Trail of the Lion King

The main reason that I write this blog is so that I don’t forget stuff that I’ve done. Or rather, so that when I have forgotten stuff that I’ve done, I can read back through the posts and refresh my memory. I find that I’ve generally got about a week to get the write-up done before I start to forget all but the most basic details though. After a fortnight I can usually recall that I’ve been to a particular city and watched a football game, whilst after three weeks I usually remember very little more than the fact that I’ve got an outstanding blog post to do. Outstanding that is in terms of it not being done, rather than as a gauge of its potential quality.

So, a month ago Jen and I went to Busan again. It’s taken me this long to write about it mainly because I had some time back in England between now and then and I got sidetracked by my other life, the one that involves kids, parents, a bit of hiking and wild camping in The Lakes and almost as much hiking but with not quite so wild camping at Glastonbury.

I saw this fella at 6am near Angle Tarn.

As excuses go for not updating the blog it’s better than ‘the dog ate my homework’, although not as good as ‘I idled away my time in the UK photographing my daughter’s pug dressed up as a bee’.

He loves it really.

I’m back in Korea now though and a rainy Sunday afternoon seems the perfect time to try to remember what went on at the last match. Here goes. We got the train to Busan on the Friday evening, that bit’s easy. I suspect we probably shared a couple of bottles of screw-top red wine too.

We got knocked back from the first hotel we tried, just outside the station, as although they had rooms, they didn’t have one for all three nights of the bank holiday weekend. Fortunately we got fixed up around the corner in a scruffy looking hotel that had probably got its prices right at thirty thousand won a night.

Oddly, it's not mentioned in the guide books.

Rather than rattle on about the entire weekend, I’ll just give you what I’ll describe as highlights but in reality are actually the bits that I’ve remembered. I’ll finish off with the football game, so just scroll down to the bottom of the page if you’ve been desperately waiting for over a month to find out the score.

Jen had some sort of teaching conference thing going on, I’m not sure if she was attending, presenting or both. I do listen when she tells me stuff, but retaining the information for a month was always going to be unlikely. Anyway, all it meant was that I had a bit of time to kill. The first day I occupied myself by watching a succession of schoolkids games in a tournament at the university where whatever it was she was doing was going on. That was ok, particularly as I was working my way through a few bottles of New Zealand beer.

A pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

The next day I met up with fellow Boro fan Alan and his wife Se Young. They had the great idea of visiting the Memorial for the War Dead in Jungang Park. It’s quite a trek up to the monument but we went most of the way by bus which in the heat is probably the best way of doing it.

Memorial for the War Dead

After that they took me to a Uzbekistani restaurant where we overdosed on lamb dishes and worked our way through a variety of different strength Russian beers. It was so good that Jen and I went there later that evening after she‘d finished the teacher stuff and then we returned once more the following evening before we caught our train back to Seoul.

The lamb was ok too.

On the bank holiday Monday, Memorial Day, we had a bit of a wander around Amnan Park and then along a coastal footpath to Songdo Beach. Busan’s beaches tend to be very popular, particularly the ones further East, Gwangalli Beach and Haeundae Beach. Songdo was much quieter though and a lot better for it I thought. There were plenty of areas to fish and next time I’m in Busan I’d like to have a go.

Jen and I enjoying a picnic lunch.

So, the match. Or rather some of the match As you may have noticed it wasn’t actually in Busan, but about half an hour’s drive away in neighbouring Changwon. Alan had very kindly offered to drive us all there and had I followed his directions on where to meet we would have seen it all. Unfortunately I went to the wrong subway station and we didn’t get to the Changwon Football Centre until about ten minutes before half time.

Changwon break towards the Busan end.

We made our way around to the away supporters section as I know a few of the lads who were sat there and I  worked my way through a few more of the New Zealand beers. I can‘t actually remember if anything of note happened in the remainder of the first half, but it was scoreless at the interval. It’s strange how some things do stick in your mind though and the frogs in the toilets is one of those things. I’ve no idea how or why, but that’s like lots of things in life. Obviously I took a photo.

Deer, pugs and frogs. What more could you want in a football blog?

The second half started badly for Busan with Changwon winning a penalty a few minutes after the restart. I’m not sure if it was deserved or not as I was concentrating more on the beer and the frogs, but Song Geun Soo tucked it away to put Changwon a goal up.

One - Nil.

And in truth, I can’t remember much more about the second half action. We sang a bit and gave the Changwon goalie plenty of stick but I don‘t think Busan came too close to scoring. Or maybe they did. Changwon didn’t get any more though and so the penalty was the difference between the teams at full time.

This entry was posted on July 3, 2011 at 8:52 am and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.