Trail of the Lion King

This trip was a bit last-minute, mainly because I’d thought that I would be at work. I’d known for a while that I’d be getting the day before off as Thursday was Children’s Day, a public holiday, but until the Wednesday night I’d expected to have to work the Friday as I had a couple of meetings lined up. As tends to be the way here my meetings were re-scheduled at the last minute to the Monday, causing me to cancel my plans for that day but freeing up the Friday instead. I don’t know why I told you all that because it’s not remotely relevant. Anyway, if you are still reading, the good news is that you don’t need to remember it.

I did think about going for a hike, but Jen and I had been for quite a long walk the day before. As neither of us have any parents in Korea who could have taken us to the zoo we celebrated Children’s Day by walking from the Han River towards Anyang and then back again instead. We walked for six hours and probably covered about fourteen miles. It meant that the following day I didn’t really fancy a trek up a hill.

Not the usual riverbank activities

It’s quite  an interesting walk with plenty of sporting activities going on by the water. We watched a few balls of a baseball game, where I suspect our presence put a bit of additional pressure on the players, and saw some speed skaters lapping a track. There were plenty of fish too, carp by the look of it and they often broke the surface of the water. It was a while before I realised that the frenzied activity was probably mating, so the photos that I took are actually fish porn. I’m curious to see if that phrase brings in any visitors to the blog via Google. There are some people with unusual interests out there you know.

Fish Porn

I had a look at the football fixtures and my options were limited to a couple of second division games. One of them was in Busan, which is over two hundred miles away from Seoul whilst the other one was in Gimhae, which is slightly closer but would have involved me going past it to Busan and then backtracking. The kick-offs were four hours apart so I could actually have gone to both games if I’d been so inclined, but that seemed like a bit too much effort and I settled for Busan Transport Corporation v Mokpo City.

I caught the 9.45am KTX from Seoul Station and by just before midday I was in Busan. There is a subway station just outside the rail station and as I was looking for an easy life I got myself a one day pass for 3,500 won.

With it being lunchtime I thought I’d make the most of being in a fishing port and I  paid a visit to the Jagalchi fish market.

Jagalchi Fish Market

There were a lot more boats in the harbour than last time I was here and a lot more outdoor stalls selling a mixture of live and filleted fish. I watched a bloke dealing with the eels for a while. He would just grab one from a bucket of water, pin its head to a board with an awl and then nick the skin at the top of the neck with his knife. Although with an eel it’s probably difficult to say where the neck is, they are pretty much all neck. He would then partially pull off the skin, rip out the guts and then remove the rest of the skin before slicing the head off.

The headless, skinless and gutless body was then thrown into a bowl where it continued to writhe around, with what seemed like no ill effects from what had gone on over the previous twenty seconds or so.

The bloke asked me if I wanted one, but I wasn‘t sure if it would be served raw. I was fine eating the still wriggling octopus legs a few months ago, but the eel was pink and bleeding. Plus it looked pretty mad about what had just gone on and I didn’t want it taking its temper out on me even if its teeth were five feet away in the scraps bucket.

This would probably have been more effective as a video.

I played it safe in the end and got a plate of prawns that were cooked at my table on a little camping style stove. With time moving on I then got back on the subway and travelled three stops further along the line to stop number 107, which is the nearest station to the Gudeok Stadium. I came out of exit three, turned left and in a few moments was able to see one of the floodlights. It’s about ten minutes walk.

Gudeok Stadium

It wasn’t readily apparent where you were supposed to get into the ground, but the main entrance was open and so I just wandered in through there. I emerged from under the main stand to find myself next to the pitch and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing I was able to make my way up through the media section and then find a seat a bit higher up.

There was a bit of an odd sight in the front row of the stand where a life-size cut-out of one of the Busan fans, Charlie Robinson, gazed down onto the pitch. I know Charlie, having spent a very enjoyable day with him and a few others at a Jeonbuk game last year, and it was a little disconcerting to come face to face with his effigy.

"Stand up if you love Busan"

There weren‘t many fans in the stadium at this point, possibly only about a hundred and none of whom appeared to be supporting Mokpo. Maybe a few dozen additional replica fans might be just what the place needs to fill it up.

The teams lined up as usual before kick-off, Mokpo tried to pass themselves off as Man Utd whilst Busan were perhaps a little more realistic in their ambitions with a Brighton kit.

Brighton v Man Utd

When the teams turned around to face the Korean flag for the National Anthem, Busan instantly transformed themselves from Brighton to Chelsea. Their kit being totally devoid of stripes on the back meant for quite a confusing game. It was as if a combined Brighton and Chelsea XI has turned out, each player choosing to just wear the strip of their own club.

Chelsea v Man Utd

There wasn’t much of note happened in the first half, one of the Busan players, possibly Peter Ward, possibly Gianfranco Zola, had a shot saved after about half an hour, but it was mainly just forty five minutes of misplaced passes.

At half time I had a wander around to the other side of the ground, before spotting the real life Charlie who had been held up in traffic. Fortunately he didn’t stand near his replica, as I’m pretty sure that’s the sort of thing that upsets the space-time continuum.

Goalmouth action

As we spent most of the second half chatting there is even less detail than normal this time. I did see Peter Osgood put the home team ahead a few minutes into the second half with a shot that took what is usually described as a wicked deflection.  Alex Stepney in the Mokpo goal stood no chance and, wrongfooted, could only stand and watch the ball creep past him.

View from the main stand

That’s the way it ended up, with a one goal win for the home team. I caught the KTX back to Seoul and was back in the capital shortly after half past eight. If the football photos look better this week it’s because I delegated the job to Charlie’s young son. If I see him at a game again I’ll try and off-load the words too.

This was another Seoul based day, with some walking in the morning and a football game in the evening. Jen and I went back to the Achasan and Yongmasan mountains that we’d hiked up the previous week, but started at the other end this time for a bit of variation. Actually I’m not really sure what constitutes a mountain, these are only 287m and 348m high respectively so probably hill is a better description.

We were able to retrace our route from a week earlier, starting at Gwangnaru subway on Line 5 and walking through a park, then alongside the two thousand year old wall for a while. The route was even busier than the previous week with a number of hiking groups and most of Seoul’s pensioners out for a stroll.

I think some of them had been walking the route before the wall was built.

We passed the ice cakee man at the top of Achasan again and then pressed on to Yongmasan. The views of the city were a whole lot better than the previous week when the yellow dust had obscured all but the closest landmarks.

Instead of dropping down towards Yongmasan subway we took an alternative route towards, I think, Mungusan. It was difficult to see where the route was leading as it descended quite steeply. Some of the sections required the use of ropes and handrails and it was a lot more awkward way down than the more popular trail that we’d came up had been.

My office is out there somewhere.

We’d walked a lot quicker than the week before and despite covering a greater distance we were off the hill less than three hours after setting out. The extra time that we had in hand was quite useful as getting to Goyang is probably more of a trek than the hiking had been. Once we’d got onto Line 3 we had thirty stops to sit through until we reached Daehwa, the station right at the end of the line. It took us about an hour and a half in total and we arrived with just over an hour to spare before the 7pm kick-off.

Goyang’s stadium is pretty close to the subway and as we’d spotted it soon after coming out of the exit we had time for something to eat before the game. We popped into a place that was more like a café than a restaurant and got some of those steamed dumplings. I hadn’t realized that you could get Kimchi flavour mandu and having tried some I’d say that I prefer them. They are just that little bit spicier than the regular ones. The total bill only came to five thousand won which made me feel as if I should have been wearing a stocking over my head.

Goyang Stadium

It continued to be a cheap night out as the football was free to get in. When we passed through the entrance we were asked to add our names and phone numbers to a list. I assumed that it was some sort of visitor’s book or maybe an attempt to build up a marketing database. I was wrong though. It was the list of people who would provide the half-time entertainment on the pitch. With that in mind I thought I’d better warm up with a bit of target practice nearby.

"Gareth, why didn't you blast it, dear?"

I failed to get the ball through any of the holes, but was given bottles of shampoo and conditioner as a consolation prize. I tend to find that conditioner isn’t strictly necessary for me these days.

The stadium was very impressive. It was far too impressive for a team at National League level though. When you only get crowds of around two hundred people then a forty two thousand capacity ground seems a touch excessive.  Yongin provided eight of the total attendance. Fewer away fans than players but more than the substitutes seems to be a reasonable yardstick at this level.

Five eighths of the Yongin hardcore.

The generous hospitality continued and we were given a football and then had our photograph taken by the official Goyang bloke with a Polaroid camera. I struggle to understand why the crowds are so low really. It seemed ideal for keeping the kids amused.  A bloke can bring his kids for a free evening out, get their photo taken, let them run amok with a free football amongst the empty stands whilst he watches the match and then return home with a bag of assorted hair products to keep the missus sweet. Why wouldn’t you?

It was a fairly cagey first half, although that might have been expected with this being a game between the top two teams in the division, both of them unbeaten so far this season. Neither keeper had a shot to save and it was scoreless at the interval.

The view from our seats.

Mind you, when I say that neither keeper had a shot to save that may not be completely true. I missed the last ten minutes of the half due to making my way around to the other side of the ground after Jen got the phone call summoning me for the half time entertainment. I’d hoped that it would be penalties as even allowing for me wearing normal shoes rather than trainers I’d have been reasonably confident about not making an arse of myself. It wasn’t though. The challenge that we would face would be to try and score from the centre circle without the ball bouncing on the way in to the net.

"Did you definitely sign the medical disclaimer?"

I was asked a couple of questions beforehand, including my age, which seemed to impress the crowd. Possibly they admired the self-delusion of the old bloke. If only they knew that I’d have been just as unlikely to have scored whilst in my prime. The best I can say for my effort is that I didn’t fall over and it won yet another consolation prize. A pair of white sports socks this time.

The second half was more of the same, plenty of chances but without anyone ever really troubling the keeper and at the final whistle both sides had preserved their unbeaten records in a goalless draw. Yongin remained top of the table whilst Goyang slipped to fourth.

Goyang almost snatch a late winner.

Meanwhile for those of you keeping up with the Lion King, Jeonbuk had been playing Gangwon at home earlier in the day. Lee Dong Gook scored his fourth goal in seven games in a 6-1 victory to move them up into fifth place in the table, four points behind leaders Pohang.

I like walking to the match. When I was a kid we would often walk from Norton to Ayresome Park, mainly because if we did have enough money for the bus fare it seemed a shame to waste it on taking the bus when you could buy a chip butty with it instead.

Going to a game was quite a cheap day out in those days, even more so when we would get in for free as a reward for selling Golden Goal tickets outside the stadium. You needed to sell fifty of them to get a complimentary ticket and it wasn’t too difficult. A penny and a half commission on each sale meant that we would invariably buy more chips on the way home too.

Happy days.

On the days when walking seemed like too much effort we would try to hitch a lift as we walked alongside the A19. Traffic must have been a bit less hectic back in the late seventies as it hardly seems possible that a car would be able to stop on that stretch of road these days. I once hitched to a home game from Mickleton in Teesdale where we had a caravan. That took quite a while as I had to walk through both Barnard Castle and Darlington to resume my quest for a lift at the right end of the town. I think it was about eleven o’clock at night before I got back to the caravan site.

That 'star jumper' probably won't have helped with the hitching.

I was actually back up that way a couple of weeks ago as my son and I were fishing at Grassholme Reservoir. It was an enjoyable afternoon out but the fishing was too easy. The water must have just been re-stocked as we were pulling out a trout every ten minutes or so. In the end we switched from powerbait to worms just to try to delay reaching the catch limit.

It was easier than shooting them in a barrel.

I’ve walked to the Riverside Stadium a few times too. I follow the same route as I did going to Ayresome Park thirty years ago as far as the Newport Bridge, although the prison wasn’t there in those days. It takes about an hour and a half of walking time but as I tend to call into the bookies and a pub or two on the way, I’ll usually set off about three hours before kick-off.

Seongnam’s stadium is alongside the Tancheon River and Jen and I had talked previously about walking along it from Seoul to Bundang. We’d actually intended doing it in earlier this year but missed a fork in the river and ended up in Gwacheon instead. Now that we knew where to bear left it seemed a good idea to combine the walk with going to Seongnam’s game with Busan I’Park.

It takes about forty minutes to reach the Tancheon from my apartment in Yeoksam, the best bit of that journey being when you can look down on what appear to be quite large carp underneath the bridge near Sports Complex. They just seem to sit on the bottom of the shallow water with their noses pointing upstream.

You have to look closely, but there are fish there.

Once we had successfully negotiated the fork in the river we found ourselves walking along the course of a marathon. The runners were at around the twenty mile stage, but most of them looked as if they were likely to finish. We stopped for a while to eat the Blackwell’s midget pork pies that I’d brought to Seoul on my return from the UK the week before. It was quite a strange feeling eating something from my local butcher’s six thousand miles from where it was made. Blackwell’s is pretty good, but when I was a kid we’d get our pork pies from London’s who had a shop a little further down the High Street. It might be just nostalgia, but I think they were better. London’s must have been closed for over twenty years now I’d have thought. It became an undertakers for a while where I imagine that the meat hooks came in handy and it’s currently a photographers studio where there is probably less of a use for them.

There weren't too many runners.

Whilst I’m on the pork pie theme I’ll just mention that whilst on a flight with my daughter a few years ago I needed to go to the toilet just as the drinks trollies were being wheeled down the aisle.

“Do you want me to get you something?” she asked.

“Yes please” I replied, “I’ll have a pork pie and a Magnum.”

She asked as well, bless her. Apparently they had none left.

Anyway back to the walk along the Tancheon. It’s actually not quite as picturesque as the walk to Gwacheon that we ended up doing a few weeks earlier by mistake. We saw a few fishermen but not a lot of wildlife.

They would have been better off fishing from that earlier bridge.

What we did see though were dozens of small dogs being carried or occasionally walked by their owners. Pug crosses seem to be quite popular, although perhaps I just notice them more as my daughter has a pug.

I know, I know.

We saw one that looked like it had been crossed with a chicken. A Chug, perhaps.

Definitely a pug's head, but with a chicken's tail feathers.

Another was half pug, half dragon I think. Possibly a Drug.

A pug's tail this time, but a fire-breathing mouth.

We reached Seongnam’s ground after about four hours walking and had probably done around ten miles. We still had a couple of hours to go until kick-off though so we pressed on a little further before stopping for something to eat and drink a couple of miles beyond the stadium. When we returned at 5pm there were large queues at the ticket office and it took us fifteen minutes to buy our nine thousand won tickets.

It seemed as if the entire crowd was in the queue.

Once inside it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the game hadn’t yet begun. I doubt that the start was delayed specifically for us, but it would have been a shame if we had missed the kick-off after setting off more than six hours in advance.

The game was ok, Seongnam were dressed up as Watford, whilst Busan were wearing Poland strips. The playing surface was poor though. Every time a player made contact with the ball sand would spray upwards from the pitch. My suspicion is that the Moonie-owned club has been holding too many mass weddings on the pitch.

A chance that came to nothing.

The East Stand was quite full and I’d have estimated the total crowd at about two thousand.  Seongnam were missing Dzenan Radoncic who might have made a difference in a goalless first half. Cho Dong Cheon broke the deadlock a few minutes after the interval to put the home side a goal up and it was quickly followed by another from Hong Chul a couple of minutes later.

This wasn't one of the goals.

And that was it, a two-nil home win that lifted Seongnam up to tenth and left Busan one place off the bottom. We decided that it was probably wise to take the subway back to Seoul.

Well, that’s it for this season. Nine months on from my first visit to the Sangam stadium to watch a rare home defeat for Seoul at the hands of Jeonbuk, I was returning for the final game of the campaign. Sadly Jeonbuk and Lee Dong Gook didn’t feature as their season had finished in the previous play-off round away at Jeju, so for those of you reading to keep up to date with the Boro’s best ever Korean striker, I suspect that he is away on his holidays by now. This game was the second leg of the play-off final with Seoul having managed to hold Jeju to a two all draw in the first leg four days earlier.

Normally I go to these games with Jen, but as the weather has turned decidedly colder over the last couple of weeks she didn’t fancy it. She’s from the deep south of America and I don’t think it ever drops below about eighty degrees farenheit over there. For those of you who need a bit of help with your geography, I think it’s the bit of America where True Blood is meant to be set and whilst there might be a vampire or two less in Jen’s town, I understand that the climate is similar to that of the tv show. In Seoul, during the summer when I’d have the sweat dripping off me within a minute of leaving my air-conditioned apartment, she would be debating how many jumpers to put on.

Last week we walked the final part of the Bukhansan Dullegil and to be fair, I did feel the cold a bit myself that day. There was a definite chill in the air that hadn’t been present earlier in the month when we’d walked the first two sections of the 45km circuit. Whereas normally I can just smell my breath, during that walk I could see it as well. The final stretch that we did was probably the most undulating so far though with plenty of steep sections to temporarily distract us from the cold.

We picked up the trail where we’d left it a fortnight earlier, somewhere after the Dullegil Trail Information Centre and we walked through the Seongbuk-gu area around to Seodamun-gu, finishing up at the Bulgwang subway station at the top of Line 6.

A bit of town and a bit of countryside.

The route of the Dullegil follows the edge of the national park and generally gives views of the hills in one direction and Seoul to the other. We passed a few interesting sights, including a couple of temples. I’m a bit bored with temples, to be honest, they all seem very similar to me. However, one of them gave us the opportunity to look down on to some of the housing on the outskirts of the city where one of the properties had a golf course, or at least a green complete with hole and flag, in its back garden. I can’t see that fella being too popular with his neighbours. Still, it will give the monks something to watch between prayers.

Probably a seven iron to reach the green from here.

As usual there was also plenty of outdoor exercise equipment near to the trail, along with a few badminton courts. One of the courts was hundred of yards away from the housing, high up in the woods. If it seemed an effort to get there for a knock-up, that was nothing compared to the measures that someone had gone to in actually building it. The available space hadn’t been sufficient and so the rock face had been cut away.

You may have to sweep the leaves away first.

I’d like to think that in order for a couple of housewives to be able to spend an hour or so gently tapping a shuttlecock backwards and forwards, someone had lugged explosives up the mountainside and blasted away a few tonnes of granite. It reminded me of that stadium in Braga, Portugal, where similar measures had been employed. Although I suspect building that one will have needed a few more sticks of dynamite.

I like this stadium.

Overall, I’d recommend the Bukhansan Dullegil. The woodland paths make for a pleasant walk and the sections that stray on to roads and pavements took us into a few areas of the city that we probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The next section opens up in the New Year and I’m looking forward to having a wander around that as well.

Right, back to the football. I met up with Iain and James before the game outside the GS convenience store next to the stadium. Football tends to make me as thirsty as hiking does and so I got myself a can of Max from a woman selling them from a cart nearby. If drinking cans outside of a shop isn’t scruffy enough then drinking cans outside of a shop that you’ve bought from a street vendor probably takes it to the required level. It’s quite commonplace over here though and most of the corner shops will have a table or two outside of them just in case you don’t want to wait until you get home to drink your beer.

The crowd makes its way towards the convenience store.

We had a bit of a chat about the forthcoming match and as they both know a lot more about Korean football than I do they filled me in on the politics of the game. I already knew that Seoul weren’t popular amongst Korean football supporters, mainly as a consequence of them gaining their place in the K League by taking over an existing team, Anyang, and after changing their name, relocating to the then-empty World Cup Stadium in Seoul. We’ve seen it in the UK with Wimbledon being stolen from their fans and being re-launched as MK Dons, so I could understand the depths of feeling against the new club.

Bands, beer and bouncy castles.

It turns out though that Jeju has a similar story as well and after a few years of nomadic wandering around Seoul they relocated from Bucheon to the island of Jeju four years ago. That’s some move. I’d say we are looking at three hundred miles and either a ferry trip or a flight if you want to travel from Seoul to see them play. I’ve not been to Jeju yet, nor Bucheon for that matter, but I have seen a couple of the stadiums that Jeju had played in previously.  They played at Mokdong for four years up to the turn of the century and a few months ago I found myself looking at their former ground whilst at the baseball.

That's the football stadium in the background.

Before that, they had spent four years at Dongdaemun Stadium. There’s not much left of this one these days after the ground was knocked down to make way for a park.  For some unknown reason though, unknown to me anyway, a couple of the floodlights were retained.

It must be a little strange for fans to stand in the park and remember it as it was.

So, where as most games involving Seoul are seen by the neutrals as a fairly straightforward battle of good v evil, this one was more a case of northern evil against southern evil.  We went into the away end, just as I’d done on my last visit and lent our support to the baddies from out of town.

There was a decent turnout, or at least there was by the time everyone got in there.  People were still arriving well into the second half, but that’s not unusual over here.  A lot of the schools in Seoul had been selling half price tickets and this was reflected in a crowd of what must have eventually reached somewhere near the 45,000 mark.

View from the Jeju end.

The first half was pretty eventful. The highlight for me being when Seoul set off their fireworks behind the goal in celebration of a ‘goal’ that was then disallowed a few seconds later. In terms of real goals, Jeju got the first with a long-range shot that the Seoul keeper should have done a little better with. 

Jeju takes the lead.

 It didn’t matter though as within a couple of minutes Seoul were awarded a dubious penalty which allowed them a second go at the fireworks.

The equaliser for FC Seoul.

The disputed spot kick infuriated the Jeju players and we got a couple of flare-ups afterwards, one of which had the referee, both linesman and one of the penalty box officials in the middle of it trying to restore calm whilst the other penalty box bloke loitered by himself on the half way line looking like a shy new kid in the school playground.

It remained level on aggregate at half time, although had it stayed that way Seoul would have won on ‘away goals’.  The second half saw both sides pushing forward and Seoul got the winner from an Edilson header fifteen minutes from time.  I’d been surprised to see him playing as when I’d been here a few weeks earlier it looked as though he was on his way back to Brazil with a season ending injury.  There had been a centre-circle presentation to him on that occasion and the crowd had worn masks with his face on them. It was quite disconcerting leaving that game and being confronted by a crowd of  ‘Edilsons’ coming the other way.

Second half pressure from FC Seoul.

And so that was that. We got the music, the fireworks and the presentation of the trophy as the season finally ended.  I’ve really enjoyed it, the football might not always have been top class and the stadiums were rarely even half full, but it’s given me an excuse to travel around the country with something as near as I’m likely to get to a sense of purpose.  I’ve been to thirty odd games in the nine months since that first visit to the Sangam stadium back in March and it would have been a lot more if I hadn’t caught the baseball bug during the summer. Actually it would have been more if some of the games hadn’t been switched to different stadiums at the last minute without me knowing.  Still, thats the way it works over here and its all part of the sense of it being different that keeps it interesting.

I suppose they have three months to clear up the mess.

Next season starts in March and my plan is to carry on with more of the same.  There are twenty odd teams that I haven’t paid a visit to yet, each hopefully with something interesting going on in their town. In the meantime, I’ll be filling the close season with a bit of hiking and some trips to the races and the basketball.  Maybe even the odd game of badminton.  It would be rude not to after the efforts they go to in building the courts.