30pm on a Saturday, so I think it was the last one that day. My boyfriend and I arrived there a bit after 5pm and most of the guests were already there. The groom was talking to the guests while the bride was sitting in a special small room where she was taking photos with the guests. We walked there to greet her and we also took a photo with her. She looked beautiful and I really liked her wedding dress! But I couldn't help but think how bored or tired she must have been, just sitting there all afternoon greeting guests one by one and taking photos with them.

Around 5:30 we all entered the wedding hall. There were cute white seats with gold ribbons around them, but they looked a bit old. Each ribbon was shaped differently and you could tell they've been used lots of time. There was a beautiful white piano in the front and a woman played the wedding march song as the bride walked down the isle with her father. The bride and the groom were then standing in the front, facing this old guy who was giving a really long speech. A really long one... or maybe it just seemed that way because it was really hot inside and we were standing in the back of the hall. A Korean wedding ceremony doesn't take a long time. Most of the time is just this speech, I guess. After the speech, the groom played the violin for the bride. On my classmate's wedding the groom also prepared a performance for his bride - he sang to her. I don't know if this is something typically done, but it was definitely nice. Then the bride's sister also had a surprise dance prepared. It was really funny, she walked in the hall wearing a huge white ribbon on her head and started dancing to Orange Caramel song. Later the groom and their friends from Australia all joined in the dance so it was really fun :) Unfortunately I didn't record the video of the dance, but here's a music video of the song. Watch it and you'll get an idea of how it looked like.

Now here's the most disappointing part about Korean weddings for me: the wedding cake. I am a HUGE cake lover and I can never say no to a piece of cake or two. Therefore the best part for me about any wedding is the cake! However... in Korea, you don't get to eat the wedding cake. No one does :( I'd already learned that on the previous wedding so I wasn't too disappointed this time, but I asked my boyfriend and his sister: who gets to eat the cake?? What happens to the cake?? Lol They weren't sure, but they knew the cake wouldn't be served so no one would get to eat it. It is so strange to me. There IS a wedding cake on every wedding in Korea. And it is part of the wedding ceremony for the bride and the groom to cut the cake with a huge knife. But they don't eat it, they don't even taste it, they just cut it. I have no idea, but it might be the wedding hall's cake and I wouldn't be surprised if the next couple getting married got to cut the same cake. o_O

Also, there is usually no "you may kiss the bride part". It is not strange at all for the bride and groom to not kiss at all on their wedding. I mean, I don't expect them to make out in front of everyone, but a short peck on the lips would be nice... In my classmate's wedding, there was no "you may kiss the bride part" but the groom gave a small kiss to his bride at the end of the ceremony anyway. But he's from America as I had mentioned already. On this wedding it might have been because both the bride and the groom (and the bride's sister as well) live in Australia that they got to kiss. One of the guests (the groom's friend or relative, I don't remember) said he had three questions for the groom: 1. do you love Rachel (the bride)? 2. Are you confident that you will love her for the rest of your life? And the groom answered loudly with a "yes" to both of these questions. And the last one was "is she your first love?" which was meant as a joke. Then he asked the bride to kiss the groom while he counts to 5 (or 3 or 10, I don't remember, let's say it was 5). And if she stopped kissing him before he counted to 5, he'd kiss her instead of the groom. So because of that they were 'forced' to kiss. It was a kind of kiss you see in Asian dramas, where they just put their lips together but not move at all. And I honestly prefer that. I don't think we all need to see them use their tongues, as I am sure a lot of couples do on their weddings in America or Europe.

Other than that, there was a part where the bride read her letter to her parents. I didn't understand all of it, but it sounded really sad. She was reading it really slowly, trying not to cry while her voice was shaking. The whole ceremony didn't last long. They usually take less than 30 minutes, I guess. But during the whole time, there were phones ringing all the time and it seriously bothered me. I find it so annoying. Last time in the movie theater this guy's phone kept ringing in the middle of the horror movie and it was really annoying. When it finally stopped I thought he turned it off, but instead we all heard this loud voice of an old guy: "hello?" and he just kept on talking as if he was at home... no manners at all! Every phone can simply and quickly be put to silence mode and if you don't do it, it is not the technology's fault, it just shows your bad manners!

Anyway, after the ceremony the bride and the groom took photos with their friends and families. I also got to be in the photos together with their relatives :D And after you took a photo you were supposed to go to the dining hall with a buffet to eat. Actually, a lot of people left towards the end of the ceremony already. Maybe they were afraid they couldn't get a seat lol and I can understand them, because the first thing we heard on the speaker when we walked in the dining hall was "there are not enough chairs, so we kindly ask those who have finished eating to give up their chairs to other guests" lol How can that even happen, another mystery to me. I don't know if it was just the people from this wedding this time, but I heard in many wedding halls, people from different weddings eat in the same dining hall at the same time. I am not sure how it was this time since I couldn't possible remember every face from the wedding.

We got to sit together with my boyfriend's parents, his sister and some other relatives. There were tons of food and my boyfriend and I were starving. We walked around the buffet and picked out the food that looked most delicious. There was really a lot to choose from, even sushi. There were some desserts too, including tiny pieces of cakes. It wasn't a wedding cake, but it was better than nothing. While we were eating, the bride and the groom (wearing hanboks this time) were walking around chatting with guests, thanking them for coming. They didn't get to eat anything. I don't know how long we were sitting there, 30 minutes? an hour? After eating we kept on sitting and talking for a while until another announcement from the speaker told us it was time to leave. I looked around and most of the people were gone already.

After you finish eating you just get up and leave. That is usually how it's done on every wedding in Korea. So the whole things -  the ceremony and the meal together - doesn't last more than 2 hours. Guests don't bring wedding gifts but give money instead. You put money in an envelope, write your name on it and after you do that you get a coupon for the dining hall. I'm guessing that means if you don't give the money, you don't get to eat. At the first wedding I attended (my Slovenian friend) I wasn't prepared and no one had told me about this, so I really had no idea what to do and therefore didn't give any money. I felt kind of bad... On the next one I knew better and gave the money in an envelope. I wasn't sure how much to give, I guess it depends on how close you are to the bride or the groom. Also, I heard you can give less if you're a student. Anyway I asked around the school about how much I should give before I went to the wedding. This time I came together with my boyfriend so he gave the money for us.

All in all the wedding was nice and the food was delicious. I had a nice time and I was happy to finally meet my boyfriend's family. But I wouldn't want a wedding like that for myself. I would rather invite less people and have a small ceremony somewhere outside. I don't like these kind of wedding halls. At least this one had a door so it wasn't too loud (except for all the phones ringing) but in my classmate's wedding, the wedding hall didn't have a door, it was just kind of around the corner, so it was really really loud. I also don't like that feeling like you're supposed to just hurry and get it over with like "the ceremony is done, let's take photos... ok, photos are done, please move to the dining hall... there aren't enough chair so if you're done please leave... ok time to go home now etc". My boyfriend says it's because Koreans are so busy and because relatives come from all over Korea, so the ceremony can't take all day. And yes, I can partly understand that. Everyone is busy these days, who isn't? But you get married only once in your life (or it should be just once) and I think that's something worth making the time for.

Jeonju Hanok Village and Internation Sori Festival

Last week the yearly international Sori festival took place in Jeonju. It's a musical event that is mainly focused on traditional music. There are different performances, not only from Korea, but from several other countries as well. My boyfriend has attended this event many times before, he even played with his band a couple of times, but since I just moved to Jeonju this summer, it was the first time for me.

An opening ceremony took place on Wednesday evening at Sori Art Center. I don't know how much the tickets were, but my Russian friend who studies in Seoul, invited me and my boyfriend and gave us the tickets for free. Unfortunately the ceremony started at 7 and my boyfriend just got back from work at 7. After that we got ready and left, but it took as a long time to get there, 'cause there was so much traffic. So when we finally entered the hall and got to our seats, the performers started bowing already. So ya, we didn't really see anything. Too bad. My friend said it was quite good. After the ceremony there was a kind of reception with food and drinks, but it didn't taste that well. So we missed the whole ceremony, but I did get to see my friend from Seoul and meet some of her friends as well, so the whole evening/night was quite fun. We went for some makgeolli (a traditional Korean alcoholic drink usually made from rice) and then we took them to the Absolute bar where my boyfriend's band sometimes has concerts and where one of the band members works.

The photo is from a place where we drank makgeolli. Koreans usually also eat a lot when they drink, especially if they drink makgeolli or soju, I think. These kind of dishes are called anju.

On Saturday we decided to check out the festival at Jeonju Hanok Village, which is a traditional-style village located in the center of Jeonju. Tons of people came from all over Korea to see this festival, so the whole village was really crowded. It took us forever to find a parking space, but we got lucky eventually :) First we walked through the village, trying to get to a yummy tteokgalbi restaurant. There was a line of people waiting outsite, so it took us about 15 or 20 minutes to get a table, but it was worth waiting. Tteokgalbi is a dish made from pork and beef shaped into rectangles and grilled on charcoal. It is really really yummy. We were so hungry that I forgot to take a photo, but I will include the one we took last time. Oh, it seems like that time I was also too hungry so there is almost no food left on the table, but you can still see some of the tteokgalbi.

After that we went for some ice-cream. There was this really really yummy ice-cream we had in Lotte World - an amusement park in Seoul, and I saw a similar one being sold in Hanok village. So we decided to try it out. They had tons of flavors to choose from. I couldn't decide between peach and strawberry so I just ordered what my boyfriend did: blueberry yogurt. Usually the thing he orders ends up tasting much better than whatever I order, so I just went with his decision this time and it was really good. ^^ The weather was really nice and sunny (almost a bit too hot) so we were just sitting outside for a while enjoying our ice-cream.

Then we finally got our hands on the festival program pamphlet and decided what to see. Well it was me who decided, really. My boyfriend wanted to see some band, but they weren't playing on Saturday evening, so we went with my decision. I wanted to see something traditional Korean and pansori sounded great. I heard so much about pansori but I never had a chance to see the real performance. My boyfriend wasn't too excited about it. He says it's not that he doesn't like Korean traditional music, it's just that he had to listed to it so many times when he was younger.

We slowly walked toward the Traditional Culture Hall to see the pansori performance and decided to have a little snack on the way. We were really full from tteokgalbi and ice-cream, but there are so many types of snacks being sold on the streets of Hanok village that you start to feel hungry again just by looking at them. We decided to go for some waffles :)

 

Finally we arrived to the Traditional Culture Hall and got the tickets for the pansori performance. They were 10.000krw each. Ouch, a bit expensive. But I really wanted to see it, so we payed for the tickets and went it. We were about 10 minutes late but there were still a couple of seats available. Luckily, 'cause the performance is about an hour and a half long.

Pansori is a traditional Korean performance. It is kind of like a story telling. There are usually two performers: the singer and the drummer. While the drummer gives the rhythm, the singer singes, narrates and acts out the story. Different parts of the story have different rhythms.

 
The pansori story we saw was Chunhyang-ga. Sounds familiar? :) I know Korean names are difficult to remember, but I'd written about it before in my blog. It's the story from Namwon. I wrote a lot about it, so if you don't remember just reread the post about Namwon trip.

I've lived in Korea for 3 years now, so my Korean language skills are not bad at all. However, it is still much harder to understand things like songs or musicals, and especially pansori where they use kind of an old-style Korean. So I couldn't understand a lot of what the woman was singing (but neither could my boyfriend ;)) I looked around at people and I noticed they had these pink booklets with all the lyrics written inside so that they could follow more easily. I also wanted one... The woman sitting in front of us had two! And she wasn't even using them, she was sitting on them. My boyfriend told me to just pull it out from underneath her butt, but I was pretty sure she'd notice, so I decided to wait. I figured, if she keeps moving, the booklets would eventually end up on the floor and she wouldn't even notice. And that's exactly what happened. :)

The singer was really good, she had a strong voice... but what impressed us the most was... how on earth could she memorize 15 pages of the story?! Wow~ impressive :) During the performance I looked at my boyfriend once and he was sleeping lol Also, another funny thing about the performance was the audience. They kept on shouting things like 'oi', 'hoi' and other stuff :) I found it so funny. I looked at it online a bit and it is a perfectly normal thing in pansori. The audience's shouting is kind of like an encouragement and it is called chuimsae. There was this old guy sitting behind us and he kept on yelling 'kurochi' which is like 'that's right!' lol I wanted to do the same, but wasn't sure when or what, so whenever the audience started shouting I just joined them and my boyfriend found it hilarious. :) Well, at least he was having fun and wasn't sleeping.

I liked the performance, it was interesting and I would love to see another pansori sometime. Especially now that I'm prepared and have learned all the shoutings :D But towards the end, it started getting really really cold outside, so we couldn't wait for the pansori to end. After it finally ended, they served some snacks - mostly rice cakes. I grabbed a lot of them - I figured we deserved them after paying 20.000krw for the tickets - and we ate them on the way to the car. Luckily our car was parked close by 'cause it was freezing outside.

Unfortunately I was sick the next day (on Sunday) so we couldn't go to norebang (karaoke) or anywhere else for that matter (except for the ER) but at least we had a great Saturday :)

Hangeul Day

And we have yet another holiday in Korea :D This time it is Hangeul Day and I just want to let you know shorty what this is (just in case you don't know already).

Hengeul means the Korean alphabet and Hangeul Day is all about celebrating the creation of Hangeul. As you probably know, a long time ago, Koreans used Chinese characters for writing. But Chinese characters are not entirely suitable for Korean language since Chinese and Korean are quite different, especially when it comes to grammar. Chinese characters are also not easy to learn, so in the old days, there were many people in Korea who were unable to read and write. And for that reason King Sejong or Sejong the great from the Joseon dynasty created Hangeul in 1446.

Hangeul is actually a very simple writing system that includes 24 basic letters: 14 basic consonants and 10 basic vowels.

There are also 16 additional symbols (5 consonants and 11 vowels) which are made by combining these basic symbols, so they can also be called complex symbols.

And that's all the hangeul symbols there are - pretty simple, right? ;) After you've learned these symbols you just need to put them together into syllables. Let's look at an example. Let's see how to write Hangeul day in Korean. Hangeul day in Korean is Hangeul-nal. So all you have to do is put the symbols together like this: combine h + a + n into one sylablle 'han', g + eu + l into another syllable 'geul' and n + a + l into the last syllable 'nal'.

And it's as simple as that. A lot of people ask me how to type Korean alphabet using a computer or smartphone. Well, now that you know that Hangeul doesn't have much more symbols than for example English alphabet, you can imagine how they can all fit on a keyboard. Consonants are on the left side and vowels on the right side. Using the shift button you can also get the additional characters. And as you type 'h', 'a' and 'n', your computer or a smartphone will automatically put them together into one syllable 'han'.

Creating Hangeul, King Sejong made writing for Koreans much easier and gave everyone a chance to learn how to read and write, so that reading and writing wasn't limited only to scholars (mostly men) in the highest classes in Korean society. This is why creation of Hangeul is so important and why this is one of Korean's national holidays. Although actually, it hasn't always been a national holiday. In the early 90s some people objected to the number of holidays (non-working) days in Korea and Hangeul day was therefore no longer a national holiday. This changed again in 2013 and now Hangeul is again a work-free day. ^^

Well I hope this was interesting for you and that maybe you learned something new :) As for me, I am happy that my boyfriend gets a day off work. But same as last week, he decided to work today and be free on Saturday instead. ^^

Have a nice Hangeul day, everyone! ;)

Bamboo forest in Damyang

This weekend my boyfriend and I went to visit a bamboo forest in Damyang. I just love bamboo trees because they look so cute ^^ And probably also because there are no bamboo trees back in my country (Slovenia).

It took us about an hour and a half to get there from Jeonju. We could probably get there faster if we went straight toward Damyang, but we decided to take the highway to Gwangju first, because of the highway rest areas. I will write a special post just about that later, but anyway, we always like to stop at those rest areas for a while.

We finally arrived to Damyang in the early afternoon. Even though there were so many people (it was a Sunday and the weather was great) there were enough parking spaces and they were all free. After parking we crossed the river over some cute rocks and got to the main entrance of the bamboo forest. You have to buy a ticket that cost 2000krw per person (2$). Which is not a lot, but we later found a way to get in the forest for free. I'll let you know how.

The forest is really nice and cool because of the shade. And even though there were quite a lot of people, the forest is wide enough, so you can always find a place to sit and rest, a nice spot to take photos etc.

There is also a shop in the forest that sells bamboo ice-cream! We didn't try it though and bought raspberry instead. It just didn't sound yummy and I just kind of assumed it would taste something like green tea flavored ice-cream. But I really have no idea.

 

Other than ice-cream, there was also some type of bamboo bread, bamboo tea and LOTS of items made of bamboo, like cutlery, cups, bows, swords, fans, accessories etc. They looked really nice but were somewhat pricey so we didn't buy any. We just looked around a bit. (Sorry, I forgot to take a photo...)

After walking for a while and taking photos, we got to this special rest area with traditional Korean houses. It was possible to go inside (after taking off your shoes, of course) and there were massaging chairs available to use for free. ^^ There was an old couple sitting on the chairs, enjoying a massage, but we decided to wait and try it out. After about 5 minutes they got up and we got to use them. Ahhh it felt really nice! Although it was a bit rough on the lower back area so it almost hurt a bit. My boyfriend said the same thing. Anyway, you can enjoy a 15minute free massage, but we were only using it for about 5~10minutes, because there were other people waiting to try it.

I have no idea how much time we spent in the forest, but it was probably quite a while. We pretty much took all the paths available and walked really slowly. The weather was so nice. It is already October but the weather is still warm here. Many people walked around in short sleeves, but we had light sweaters on. It can get a bit chilly in the shade or when it gets a bit windy. Also, there are still tons of mosquitos flying around, so make sure to use some type of repellent. We finally remembered to use our 'off' spray, so I only got 1 mosquito bite this time ^^

This is a map of the bamboo forest. There are different colored paths and the main entrance is at the beginning of the blue path. But we got out of the forest using the orange path at the far right of the map. There is absolutely NO ONE there to check if you have a ticket or not, so you could get in the forest using that path for free. But I guess, when people first visit the place, they don't know about it and just visit the main entrance like we did. You have to walk for about 5-10minutes more, but you don't need to pay for the tickets if you do :) We'll try that out when we visit next time.

After leaving the forest we went to eat some special noodle soup that is supposed to be very tasty in Damyang. My boyfriend seemed really excited about the soup and he kept talking about it all day until we finally sat down and ordered it lol It was a nice restaurant too. You get to sit outside and enjoy the view of the river. It is not too expensive either. And yes, the soup IS really yummy! I got the non-spicy warm soup and my boyfriend got the spicy cold noodles. They both tasted really good!

After that we bought some tangerines. They were selling them outside and they were really cheap. First the price was 3000krw for a bag of tangerines and later in the evening it was 5000krw for 4bags of tangerines. So we bought some, sat down on a bench by the river and ate a bag. Yummy ^^

It was a really nice day and I definitely recommend Damyang's bamboo forest if you like nature. However... later in the evening I had a terrible stomach ache and I couldn't really sleep much because of it. My boyfriend also didn't feel so well in the morning. I'm guessing it must have been something we ate, but I have no idea... was it the ice-cream? The soup? Tangerines? Chinese black noodles at the rest area? Snacks? ... o_O But other than that, it was a really really nice weekend. ^^

Oh there was one thing I didn't like thought. All the tree trunks by the paths had people's names or initials carved in with a knife or something. Now I am no expert, but I'm sure it can't be very good for the trees. And it doesn't look nice either! ... I don't get it... why do people have to do that? o_O

Another Holiday in Korea

Today is October 3d and that's another holiday in South Korea. It's called Gaecheonjeon which is translated to English as the National Foundation Day.

My boyfriend wasn't able to explain to me much about this holiday and I am not sure if that's because he's not sure (or interested) in what this holiday is all about, or because he just didn't feel like explaining it to me yesterday. 

Actually he just arrived home while I was writing this and I asked him again what day it was today and he said: "it's gaecheonjeon, I told you".
me: "ya but what exactly is gacheonjeon?"
he: "i don't know ... it's a free day lol"
He's really cute sometimes ^^ Well if he doesn't know then I don't need to feel bad or stupid either.

But according to wikipedia it is the day that celebrates the creation of antient Korea called Gojeseon in 2333bc by Tangun. Gaecheon means Opening of Heaven and refers to October 3rd 2457bc when Hwan-ung decended from heaven to live with mankind. Maybe I can find a story about it in the famous Samguk Yusa (the story of three kingdoms) that I had to study at the University.

Here's the story (a summary of it anyway) from my English version of Samguk Yusa (I'm too lazy to read the Korean one right now, sorry):

In ancient times the heavenly king Hwan-in had a young son names Hwan-ung who wanted to live in the human world. After careful examination, Hwan-in chose Taebaek mountains in Korea as a suitable place for his son. He gave him 3 heavenly treasures and sent him to rule over his people. The son ruled people and taught them everything from agriculture to medicine. But in those days, there were also a she-bear and a tigress living there. They both prayed to Hwan-ung to become human beings. The king gave them some special food and told them that if they eat the food and not see the sunlight for 100 days, they would become humans. The she-bear followed all of the king's instructions and became a woman after 21days. But the tigress didn't obey the rules, so she remained in her original form. The bear-woman was not able to find a husband so she prayed again to Hwang-ung for a child. He heard her prayers, married her and she soon bore a son. She named him Tangun - king of sandalwood, because she prayed to Hwan-ung under the sandalwood tree. Tangun later went to Pyongyang and set up his royal residence there, then moved his capital to Asadal in Taekbaek mountain where he ruled for 1500 years.

I don't think Koreans do anything special on this day, I'm sure they're just happy to have a day off. Not the workers building a new house across from ours though.... I'd happily give them a day off so they'd let me sleep in the morning for once... but I guess not everyone is free. My boyfriend was supposed to have a day off work today but he decided to work today and be free tomorrow instead. Which is much much better, since we have a whole weekend to ourselves this way.

And for me... it's just annoying lol as most Korean holidays... no, but I don't want it to sound like I am complaining for no reason. I do have a reason. I just made reservations on Korean KLM website for our flight to Slovenia this Christmas. The site usually gives you 24hours on working days to complete the payment, but it looks like the website doesn't have national holidays in the system... It is kind of a problem since I have to visit a bank and they are all closed today and tomorrow. I have a daily limit so I can't transfer that kind of an amount through mobile banking or ATM.

If we don't transfer the money by tomorrow our reservations will be canceled. I'm a bit annoyed/worried about it, but my boyfriend said he'd find a way, so... I'm not gonna let this ruin my day and I'm just gonna wait for my boyfriend to come up with a solution :)

Anyway, I hope you liked the story. Happy national foundation day everyone ;)

Couple Clothes

Couple clothing - yes! A very popular thing in Korea :) And since my boyfriend and I are also a typical Korean couple (yeah right lol) we also wear couple clothes sometimes.

Last weekend we did a little bit of shopping downtown. It wasn't what we originally planned to do. We went to see a movie and had something good to eat. But then decided to buy a couple of sweaters since it's already October. It's still really warm here, over 25ºC if it doesn't rain, but I'm sure it will get cold soon enough.

So we stopped at Uniqlo and bought two pairs of matching sweaters ^^ My boyfriend loves couple clothes. We don't have that many yet, but we do own a couple. Here's an example:

These are our Guess couple T-shirts. They're pink - my favorite color, but luckily my boyfriend doesn't mind wearing pink. I guess most Korean guys don't have a problem with pink color. ^^

And our New York T-shirts. Unfortunately we didn't have our selka-bong then yet, so you can't see the T-shirts well :) Oh and lets not forget about our couple sneakers:

Korean couples, especially young people, love couple items: shoes, clothes, rings, bracelets etc. Of course there are exceptions. Not everyone likes this kind of things, but seriously a lot of people do. Everywhere you go, you can see couples dressed the same. Sometimes it's just the shoes, sometimes just the t-shirts and sometimes it's all the same from head to toes. And I think it's cute. ^^

Korea is probably not the only country that has this, but it is hard to find couple clothes in Europe, I think. Here, they're everywhere. And it is not weird at all, since there are so many people wearing it. Just visit one of the online Korean shopping malls - how about gmarket, since it's available in English - and you'll find SO many couple clothes.

In summer, couple beachwear is also really popular.

This is the hood that my boyfriend also bought for us. It's great for the beach ^^

But now the weather will slowly get colder, so we bought this really cute sweaters. One set in black and one in pink. One is exactly the same with a hood and the other one is almost the same, but we got V-neck for my boyfriend (since he looks much better wearing a V-neck) and a round neck for me.

I personally really like couple clothes. Here in Korea, it is not common to see couples kissing or making out in public - thank god! That can seriously be annoying in my country, when you're sitting on the bus and the couple sitting behind you is making out really really loudly... luckily I never go anywhere without my headphones ^^ But instead of kissing, most couples hold hands and wear matching clothes to show that they're together and that they love each other. Which is much better, I think. It doesn't make anyone feel too uncomfortable and it's just cute.

I've dated other Korean guys before I met my boyfriend, but it never got really serious. So I never wore couple clothes before. Obviously, if a guy isn't serious about you, he'll say that he's not into couple clothes. As a foreign girl in Korea, you have to be careful about guys, since a lot of them might just be interested because you are different and they just want to try out something new, but don't want anything serious. Luckily, there are nice guys out there too ^^ And if a guy buys you a couple ring and wants to wear couple clothes, then that's a clear sign that he's taking the relationship seriously ^^

What do YOU think about couple clothes? Please share your experiences and/or opinions ^^