Friday, August 14, 2009

Ahnyoungheegaeseyo: Or, the Last Hanbok in Incheon


Well, folks, it seems we've come to the end: the 333rd and final installment of School of ROK. Two years, five foster dogs, and 18 Airport Limousine rides later, we're headed to Edinburgh, Scotland. You can follow our continuing exploits at The Educated Burgher.

We'll continue to reply to questions posted in the comments threads, so feel free to ask anything you like about our archived posts.

Before we go, though, a final tale.

Now, Nana and I aren't really good at doing the must-do and seeing the must-see (for example, we never ate live octopus, and we never did drag ourselves up to the DMZ or down to Gyeongju), so it's no surprise that we found ourselves in the airport with about thirty minutes left in our Korean adventure without ever having worn hanbok.

Luckily, every concourse at Incheon International Airport features a "Korean Cultural Experience" (part, I think, of the delightfully Engrish Korea Sparkling campaign), where you can learn the Korean alphabet, ingest softcore propaganda, and yes, have your photo taken in extra-heavy polyester versions of Korean traditional garb. For free!

Seeing as we had half an hour to kill, Nana and I weren't about pass up such an opportunity. I, knowing fine fashion when I saw it, instinctively grabbed the king's royal robe, while Nana picked up a simpler, princess-on-her-day-off affair.

The "Korean Cultural Experience" wasn't complete, however, until a passing ajumma stopped by to scold the photographer (as far as I could make out) for putting our elbows in the wrong position. The photographer, being younger than our concerned passer-by, had no choice but to respect her elder's wishes. Hence the pose you see below.So in other words, we went out of Korea the same way we came in: sweaty, being hectored by ajummas, but still trying to smile.

So long, folks! See you over at the new blog!

4 comments:

Mark Lee said...

I'm going to miss being able to read about your adventures in my motherland. Thanks to both of you for keeping this up and making it so enjoyable to read.

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Hana said...

Hi, I am trying tofind out how to contact you but don't know how! I am looking into working with School of ROK also, so looking for any information to help! My e-mail is xhanalarocksx@yahoo.com. Thanks!-Hana

Justin said...

Hi, Hana! We're unaffiliated with www.schoolofrok.com, which launched after this blog went inactive. Sorry I can't be more help!