romance in korea: sloppy joes and matching outfits

Ryan and I just celebrated 9 years. Incredible. To celebrate, we headed to a happenin' part of town to try a new Japanese restaurant. Interestingly, I keep telling myself not to try a foreign countries take on another foreign countries food, but unfortunately, I never seem to follow my own advice. Despite the scary plastic model food outside, we ventured in and were seated behind a young Korean couple who were obviously really drunk (about 4 bottles of soju in) and the girl proceeded to cry violently through dinner. That was just the beginning.

The glossy menu they gave us looked incredibly unappetizing, but we felt like we were already hemmed in by the water and appetizers they promptly brought us. We settled on a yummy looking salad with fish and some sort of stew that is cooked at your table with tofu. While salad was alright, but stew ended up being something like Korean sloppy joes made with cubed tofu, a little ground beef and a strange chili tasting soupy sauce. Of course, having a little piece of cheap American food from my childhood while in Korea was a priceless experience, but it wasn't exactly what Ryan and I were looking for.

By Korean standards I'm afraid to say that our relationship looks a bit bland--Ryan doesn't carry my purse and we don't wear matching outfits. That's right, matching outfits. Usually they come in the form of a his and her matching plaid button-down shirt, or hoodie sweaters (called bunny hugs by the Canadians, by the way) with identical, nonsensical English phrases. Last weekend however, was the best. While snowboarding at Pheonix Park, 2 hours from Seoul, we got to see matching snowboarding couples! Koreans like to do all outdoor activities in style (ie. hiking and walking in the requisite black pants and solid-colored fleeces), so everyone, but us, were wearing very expensive and purposefully mismatching and over-sized snowboard gear. One couple had matching sweaters with big stripes of pastel pink, green and yellow. Another had matching red plaid snowboard jackets and pants.

In conclusion, I think this year will be good for Ryan and I. We'll finally learn how to express our love publicly. I'm not sure what the message is exactly. It could be he/she is taken, which you can see from the way we've identically labeled ourselves. Or, it could be, I often loose my partner and the only way I can find them is to look for someone dressed the same as me. Whatever it is, I think it's clear we have a lot to learn from Korea about love.


Here we are, un-coordinated, but loving every minute of it. Ryan is so blissfully happy, he had to close his eyes to savor the moment.