The World Cup Post

Yes, I've finally caught up enough to write about the World Cup here in Korea. It was an interesting ride to be sure. I know I originally promised myself that come June 2010, I would find a way to be in South Africa, but I lie to myself all the time, so I got over it. As far as fall back locations to be during the tourney, I could have done much worse. I'm really thankful to have been here for it all, as the atmosphere was nuts. Although, come to think of it, it would have been awesome in basically every country but the US. Man, I wish the US would get with the program. Ohhhh well.

After several months of the banal commercials and lousy K-pop songs and corporate sponsered cheer, I was ready for the freakin' games to start. If you were subjected to this shit, you'd be ready for them to drop the ball too.





Those girls are attractive, granted, but having to listen to that music is just not worth it for some simple T&A (well, not so much T...or A for that matter).





The first game of importance was Korea's match against Greece on June 12th. The game fell fortuitously on a Saturday evening at 7pm, meaning there would be considerable crowds down at City Hall, which was where I wanted to be. Imagine something like this:


(not my pic, obviously. Thank you Google images)

Having lived in Korea for the last 1.5 years, I had obviously heard about the legendary crowds and outpouring of World Cup fever that hit back in 2002 (they never shut up about it...) and wanted to get in on that for this world cup. Sure the crowds wouldn't be nearly that big, as they were hosting the damn thing back then, but still there would be a couple of people there to party with. So when Saturday night rolled around, Jenna, Anna and I headed out for City Hall to watch the game. Too bad the weather didn't cooperate. It rained. So after we picked up our Red Devils (the nickname for the Korean national team) merchandise, namely some cheap little light up devil horns, we headed off to a bar just down the street from City Hall. We thought about gutting it out in the rain, but we generally didn't care that much about the Korean team to be wet for 2 hours. Plus, in a bar we're much closer to the booze. Double win. The atmosphere at the bar was awesome, but it was nothing I hadn't seen at Green Bay bars during Packer games. It's when the viewers and fans spill out in the thousands to the streets that you can really grasp the unique energy that is the World Cup. But that was weather permitting.

The game itself was all Korea. I had predicted a tie, with neither team being that good. However, Korea shocked me with how well they played and Greece shocked me with how shitty they were. They really, really sucked. At one point during the match, after witnessing some of the enthusiasm and energy the locals were putting into cheering, I said something to the effect of "If only they put this much energy into getting busy and making babies, maybe they wouldn't have such an awful birth rate". Then several days later I read the newspaper article talking about how condom sales were up 66% or something huge immediately after the Korea win compared with regular sales. Wallin the seer strikes again. Though, you're gonna have to "forget" the condom if you really want a better birth rate Korea. Just saying.

With the game over, the group moved to Hongdae to continue the evening. There we saw more and more jubilation. People jumping on car roofs, hanging out of car windows, jumping and running around in the street. Perfectly normal for a Madison friday night, but pretty uncommon for the more reserved Korean residents, especially since it was only 10pm. With all the celebration, you would have thought they won the whole damn thing, but when you think about it, they've only been decent for the past what, 3 world cups? So ever win means a little more. Although, I've been to no other soccer mad countries during the world cup, so this may just be standard operating procedure. Part of me hates all the celebration here because I know 95% of the fans are just fair weather/once every 4 years fans who know absolutely nothing about the game, but in the end I guess I'll take any support for the world cup, regardless of the source. We slowly made our way to some random club for dancing, but the people we were waiting on never showed up, so we just settled for watching the Argentina match. Soccer instead of dancing? Must be my lucky day.

With the Argentina game over and our friends clearly not coming, we decided to go home...on foot. Yes, despite being a considerable distance from our respective homes (me being the closest at 40 minutes by subway) we decided to walk. Was it for the fresh air? Possibly, but I wouldn't really call Seoul air "fresh" by any means. Maybe its because we actually see so little of Seoul because its so damn big and we always travel underground cuz its much cheaper. Whatever the reason we walked it and after 2 hours, had traveled 4 subway stops. Since we still had 8 subway stops to home, we decided to take a cab the rest of the way, which worked out perfectly as the US game, slotted for a 3:30am Sunday start time, was just starting. Which I watched (and enjoyed terribly. thanks Robert Green!) and then promptly passed out at 5:30am. A good day it was.

Korea's next match (June 17th) fell on a Thursday night here, so no big viewing party downtown. Well, there was, but I had work in the morning and again, I don't that much about the Korean team. However I did watch the game from one of Seoul's mexican restaurants with a mostly Korean crowd and that did provide a different a much different experience than the bar for the Greece. The experience was different mainly due to the final scoreline. As you might remember, this was the Argentina game and as everyone (minus the Koreans who were convinced they could win it) expected, the Argentinians rolled big time. During the whole game it was difficult for me to decide how to feel. Part of me enjoyed their suffering as retribution/revenge/justice for the awful home field advantage officiating and classless play that helped power Korea to the semi-finals back in 2002 (yes, I know thats an insanely long time to hold a grudge, but when Korea insists on replaying and reliving 2002 every other day, no joking, it doesn't really feel like 8 years ago) as well as their poor sportsmanship/whining about calls that didn't go their way at the 2010 Winter Olympics. The other part of me, however, felt sorry for these good people who really genuinely care about their team (at least during the world cup) and don't deserve to see their boys getting handled that badly. Make no bones about it, I was rooting for Argentina, as they are entertaining and exciting to watch while Korea....are not, but I didn't wish that kind of loss on them. 4-1 was a generous scoreline for them. Could have been much worse.

However, when it was all said and done, I remembered why I prefer watching the World Cup alone. As previously mentioned, I figure around 90% or so of the "diehards" that crawl out of the woodwork every 4 years are in fact fair weather fans that have no clue about anything involving soccer, whatsoever. These people do not bother me as long as they don't talk. However, several of the ladies did not do me the pleasure of remaining quiet. As they knew nothing about soccer, they would begin shrieking and screaming if anything, and I mean anything, positive happened for Korea. Korea gained possession and moved into Argentina's half of the field? Clearly this was something exciting and stressful, so you have to begin shrieking. Literally my friend and I had this conversation upon him returning from the bathroom: "Eric, what did I miss? I heard some shouting and yelling? What happened?" "Ummmm, nothing. Korea got ball past midfield then Argentina took the ball away. That's it." "Really?" "Yup."

Nothing really to report for the Nigeria game (June 23rd here) as it fell on a Wednesday morning at 3:30am. Just me watching it alone in my apt in my underwear. The way sports were meant to be watched. Sans pants. Korea did just enough to get through.

The final game for South Korea in South Africa was against Uruguay, which again fortuitously fell on a Saturday night at around 8pm (June 26th). This time, though, I would be watching from a bar/club that was holding a concert/fundraiser for orphans. The details: one of the better clubs for music acts would be holding a concert fundraiser for a local orphanage as well as serving as a viewing party for the Korea game. Now, I know what you are thinking, "Wow, You are a much better person than I am Eric. How can I ever hope to be on your level?" Well, you can't, but that's not the question here. I mean, I help old ladies across the street and breast feed orphaned baby puppies, so whatever. Jenna happens to volunteer as a English tutor at the orphanage in question down in Suwon and had volunteered to man the information booth during part of the concert, and as such invited me to help the orphans too. And how could I have said no? The proceeds all go to orphans and North Korean refugees, they are stopping the concert for the Korea game, and the music lineup features one of the only Korean musical acts I would actually pay money to see live.

Before the concert, we grabbed dinner at a Italian restaurant that happened to be a converted house. And as it used to be a house, it of course had a bookcase filled with old looking ENGLISH books. Nothing unusual there, as I'm sure everybody, from Germany to Malaysia, fill their book shelves with distinguished and intellectual English books, rather than their own language's books cuz English is soooo cool. This place was no exception. Book of famous quotes from poets? Good, but we can get wordier and intellectual....ier. A book on molecular biology, right out of some Masters course? Better, but still you can do better. A Box Car Children book? That's what I'm talking about. That is some high level stuff.

With our reading done for the evening we moved to the concert. We arrived just in time to catch the Korean act I really wanted to see, The Rock Tigers. They classify themselves as rockabilly, which is the same genre as the Brian Setzer Orchestra, so they use a stand up bass and dress like they are members of John Travolta's gang of greasers from "Grease". It is definitely something to see Koreans rocking a pompadour straight out of America, cerca 1950. But they can play.



Not the greatest video of theirs, but whatever. It's just really sad to see a good band like this, who has received some international press attention, playing in a tiny little venue in front of almost all foreigners. Whether its because the Koreans don't like this kind of music (which is laughable considering the shite they do seem to like) or just nobody knows about them (since only K-pop gets any airplay and media attention), I can't say. You thought being an underground/struggling artist was tough in America? hahahah. At least there you can possibly make it big. These guys here will never, ever achieve any manner of success, at least not in Korea. Just not going to happen. And that sucks so so much.

After they ended their set, it was time for the Korea vs. Uruguay game. Or so we thought, but their screen projector failed us on several occasions, so the viewers had to switch several times between the downstairs and upstairs televisions. From what I saw, Korea looked pretty good, but just not good enough to win. Which was unfortunate as I would have really liked to see Korea and the US win so I could savor the US then wiping the floor with Korea in the next round. Sadly, it was not meant to be. And they had such an easy bracket too. Ohhh well. America and Korea just aren't good enough yet.

After the game and the rest of the concert ended, we moved onward to find a different bar to watch the US game. Only problem being that most places are closed down by 3:30 am and all of them are closed by the time the game ends. We did finally find a place to watch the game, but we ended up sleeping through nearly all the first half before they closed up at halftime. Not really like we missed anything. At that point we admitted defeat and just headed back to our respective homesteads, where I managed to catch the extra time period only to be let down again by the US team. Thanks guys, love that defense.

I'll let the Rock Tigers play you out.

Desperately Trying to Catch Up, Part 5

Well, the World Cup is over, which saddens me, but maybe now I can get a decent amount of sleep at night. Maybe. As for the final, the more I read about the Dutch whining post match about the officiating, the more glad I feel that I was rooting for Spain. I find it quite ironic that players who were on the receiving end of such generous calls against Brazil would have the nerve to whine about no calls against Spain (I'm looking at you Arjen Robben). Besides, the Dutch should have gone a man down just 20 minutes in, when De Jong cleated Alonso in the chest. I mean, he kicked him in the chest. Last time I checked the chest is in no way easily confused with a soccer ball. Hell, the one guy not bitching about calls? De Jong, cuz he knows how damn lucky he was. But I can't hate Robben too much. He did lead to a wonderful new internet meme: The Robben Ball. Enjoy.









Teeheheheh. Good times.

As for school updates, there really are none. This is the last week of school before camps and there are almost no classes to be taught. The first two classes of the day are taken up with the students participating in some special math camps, so no classes for me. They haven't been rescheduling the classes either, which rocks. Today I have zero classes as the 2 classes I was supposed to teach have been knocked out in favor of standardized testing for the 6th graders. Major wins all around. Camps start next week, but I'm working all of them with co-teachers, which is wonderful for discipline issues during the camps as well as planning. The next few weekends should be interesting though, as I take a school trip to some resort location with the school. Don't really know what to expect, but I hear these things usually devolve (or perhaps they were always intended to be such) into huge drunkfests, which can be interesting or horrible. Don't really know which way it will go. The next weekend after that will be our little group's final goodbye trip, which most definitely will be a major drunkfest, but on the beach. Then the weekend after that my parents arrive, which will obviously require major amounts of alcohol for all 3 of us. 1.5 weeks alone, just the three of us? Yikes.

Now to the recapping. We are up to the last weekend in May, which is still a long, long ways back (I'm not really catching up here am I?). On this particular weekend, Carrie, Jenna and I decided to grab dinner at the same little bistro-thingy down near Jamsil that Jenna and I found the previous weekend. Naturally, we discussed Korea and life after Korea (given our ever dwindling time here), which combined with alchol got ever more silly and entertaining as the night progressed. Shocking, I know. With Carrie in her last 2 months, and Jenna and I with just half a year left, the end is fast approaching, but the consensus between the 3 of us seemed to be that it couldn't come fast enough. We've seen it, done it and are now ready to move on. Plus, over time we've just gotten fed up with some of the various BS that Korea has to offer. We miss the US's Grade A "BS". Well, not really, but we are excited to get back.

After downing 2 bottles between the 3 of us at the restaurant, we decided it would be a good idea to move to different environs to continue drinking. We chose the man-made lake across the street. So with our super classy and super expensive ($10) convenience store bottle of wine, we headed down to the pond. Despite it being 10pm on a Friday night, the walking track was full of locals walking up a storm, which we found incredibly amusing. Maybe it wasn't actually funny, but we had been drinking, so that changes stuff. After seeing all the joggers, one of our group decided it would be fun to go for a run around the track, despite being dressed in regular street clothes and being full of food and alcohol. I won't say who it was, but I'll give you a hint: it wasn't Carrie or I. Around the second bottle of convenience store wine (ohhhh yeah, we went back for seconds), the ladies started debating about the our school experiences. One claimed that every time we say hi or interact with our students (which, if you you teach in elementary school, happens several hundred times a day) we are having an impact on them, we are making a difference. The other believed this viewpoint was overly idealistic and that we are basically a novelty to them, thus all the attention, and our impact is much less than believed. I, as is typical when I drink, didn't really care a lick about the conversation/argument going on around me and just wanted to sit (hahah, I accidentally typed "shit" the first time...freudian slip) in silence and enjoy the pretty lake. To keep myself from talking, I filled my mouth with the wine, thus consuming damn near the whole second bottle.

From there, we decided to head to a hookah bar in Gangnam for a bit before riding home for the night. Despite our different final destinations, we all shared the consequences for our drinking: sickness. According to sources that may have been Carrie herself, the only thing she remembered after getting in the cab to go home was "losing her dinner". Jenna lost hers as soon as she got off the bus back in Suwon, and I managed to survive the taxi ride home, despite major tummy rumblings, and got back to the apt before I had to have my heart to heart chat with my toilet. Let that be a lesson kids, alcohol is bad.

Now for another Robben ball break. Enjoy.









The next weekend (the first in June) didn't have quite as much excitement as the previous weekend, or as much drinking, but was amusing nonetheless. On Saturday, I met up with Anna and Amy for a tea fair at one of the big expo halls inside the COEX Mall. Not much to say about the fair itself, as it only really featured green tea. I was hoping for a little bit more variety, but then I remembered I was in Korea, where "variety" is a unknown word. They do things one way and one way only, end of story. They did have some nice tea sets for sale, as well as lots of Buddha garb, but what use did I have for either? Would have loved to listen to the Buddhists talk, but they were obviously speaking only in Korean and probably talking only about tea, which isn't all that interesting.

That's not to say we didn't meet any interesting people. Take this guy for instance.



Who is he, you might ask. Well, from what I gathered from his business/trading card, he is the protector of traditional tea culture. Cool costume and cool idea to spice up a kinda dull tea fair. I believe the fella might have actually been Japanese, since I think his handlers were as well. Why am I laughing in the pic? Well, about two seconds before the shot was snapped, while moving in for a sweet pose, the superhero had rubbed up on my thigh with his utility belt and his cod piece. My resulting laugh was certainly one of those awkward and uncomfortable type ones. Also unfortunate for him was the fact that I was about a foot taller than him. A bit emasculating for a superhero, but what can you do?

While at the tea fest, we also made a new Korean friend. Well, I didn't obviously, but Amy and Anna did. Or I should say he made new foreign friends, as the guy in question, approached both the girls and just started talking up a storm. Super peppy, lively guy that we weren't surprised to learn was only 19. Damn kids and all their running around with all that spunk of theirs! Hahah, I just said "spunk". Ewwwwwww.

The next day, Carrie, Jenna and I reunited, properly recovered from the previous weekend, for a picnic with some of Carrie's best students. The story goes that some of Carrie's 2nd grade (juniors in High school) conversation class students (all of whom are really cool kids, supposedly) wanted to have a picnic as a end of the semester reward, and they wanted Carrie to invite some of us, her foreign friends. She did, and we showed up. 5 of Carrie's students showed up too and they were cool enough to bring lots of food, meaning we had way more than we needed. Which is the best problem to have. I brought some crackers and the watermelon I had won earlier in the week, Carrie brought her veggies, and Jenna brought other snacks. But the students? They outdid us all. Sandwiches, burgers, sodas, a cake, assorted other baked goods. Wow. We all assembled at Ilsan's Lake Park, located right in the middle of Anna and Carrie's town of Ilsan. As you might expect, the park features a large lake in the middle, probably man-made, but I really don't care. We found some shade and got to eating and chatting. This girls really impressed with their English ability, especially the ones that hadn't studied abroad. One girl had fluent English, but she lived in Belgium for 3 years, and given how well Europeans can speak English, her ability doesn't shock me at all. We chatted about how much high school sucks in Korea, with all the testing and testing and testing and classes 20 hours a day and never sleeping and all other kinds of good stuff. Since all the students were females, the conversation eventually shifted to talking about how much boys suck, which meant it was time for Eric to quietly eat his food and ignore all the gendered hate being tossed around. What's a guy to do in that situation? Fellas do seem to suck, alot. Not much I can do......(sad). I know what can cheer me up! More Robben Ball pics! Yes!!









Anyways, the excitement wasn't over when I headed home, as Jamie was bored and decided to stop by my apt to waste a few hours. While walking to my apartment though, he ran into several friends he had met on a previous weekend, so he called me out to drink with all of them in front of the local convenience store. Now, generally you would think drinking outside a convenience store, unless your names are "Jay" or "Silent Bob", is a bit weird, but here its one of the best places, as they actually have outdoor seating, unlike 98% of all other restaurants. Sure its only cheap ass plastic lawn furniture, but really who is complaining? The new people certainly were entertaining. Many of the group were U.S. Army servicemen and women here at GyungHee University (just down the street from my house) doing a 10 week intensive Korean program as part of their training as military translators. I most enjoyed that 2 of the members of the intensive Korean program were actually Korean-Americans or half Korean, meaning they already spoke Korean. Which means the whole program was a 10 week vacation, on the US govt's dime. Gotta respect that. They are stationed in Hawaii, so they had plenty of interesting stories about how native Hawaiians hate outsiders. Lovely.

Most interesting to me was how much the Koreans in the group seemed to dislike Korea. One of the guys was 100% Korean, but had moved to Texas when he was 8 or 9 and had nothing in common with the pretty boy dandies that make up most of Korea's young male population. The guy said he also isn't interested in Korean women cuz they are crazy and super high maintenance and prefers white women. The poor bastard. Trust me man, if that is your preference then there is nothing for you here. One of the girls was half Korean and she had some lovely stories about growing up with full Korean grandparents. She said growing up her Korean grandmother used to come up to her, pinch her "fat" and say to her, "You need to lose this". Thanks grandma. Luckily this girl didn't grow up with a incredibly fucked up perception of herself or terrible self-worth issues because, as she put it, "I ignored everything she said, cuz she is crazy." In the end, I feel much better about my issues with Korea, as these people hate Korea so much more than me and they can actually communicate/interact with people here. So I'm not crazy. Of course, no interaction with military folk would be complete without one stereotypical creeper. This guy, after drinking...a bit, decided he was gonna turn his chair around to people watch and try and say hi to every attractive woman that walked by. Maybe he wasn't being creepy, but judging from most of the women's reactions, they thought he was too, so I can't have been too far off in my judgement. Course, the ladies didn't hear all the stuff he was saying about them under his breath. Ohhh, and he's married. Classy. Ohhh, I'm sad again. Time for more Robben Balls to cheer me up! Apologies if everybody else doesn't find these as amusing as I do. I just couldn't settle for my favorite one or two. So I grabbed almost all of them.




















Lake Park: