Navy Day Ball

On October 17, David and I went to the Navy Day Ball held at the Seoul Hyatt Hotel to celebrate the Navy's 234th birthday. The Hyatt is a beautiful hotel and has an amazing view of Seoul and it was fun to be there for such a formal event.

I've only been to two Navy parties, but they always have ice sculptures. Which David loves for reasons I won't get into here.

Here's another ice sculpture with a massive cake. The cake, sadly, was not that great. The food, however, was fantastic, but I'll get to that later.

Before the ceremonies started and dinner was served, they had cocktails (which we did not enjoy) and traditional Korean dancers. The dress this woman is wearing is called a hanbok and it's the traditional clothing of Korea. They come in beautiful bright colors and I'd like to buy one before we leave.

He's David wearing his dress blues (though it's really black so I don't know why they call them "blue") with his cute little medals. You know, the higher the honor, the more the medal costs which seems a little lame to me. Mostly because we had to buy all the medals and they weren't cheap.

Here we are in front of the ice sculpture. Unfortunately most of the photos came out a bit blurry because of the low lighting in the grand ballroom.

Here's the grand ballroom. The curtains opened up to a glass wall that showed a fountain outside. It was pretty cool. Once we got into the ballroom, they did a whole military ceremony including the posting of colors, ringing bells for officers, and singing of the national anthem (both Korea's and America's) and then speakers. Luckily, the speeches were brief but then we did a toasting ceremony that took forever. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if there had actually been wine in my glass instead of water.

But then we got to eat.

And I forgave them the ridiculously long toasting ceremony. Because the food was amazing. And delicious. I wish I could eat food like that every day. Someday I will. And because I feel the need to make everyone else jealous over the meal we enjoyed and because the menu was printed in our program (which I still have), this was our dinner:

Salad - Vinaigrette Marinated Scallops with Asparagus Spears, Tomato Tartare and Parsley Oil [I'd never had scallops before but they're everyone's favorite seafood on Top Chef so I thought I'd give them a try and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them. And the tomato tartare was light and tangy. Tomatoes are really hit or miss for me and these were perfect.]

Soup - Roasted Corn with Crab and Jalapeno Fritter, Cilantro and Fresh Cream [The soup was rich and creamy but not my favorite thing, mostly because I couldn't wait for the main course.]

Intermezzo - Champagne and Strawberry Sorbet [Yum!]

Main Course - There were 3 options available and I chose the Grilled Beef Tenderloin with roasted pork belly, herb crusted vegetables and port wine demi-glaze while David had the Oven Baked Seabass with Green Beans, Sweet Potato Cake and Orange Butter Sauce. [As far as the protein was concerned, I liked David's seabass more than my beef and pork but we ended up splitting them anyway. I did think my vegetables were better than David's. If the meal faltered at all, it was in the main course. While still good, it could have been better but it is really hard to cook for that many people..]

Dessert - Lemon Breton with Mascarpone Vanilla Cream and Apricot Honey Sauce [While I'm generally wary of desserts without chocolate, this was actually quite delicious and a perfect way to end the meal.]

See? So happy after such a delicious meal. Afterwards, there was dancing but they never played a slow song so David and I didn't get up to dance. (I was not about to bust a move in my 5-inch heels.)


As I was snapping some pictures, this guy jumped into the photograph with David. He was the guest speaker at the ceremony and he is the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, meaning that is the most senior enlisted member in the entire U.S. Navy. See those yellow stripes on his sleeve? Each stripe represents 4 years of service. He has seven. And David has one. Ha! He was a very congenial man and told some funny stories.

All in all, it was a great night and we had fun. It'll probably be the only Navy Ball we attend (since the tickets are rather expensive and David only plans to be in the Navy for 2 more years) but it was fun to be around so many other sailors. Given the nature of David's job, where he works primarily on land and not out at sea on ships or submarines and he often works at joint commands (hence why we are currently stationed at an Army command and not a Navy base), we don't get to interact with a lot of other sailors and it was nice to be in their company. Go Navy!