We Got (Married) Engaged!

No~ she's not about to slap me. She said YES! 

Haha, first of all~ don't be fooled by the title just yet. "We Got Married" is a name of a very popular TV show in South Korea~ where they get 2 celebrities and match them together to embark on an adventure, as if they were a married couple. But on another note, yes~ I got engaged!

This blog announcement is (exactly) two weeks late as I've been busy taking Sohyun around while she was in town and preoccupied wrestling with midterms, readings and written reports and assignments. Now that the coast is somewhat clear, I can now dedicate some time to share this fabulous story in detail.

How We Met
For those of you who don't know how we met, we met each other in a friend's party 3 years ago. Our friend was a Korean-American who worked in the American Embassy in Singapore. He had an awesome flat and house parties at his place were awesome. And so, he invited me together with a couple of friends. He also invited Sohyun~ and that's where I met her (Again, do note that the operative word here is MET).

At the time, I was seeing someone else. So at that party, I just casually talked to her and saved her number on my phone~ no attraction or those love-at-first-sight kinda things. I just spoke to her just like everyone else I met that evening. And as it turns out, I wouldn't talk to her for the next 3 years. I would get a reminder from Facebook every year on her birthday and leave a "Happy Birthday" message on her wall. That was it~

This was one of my meet up groups many many years ago~ 

In that span of time, I was actively teaching English to Koreans in Singapore. I usually spent every Saturday with my English Study Group where we discuss the figures of speech or vocabulary used on Newsweek. There, I met a girl named Soohyun who I actively met every week.

One evening, I was messaging Soohyun the article to read for our next session. After typing my instructions, I went to the address book of my phone and accidentally selected "Sohyun" (instead of "Soohyun"). Message sent! Realizing my mistake, I apologized immediately and explained. Sohyun replied, "How are you?"~ and that's where it started. As it turns out, she switched jobs recently and moved offices~ which was just a street across mine. I offered to have lunch together just to catch up. After all, at the time, I was set to leave for IE and I thought it would be nice to catch up before I left.

What happened after took me by surprise. A lunch turned to another dinner. Then another. And another. And month later something struck me: I met an amazing, beautiful, smart, kind-hearted woman but I was leaving Singapore.

Fast forward, we decided to be together despite the onset of a long distance relationship looming in the future. But something changed inside me though~ I realized I wanted to be with her forever.

The Ring
I wanted to ask Sohyun to marry me even before I left Singapore. However, I didn't want to ask her and then leave. It would just be too painful. And so, I decided that midway in the program would be a better time to do so~ because at least she would have been slightly used to it and that I would be able to provide her a clear indication where this relationship was headed.

I put together some benchmarks of the design I had in mind onto a deck!

Before I left, I suggested the idea of looking at rings. In my mind, I wanted to have an idea what kind of design appealed to her. And of course, I also wanted to know what her finger size was.

After finding these two things out, I got in touch with my parents to get in touch with a trusted family jeweler. I sent a PowerPoint slide deck with photos of the ring / benchmarks of what it should look like, including dimensions of her finger size. What I had in mind was to get a simple, classic solitaire ring that made the diamond stand out. I previously gave her a studded ring~ and this solitaire would match well with it. It would take approximately 2 weeks to put the ring together~ and it would be ready and exact to specification!

The problem was, she was in Singapore and I was now in Spain... and the ring was in the Philippines. And so, my parents and I devised a plan. I had an aunt in Singapore who was visiting the Philippines. We figured we could pass her the ring to give to Sohyun. But of course, none of us wanted Sohyun to know that it was a ring. And if we should ever give her a container or box, we were worried that the x-rays at the airport might reveal what it truly was.

My mom sends a photo of the "package" (Photo by my mom)

And so, we got a pearl necklace and placed the ring inside. We then vacuum packed it in an opaque violet plastic bag~ so that it would've been impossible to open, but would give an indication what it was from the outside. My mother then wrote 2 letters~ one addressed to Sohyun and another supposedly addressed to the Philippine ambassador's wife. In the letter to Sohyun, my mom thanked her for agreeing to courier the necklace with her to Spain. To the ambassador's wife, she wrote: "Here's something you've always wanted".

In the span of Sohyun's day-long journey from Singapore to Spain, she was bringing with her the ring the entire time... without any knowledge what it was and what was going to happen to her.

The Proposal
It was a busy week at school... and unfortunately, Sohyun didn't have much to do in Spain while I was in school. Although Wednesday was a public holiday in Madrid, I still had to go to school for a number of group meetings and presentation rehearsals. She was totally bored.

Interestingly enough, even though I just lived literally 2 minutes away from school, I only managed to come back home around 430pm. When I got home, So expressed her disappointment. And so, I told her~  get dressed. Even though I had 2 submissions to do that day, I figured that could wait for a moment. This relationship mattered to me more~ and I figured that this was going to be the moment.

Retiro Park~ Unfortunately she already went there with her friends when they were also in town (Photo by Sohyun)

My original plan was to ask her at the park on a weekend... and along the way get my classmates to help me with the proposal (a multi-cam set up to document the event). But unfortunately, she had already been to the park before and my classmates were busy. But... I decided to go to the park anyway. When we got there, I asked her to just listen to me for the next 6 minutes~ I was going to make a speech while we walked.

While we walked, I wanted to express to her that even the worst of days can be beautiful... if there is something in your life that inspires you. That was something I realized when I visited the park for the first time. And interestingly, because she was upset~ I also knew that what I was going to do to her was going to change her mood and outlook... completely. So we walked.

I wanted to ask her here~ but Sohyun already went here with her friends. Also, I heard proposing on water was a foreshadowing of a rocky, unstable relationship. So I totally skipped that option. (Photo by Sohyun)

Along the way we crossed through the man-made lake at Retiro Park. I briefly complained to her that I wanted to be the first to take her to the park. I dreamed of rowing a boat together with her. I once saw a movie where there was this old couple that decided to go rowing on a lake. I personally felt it was a touching sight to see... and I wanted that moment with her. But yeah~ she went with her friends already. It's synonymous to watching a movie twice. Damn. Anyway, we continued walking and I continued with my speech about our relationship.

This is it... It's happening...

When we reached the greenhouse, we were approximately hitting 5 mins by my watch (I previously estimated the journey would last 6 minutes). I then asked her what her impression was when she first saw it. "A greenhouse", she said. By the time we reached the greenhouse, I told her "To you it was a greenhouse. To me, it signified something else". We then entered and I told her that it somewhat represented our relationship. Interestingly, the Palacio de Cristal was built in the late 1800s to serve as an exhibition area to show the flora & fauna from the Philippines to the citizens of Madrid. Yes, it was a greenhouse~ and so I continued on by saying that it was a place that helped things grow. The venue was also spacious... and I told her that I found a lot of potential for growth in our relationship~ and that we could both be happy.

At this point I was getting immensely nervous. Because of the gravity of what I was saying (because I was sharing what I really felt), I began to cry. She looked at me in a weird way~ because she didn't fully understand why I was crying. At that point, I told her that I wanted to step back for a while (and my reason was that I wanted to center myself at the middle of the Palacio de Cristal). From there, I knelt and asked her to marry me.

Yes, I cried. It was one of the scariest (what if she says no) and happiest (well, she said yes) moments of my life!

Her face changed when she saw the ring. Tears came out from her eyes. She was in disbelief. At that point, I honestly could only focus on her eyes and face~ and felt as if I were floating in the middle of nowhere. She didn't say anything~ then later she said yes. Because I was so nervous, I actually accidentally put the ring on the wrong finger! She told me it was wrong and I asked her to remove it for me (superstitious me heard it was bad luck to remove a ring). I did it a second time and got the correct finger this time! Oh, just for trivia's sake, she said yes at 6pm!

Thank goodness it fits!

So there~ we were engaged! What was funny here was that even minutes after saying yes, she was still in disbelief. "Did you really propose?", she kept saying. I always joked back saying "Do you want me to take it back?" hahaha.

Sohyun actually wanted to tell her parents about the news but unfortunately it was already past midnight in Korea. For me, I unfortunately had a group assignment I had to submit over the Internet. I grabbed a seat by the nearest bench and logged onto the Internet from my laptop (amazingly, my battery ran out during that crucial moment that it was sending).

During this entire time, I was looking at her as she played with this young boy at the park. It seemed impossible to remove a smile from Sohyun's face at that moment. And true enough, for the remainder of that day, that smile never wore off. Suddenly, Madrid was so beautiful to her.

And I must agree, to me everything seemed beautiful that day too :)