Bucheon 1995 v Cheonan, Saturday March 3rd 2012, 3pm

March 6, 2012

The first day of a new season. Don’t you just love that day? Your team is unbeaten and possibly even top of the league if you support Aardvaark Athletic. It’s a day for optimism. Even for those of us who don’t have a team that they feel too strongly about in Korea, it’s a chance to put the basketball to one side and go to a proper match.

The build-up to a new season had been slightly spoilt for me as I’d just returned from a fortnight in Europe where I’d been able to see some matches in Spain. Fixtures at Real Betis, Sevilla Atletico and Arcos de la Frontera had taken the edge of my appetite somewhat. As a child I was always told not to eat sweets before my dinner, this though was more like eating a Sunday roast before a bowl of cabbage soup.

Real Betis fans celebrating a goal.

Still, football is football and you can’t be sitting in the house when there is a game on. I’d thought about heading down to Jeonju to see Jeonbuk kick-off their season. Lee Dong Gook is in prime form at the moment having scored three times for the national team in the last week, but I was still a bit jet-lagged though and settled for the nearby third division game between Bucheon 1995 and Cheonan.

I say nearby, but it’s an hour on the subway to Sosa and then a fair walk to Bucheon’s thirty-five thousand seater stadium. Yes, thirty-five thousand. Just what you need when you play in a division that rarely has more than two hundred spectators at a match. Although it does mean that you don’t have to worry about getting a ticket in advance.

The ground is signposted from the station and after a ten minute stroll through town you come to a park. The local authorities have very kindly mapped out some hiking trails through it, one of which looked to go pretty close to the ground.

The scenic route.

I had about an hour to spare before kick-off and despite feeling a bit ropey after a late night tackling the jet-lag with wine and cigars, I thought that I might as well take the trail. It was a bit more undulating than I’d hoped and was fairly busy. There were numerous exercise areas along the way including a couple of large temporary buildings. One was full of badminton players, the other sounded as if it was hosting a hand slapping competition. Do you remember that game from when you were a kid where you had to hold your hands out in front of you, palms together? You had to hold them still until your opponent who was trying to slap them made his move. Once he had begun his swing, you could pull your hands out of the way. If you moved too soon, he got a free slap. Well, that’s would appeared to be going on in one of the buildings. Either that or they are now setting up S&M room salons in the woods.

Along the trail.

After one steep climb I reached a viewing platform and was rewarded with my first sight of the stadium. It didn’t look too far away and I was reasonably confident of getting there by the 3pm kick-off time.

That's it there.

The trail brought me out quite close to the stadium car park and I took the opportunity to have a peak through one of the locked gates before finding out where I could get in. Oh dear. No goal posts and the pitch was covered up like a snooker table at a posh wedding reception.

That's not good at 3pm on a Saturday.

I wasn’t too bothered by this, there is a practice pitch behind the stadium which in reality is much more suited to games at this level. A similar situation had happened last year to me at Ansan and whilst I’d been keen to see a game in their main Wa Stadium I did enjoy watching the game from a tightly packed small stand on their auxillary pitch.

I walked around the edges of the ground and could hear plenty of shouting from up ahead. It sounded like I’d missed the kick-off, but again that’s not such a big deal. As the practice pitch came into view I could see people on it. They didn”t look like footballers though. Or at least not footballers playing in an organised game. As I got closer I could see that it was kids having a kickabout or riding their bikes, with a few adults walking dogs.

Not here either.

This was a little more worrying. I’ve turned up a few times in the past to discover a game has been taking place somewhere else and this looked like another of those occasions. I wandered about for a bit trying to find another pitch, but there wasn’t one. After half an hour or so I gave up and headed back to Yeoksam. I later found out that the game had been switched to Cheonan, although I’ve no idea why. I didn’t miss much by the sound of it with the game finishing goalless.

In the game that I should have gone to, Jeonbuk won their opening fixture 3-2, with Lee Dong Gook scoring twice to become the all-time K-League highest goalscorer and to bring his total for the season (and the week) to five. That’s a bit better start to the season than I’ve had.

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Incheon ET Land Elephants v KCC Egis, Sunday 5th February 2012, 5pm

February 14, 2012

Incheon is one of those places that fancies itself as a city but, like Suwon, it’s really just a suburb of Seoul. Nevertheless it does pretty well for sport. The baseball team is one of the best in the country and plays in what is probably my favourite stadium. They have two football teams and one of them,Incheon United, having already got bored with the stadium that was built for the 2002 World Cup, will kick off next season at a new ground.

It’s baseball at this time of year though and so I made the trip to see Incheon ET Land Elephants take on KCC Egis. I was advised that it is pronounced Incheon – ET Land – Elephants and not, as I had been doing, Incheon – ET- Land Elephants. Mind you, either way sounds equally odd to me.

Jen will be starting a new job in Incheon soon, so we thought we would try out the bus that she might use. We caught the 9500 from near to Gangnam Subway Station and an hour later it terminated at Bupyeong Subway Station. This isn’t too far from the Sansam Arena where the Elephants play but it’s a nightmare getting your bearings. The subway is home to an enormous shopping mall and has over thirty exits. The place was packed with people who were filling in their day by wandering aimlessly around for no good reason and getting in the way of people like us who had legitimate business. We quickly gave up trying to find the right direction to walk and just caught a cab instead. It only took about five minutes to get there and cost less than five thousand won.

It's looking less than brand new, so will probably get demolished soon.

There weren’t too many people milling around outside and it took us a while to find the entrance. We bought a couple of tickets from a granny tout for five thousand won apiece. This seemed like a bargain until we saw the one thousand won price on them. I don’t suppose I should complain at paying less than three quid to watch a game, but when I’m paying five times over the odds it seems a bit much. I was a little concerned that we had been sold tickets intended for the under-threes but we got in ok.

We took our seat level with one of the baskets and next to a gang of Korean kids who all seemed to need to go for a piss at the same time. I was just grateful that they hadn’t yet discovered beer.

The game looked like it would be a good one with KCC Egis in fourth place and the home team in fifth. Incheon started the better and although KCC pegged it back a bit in the second quarter the Elephants were ahead at half time by 51 points to 47. At this point we were treated to a dance routine involving three of the cheerleaders and three of Incheon’s new signings. I doubt they will have seen a basketball in the last week or two as they will have been perfecting their dance moves instead.

I'm sure that they once dreamed of the NBA.

The star player for the home side was Moon Tae Jong. He used to be known as Jarod Stevenson and has had a career that seems to have taken in most countries that play the game and probably one or two that don’t. He rattled in thirty one points.

Jarod Stevenson - Incheon Elephants

The foreign player for Incheon was American Herbert Hill. I’d like to think that he’s managed to find an apartment on either Hooker Hill or Homo Hill, just for the confusion it would cause the postman. He did ok too, contributing twenty six points including this crowd-pleasing dunk.

Herbert Hill - Incheon Elephants

KCC were missing their arsey guard Tony Atkins, but still had DeShawn Sims and Ha Seung Jin. Sims had a quiet game but Ha was able to position his 7’3“ frame underneath the basket often enough to score twenty two points.

He took the odd rebound too.

Incheon began the final quarter six points ahead and had plenty of opportunities to make the game safe. KCC should also have done better with the ball and missed a few chances themselves that they would normally have scored. It was as if neither side wanted it and eventually time ran out with Incheon nicking it by two points.

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SK Knights v Mobis Phoebus, Thursday 2nd February 2012, 7pm

February 5, 2012

It’s getting closer to the football season with the first games just over a month away now. In six weeks time there will be some baseball pre-season friendlies too. For the time being though it’s still basketball.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last got to a game partly because Jen and I went to Taiwan for the Chinese New Year holiday. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to have any sport going on over there. Not even any horseracing, which surprised me. My fallback plan to hike in the hills around Taipei didnt work either as it rained just about all the time we were there.

We did visit the Taipei National Palace Museum which  contains a load of stuff that the Chinese Nationalists had nicked from China when they fled to Taiwan after Chairman Mao got the top job at home. A lot of the exhibits were a few thousand years old but in fantastic condition. One thing that I did learn is that whilst the olden-days Chinese were great at making vases they were absolutely crap at painting. You’d think that if you can pick up a grain of rice with a pair of chopsticks then you would be able to handle a paintbrush reasonably well. Apparently not though. I doubt that they would be able to poke one another in the eye with any great accuracy.

I’m actually surprised that anybody thought the efforts on show were worth bringing with them and I dread to think what the paintings that they left behind must have been like. I wouldn’t have stuck any of them on my fridge door.

Image reproduced with kind permission of Taipei National Palace Museum

So, with no sport or hiking and the culture dutifully viewed, we spent most of our time wandering around markets or eating and drinking. I’d expected more from the markets. There’s one called Snake Alley where I was keen to try their speciality. Egg and Chips. It wasn’t really but it might as well have been. They had a couple of restaurants with snakes outside but they were intended solely to get us tourists gawping. No way would they be cutting slices off a fifteen foot python. The only bit of gruesomeness that we saw were some recently decapitated turtles, still with the legs moving.

We did see a bloke selling live birds to people so that they could briefly hold them before releasing them. I suspect it’s for good luck or something. One fella bought about twenty quids worth whilst we were watching. I suppose it’s healthier than spending it on beer and fags, although I doubt he’d get much sympathy if he came down with bird flu.

There's a well fed falcon just out of shot.

We spent a fair amount of time in that Taipei 101 skyscaper. Initially for the view, but then mainly because it was hard to find restaurants that were open during the holiday period. It’s an impressive building, especially from the ground.

We didn't use the stairs.

That was it really. Taipei is a scruffy looking place, but in five years time I imagine that it will be like Seoul with coffee-shops every ten yards. I had a good time but that was more down to the company than the surroundings.

We did some hiking when we got back to Seoul, knocking off a bit more of the Bukhansan Dulegil last weekend.  I won’t rattle on about it as I think that once we’ve done the final stretch I’ll devote a post to the entire thing. Suffice to say that it was cold, but good to be out in the fresh air.

Somewhere along Section 16 or 17.

Right, the basketball. I only really went along to get out of the apartment. It’s been as cold as -17 in Seoul  so it’s tempting not to go outside very much. I don’t like being stuck indoors though and as SK play within about fifty yards of exit 8 of Sports Complex subway station, I thought I’d chance the sub-zero temperatures.

I bought some chestnuts and a bottle of water from a stall outside the arena. The water was, of course, frozen solid and remained that way until the game was over.  I ignored the touts for a change and paid twenty thousand won at the ticket office to get a ‘floor’ seat three rows behind the players. That was a bad move as my view was obscured by coaching staff and towel boys. I’d have had a better view from the back row.

Sit down!!

My over-rated seat did give me the opportunity to watch the coaches close up though. It’s similar to football in that you’ve got one main bloke who decides everything and a few others who watch him closely and then mirror his actions. All of the assistant goons had little folders with them that they would occasionally open and read intently before shouting instructions to the players. I suspect that each folder contained nothing more than the following words in large bold capitals,

PASS THE BALL TO THE AMERICAN.

One fella had obviously been given a new folder for Christmas. It was embossed with the words ‘Spalding’ and ‘NBA’ and looked to be made from the skin of an extra-virgin match-issue basketball. I suppose it’s better than getting socks.

"There is no Plan B"

This week’s foreign players were Amal McCaskill for SK Knights and Terrence Leather for Ulsan Mobis Phoebus. I told you all about Mr. McCaskill a couple of weeks ago so I’ll limit myself to a photo this time.

Amal McCaskill - SK Knights

Terry Leather, who despite sounding like the sort of man-made fabric that would give you a nasty rash, is actually a decent player and averages twenty-five points per game. Although I suppose when all of your team-mates have a squad of coaches screaming at them to pass you the ball, it’s got to help.

Terrence Leather - Mobis Phoebus

Terry managed to maintain his average points total in this game and that was enough to help his team to a 94-90 victory. The win kept Mobis Phoebus in sixth place and dropped SK Knights from seventh to eighth. Not that it matters in the slightest, neither of these teams will be anywhere near the play-off places when the season finishes in a month’s time.

I’d intended to walk home after the game, but it was just too cold. I even had to wear my hat and gloves on the subway. Next will probably be a trip to Incheon to see their basketball team take on KCC Egis in a fourth v fifth clash. That one has a bit more at stake so I’ll get a cheap seat to make sure that I have a decent view.

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Goyang Orions v KCC Egis, Sunday 15th January 2012, 3pm

January 28, 2012

I’d spotted a few banners advertising Goyang Orions the last time I’d been to a football match up there. It confused me a little as I thought that the Orions played in Daegu. Still, a team moving between cities isn’t that uncommon in basketball and so I shouldn’t really have been surprised.

One benefit is that Goyang is a bit closer than Daegu and I was able to take Line Three all the way to it’s final stop, Daewha. It’s the same subway that you go to if you want to watch Goyang KB and the basketball arena is just next to the football stadium, about a hundred yards straight along from exit three.

They probably didn't move this from Daegu.

I had time before the game to have a wander around the football stadium next door. The goalposts were down and the pitch was covered in sheeting to protect it from frost. The running track was available for people to use and a couple of people were clocking up the laps.

They get similar crowds for their matches.

I still had three-quarters of an hour before the basketball started but it was quite chilly so I went in early. It’s a small arena with three tiers. I tried for a courtside seat but apparently they were sold out. I ended up with an eight thousand won ‘free-seating’ ticket which appeared to allow me to sit wherever I fancied in tiers two and three. It didn’t, of course, and a couple of minutes before the game started someone turned up with a ticket for my seat in the middle of the second tier. I had to move upwards to tier three and look down from a distance at all of the empty seats next to the court.

I hadn’t seen Goyang before and so wasn’t familiar with any of the players. Their foreigner is an American forward called Chris Williams. I looked him up afterwards and he seems to have had quite a successful career around the world including spells in Germany, Australia, China and Iran. It’s probably as well that he’s moved on from Tehran as I don’t expect that an American would get too many MVP awards over there these days.

Chris Williams is the one in red.

Goyang also had one of those blokes that qualify to play as a ‘half-Korean’, Daniel Sandrin. He’s the kid brother of the Samsung Thunders player Eric Sandrin who used to play for the Harlem Globetrotters under the nickname ‘Shanghai’’. Baby Shanghai didn’t get much of a run-out though and spent all but seven minutes watching from the bench.

KCC Egis were a bit more of a known quantity. Jen and I had watched them before Christmas in Jeonju and I recognised their American forward, DeShawn Sims. KCC’s half-Korean was guard Tony Atkins. Last time we’d watched him he managed to get ejected from the game for being arsey to one of the refs. This time though he behaved himself.

The real stand-out character for KCC  was 7’3“ centre Ha Seung Jin. He’d made a few appearances in the NBA in the past, once scoring thirteen points in a game for Portland against the LA Lakers. I found it hard to imagine that he could have played at that level unless he was a lot more mobile in those days. In this game he looked more like an out of shape Dad playing with a bunch of ten year olds. He didn’t bother going up for every attack and rarely seemed to pick up a rebound. Despite his height advantage over everyone else he didn’t contest the tip-off at the start either. All he did was stand near the opposition basket and wait for a pass to be looped over the defending players heads. If he managed not to fumble it then it was a fairly guaranteed two points.

He nearly got that rebound.

The first quarter was just about even but in the second quarter KCC left Tony Atkins and Ha Seung Jin on the bench for the first few minutes. Goyang took full advantage and led by sixteen points at one stage before eventually finishing the period 41-33 ahead.

The third quarter belonged overwhelmingly to KCC and they turned the deficit around to take a 62-56 lead. It was Goyang’s turn for a fightback in the final quarter and they eventually regained the lead by a single point with just two and a half minutes remaining. They increased that to three points going into the final minute. Tony Atkins missed a three pointer for KCC and after the subsequent foul Goyang scored a free-throw to extend their lead to four points. That was the way it stayed and Goyang took a 84-81 victory.

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Yongmunsan Hiking, Saturday 14th January 2012

January 19, 2012

Yongmunsan is one of those mountains that is just outside of Seoul and ideal for a day’s hiking. Ideal that is if you can get out of bed on a morning. I’d planned to do this hike the previous Saturday but hadn’t adjusted properly to the time difference after my trip to the UK. Whilst I’d been waking up at around three every morning earlier in the week, luck would have it that I slept in until half past nine on the Saturday, which was a bit too late.

My second attempt was a little better. I’d been to Oman and back during the week, returning to Seoul the day before and had hoped that with the time difference there being only five hours rather than nine I’d wake up sometime around seven o’clock. Hoping isn’t really as good as an alarm clock though and after not waking until eightish, it was after nine before I left the apartment.

Yongmun is at the very end of the Jungang line and it took about two and a quarter hours from Yeoksam. I had a seat all the way and a book to read so didn’t mind the journey, particularly as the latter stages are above ground with views of some of the other mountains that I’d like to hike in the future. It’s only a 1,900 won fare as well which is about a quid.

I could have got all the way to Yongmunsan Resort for that 1,900 won fare if I’d been prepared to wait for the connecting bus that runs every half hour from the station, but as it was getting on towards lunchtime I took a 10,000 won taxi instead.

Yongmunsan Resort is likely to be quite a busy place in summer. There’s an amusement park, a camping ground, plenty of restaurants and a few small hotels. In January though, there wasn’t a great deal going on.

That's the big hill in the background.

I followed the road that leads to Yongmunsa Temple. It’s another one of those places that is apparently centuries old, but there is still construction work going on. It’s ages since the Japanese invaded and knocked it all down so maybe the monks are getting an extension to their Snooker Room. There is a great big Ginko tree outside the temple that is supposed to be over a thousand years old. It probably looks a bit more impressive when it has leaves on though.

That's still the big hill in the background.

I followed a path that went between the tree and the temple. A hundred metres or so further on I had a choice of following a path towards Sangwonsa or going directly to the main Yongmunsan peak. I headed straight on and the trail went upwards quite sharply, following the frozen stream. There weren’t many people hiking, or at least there weren’t too many on this particular route, although I suspect that most people would have started walking a little earlier than I did.

As I got higher there was more snow on the ground. It didn’t look too recent though.

Looking back in the direction that I'd just come from.

Progress was slow as there were some fairly slippery parts of the trail. The ice wasn’t thick enough to put chains or spikes on, so it was just a case of being careful. There were some quite steep sections as well where the ropes provided were a big help. After two and a half hours I’d only covered three of the four kilometres to the top and realised that I might not make it down again before dark if I tried to do the last kilometre. Yongmunsan is one of those mountains where you can’t get all the way to the 1,157m summit anyway as it’s fenced off to protect a load of satellite equipment, so not getting to the highest point possible wasn’t such a big deal.

I backtracked  to one of the lesser peaks and perched on a big rock to eat my cheese and crackers. I had a great view of the valley that I’d started from, some other hills in the distance and a bloke doing a bit of paragliding.

The photo doesn't really do it justice.

Further along the trail I took a different route downwards which eventually joined up with the route to Sangwonsa. It meandered back and forwards and was a lot less steep than the route I’d followed on the way up. It made the descent much easier than I’d anticipated and by the time I got back to Yongmunsan Resort I probably still had about an hour and a half to spare before it got dark.

I went up the blue route and came back down the yellow. I think.

I joined the queue of hikers waiting for the bus to the station and then got the subway back to Seoul. I think I’ll have another go at Yongmunsan as there is apparently a decent waterfall fifteen minutes or so beyond the main peak. I’ll just set off a little earlier next time.

Posted in Hiking | 2 Comments »

SK Knights v LG Sakers, Friday 6th January 2012, 7pm

January 7, 2012

It’s been a while since my last sporting event in Korea, over a month in fact since I watched Jeonbuk clinch the K-League Championship. I haven’t really had much of an opportunity to see anything else as not long after that game I had to go to Oman for a few days and then went straight on from there to England for a couple of weeks holiday over Christmas and New Year.

I didn’t get up to much in Oman, I rarely do. My favourite activity was probably feeding the dog that hangs around the site with a few pieces of Spam from the Korean breakfast. I think it’s a more appropriate food for dogs than for people.

He overcomes his timidness when there is tinned chopped pork shoulder.

The highlight of the trip was seeing a few wild camels wandering by the side of the road on the way to the construction site. Unfortunately one of them hadn’t been observing his kerb drill and so had ended up as what is undoubtedly the biggest item of roadkill that I’ve ever seen. I didn’t take a photo, but if there is anything left of the carcass when I go back I’ll try and get a snap next time.

Back in England it was a case of catching up with family and friends that I hadn’t seen since August. My son and my grandson both had birthdays, with the elder of the two putting a bit more effort into his celebration. I did pretty well for gigs, seeing Withered Hand, Paul McCartney and Cattle & Cane over a four day period. As I’ve only seen two bands in Korea this entire year, I was quite pleased with the scheduling.

He's less keen on Spam.

The Boro fixtures fell nicely for me as well. Tom and  I took the bus down to Cardiff where a half past seven in the morning start to the drinking meant that I remember little of our away win. We later took four points from six in the home games against Hull and Peterborough. I even managed to squeeze in a Boxing Day visit to Central Avenue for the Billingham derby between Synners and Town.

Now that's a backdrop.

Tom and I spent an afternoon at Sedgefield Races too. I suppose a meeting a few days before Christmas isn’t going to be the best attended fixture of the year, but I was surprised by how small the crowd was. I wasn’t surprised by how much money I lost though, the knack of picking a winner is something that I seem to struggle with these days.

I think the entire crowd was in this photo.

A couple of days walking in The Lakes either side of a night in Coniston got me a bit of fresh air as well as a battering in a hailstorm on the hills above Hardknott Pass. It was nice to get outside though, despite the weather.

That was taken just before the hailstorm.

So, that’s the ‘what I did on my holidays’ update out of the way. Jen is still in America visiting her folks and so after work I got the subway on my own to the Jamsil Students Gymnasium to see SK Knights play LG Sakers. I bought a ticket from a tout in the subway for eight thousand won and got myself a roll of gimbap and a bag of chestnuts for my tea. I tend not to eat quite so well when I’m by myself.

 I hadn’t seen SK Knights this season yet, but I’d watched LG Sakers at Samsung Thunders a few weeks back and had been impressed with the way they had gradually clawed back an early deficit to win 81-74.

The Nigerian centre for the Sakers in that game, Olumide Oyedeji, was no longer playing in Korea and had been replaced with the somewhat pacier American  Aaron Haynes. I noticed that he was wearing headphones as he warmed up. Sensible bloke. Maybe I’m getting old but I found the noise from the speaker system in the arena to be just below my pain threshold. I saw Mogwai in Seoul just before Christmas and fortunately I had been warned in advance to wear earplugs for their performance. Next time I’ll bring them to the basketball too.

I'm tempted to wear a pair of those at work too.

SK Knights seemed to have been through a few foreign players themselves and tonight’s starter was an American called Amal McCaskill. If Google has given me the right fella then he’s knocking on a bit at thirty-eight, but has turned out for a few NBA teams over the years.

Amal McCaskill takes on SK Knights by himself.

As the game started the place was probably about a quarter full, although with people continuing to arrive throughout the game it was probably near to half its capacity by the end.

SK looked quite effective early on with some swift passing and had six points on the board before Sakers got their first basket. It wasn’t to last though and by the end of the first quarter the visitors led by 16-12. LG continued their good form in the second quarter, increasing their advantage to 41-33 at half time.

I had been wondering which K-Popstars would be ‘entertaining’ us at half time, having been subjected to Sistar, Shinee and that old biddy who looks a bit like Tina Turner’s Mam at previous games. SK must have a smaller budget though as all we got were a few obstacle course type games, cheerleaders dishing out pizzas and a dance routine from the seven mascots. Yes, seven. We had a bloke dressed up as a hamburger, another one as an orange, one who was either a tub of ice cream or a dumpling and one who I think was meant to be a pork chop. They were joined by a giant can of Pocari Sweat, a two legged horse and someone who I presume from his hat was supposed to be a knight. Maybe Sistar might have been a better option after all.

Horse, Hamburger, Orange and Pork Chop.

SK fought back after the interval and by the end of the third quarter had turned an eight point deficit into a four point lead. They stayed ahead until a couple of minutes from the end, setting up what would be a tense finish. As the match entered its final thirty seconds SK were two up and had possession. If they scored they would win, if they missed then LG would have maybe six or seven seconds to score themselves. SK did miss their shot but the lad was fouled in the process and he put one of the free-throws away to increase the lead to 77-74. LG had six seconds to score a three-pointer to tie the game.

There's just enough space for the obligatory cheerleaders photo.

We had to sit through an incredibly long time-out before play restarted. So long in fact that the mascots put the crowd through their paces with some exercise routines. Most of the Koreans joined in, but just as I do when I’m at work and all that nonsense starts, I left them to it.

When play did get underway again LG were able to work the position for the three point shot. Aaron Haynes took it but it rolled around the rim and came back out again. SK got the rebound and it was game over. It was definitely the closest game that I’ve watched whilst being over here and the win might just have moved SK back ahead of the Sakers into seventh place.

Posted in Basketball, Football, Hiking, Horseracing, Music | 2 Comments »

Jeonbuk Motors v Ulsan, Sunday 4th December 2011, 2pm

December 31, 2011

Nine months earlier I’d watched Jeonbuk kick off their K-League campaign with a home defeat to Chunnam Dragons. At that time it looked as if they might be in for a tough season but it didn‘t work out that way. They’ve been the best team by far in Korea this year and had been unlucky to lose the Champions League final to Al Sadd a month earlier.

The way the Korean League works is that the top six teams at the end of the season have a series of play-offs to determine the champions. Jeonbuk finished top of the table and so went straight into the two-legged final. Ulsan finished sixth and therefore had to get past Seoul, Suwon and Pohang to earn their game with Jeonbuk. The teams had met earlier in the week at Ulsan’s Munsu Stadium where a couple of goals from Eninho had given Jeonbuk a 2-1 lead to bring into the second leg.

Jen had caught an earlier train back to Seoul to avoid frostbite and so I was at this one by myself. I bought a ticket for ten thousand won and got myself some cans of Hite. It wasn’t really the weather for drinking beer but with it being the last game of the season it seemed a bit late to change my regular matchday routine.

I took a seat in the east stand, close to the half-way line. There was quite a party atmosphere with food and drink stalls in the concourse and kids competing for prizes by scoring into an oversized inflatable goal. As the teams were announced Lee Dong Gook got the biggest cheer from the home supporters.

Not quite as popular as scoring in an inflatable goal.

Jeonbuk were on top in the early stages with Luiz breaking up the Ulsan play whenever they looked threatening. After twenty-five minutes Lee Dong Gook was brought down just inside the box. He took the  penalty himself and if he had scored it would surely have been game over. The Ulsan keeper dived to his left though and made a decent save to keep his side in it.

Not quite.

We got to half-time without any further incident and as there were big queues for beer I nipped out of the main entrance and bought a couple of cans from a granny outside. I didn’t need a ‘pass out’ and nobody questioned me as I walked back in. It seemed that if you couldn’t afford the ten thousand won ticket price (£5.50), then you could just turn up at half time and watch the second half for free. I’m not sure if it’s officially condoned but I like it. I remember that when the Holgate gates opened ten minutes before the end of matches to let out those who liked to ‘beat the traffic’ there were always kids waiting to come in for the closing stages, a whole second half for free would have been fantastic.

Ten minutes into the second half Ulsan scored. That made the aggregate score two each, but I had no idea what the story was with away goals. I did wonder at that point if Jeonbuk were going to finish the season with nothing. Fortunately for the home side they quickly got the opportunity to restore their advantage when they were awarded their second penalty of the game. Once again Lee Dong Gook picked the ball up, but on this occasion Eninho went over and had a quiet word before taking it off him and calmly slotting home to put Jeonbuk 3-2 ahead on aggregate.

The Jeonbuk fans celebrate Eninho taking the ball from Lee Dong Gook.

Another ten minutes on and it was all over. Luiz picked up the ball on the right and turned two players before crashing the ball home at the keeper’s near post. It was a fantastic strike and I was up on my feet celebrating with the rest of the supporters. Well, those that weren’t from Ulsan anyway. Luiz was booked for taking his shirt off, but if there was ever a goal that you had a right to celebrate in whatever way you fancied then that was it.

Jeonbuk just ran the clock out in the last twenty minutes, Lee Dong Gook getting a great reception as he made his way to the bench five minutes from time. The crowd was announced as thirty-three thousand, but I’d have estimated it as maybe twenty-two thousand or so. Whilst the East and North stands were pretty full, the West and South were probably only at ten per cent of their capacity.

The Lion King awaits the final whistle.

I hung about for the fireworks and initial celebrations but got away before the trophy presentation as I had a train to catch. A few days later Lee Dong Gook was announced as the K-League MVP for 2011. Together with his Asian Champions League MVP award and his recall to the national team it had been a pretty good season for him again.

It had been a good season for me too. I had watched thirty-three games in Korea at twenty-three different grounds, ranging from internationals to local games between blokes who looked in worse shape than I am. With the game I saw in Hong Kong and the seven in England that’s just one short of a full traditional forty-two match season. Or exactly right for a season’s total when you don’t turn up for Blackburn away after being misled by the Premier League. I’m not still bitter about the three points, honest.

And on that cheery note I’ll wish anyone who stumbles across the blog a Happy New Year. I’m looking forward to a bit of basketball and sub-zero temperature hiking in the weeks until the 2012 fixtures are published and I can start planning next season’s football trips.

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Nosong v Withus, Sunday 4th December 2011, 11am

December 21, 2011

Baseball in December? There’s something not quite right there. It was way back in October when I’d watched Samsung Lions clinch the Korean Series to bring the KBO season to an end. Even then it felt as if it had all gone on for a bit too long. It’s a game for watching on sunny afternoons and balmy evenings with a few cans of ice-cold Asahi. Cricket weather, not football weather, that’s how it should be.

Jen and I were in Jeonju for the weekend and as we weren’t staying too far from the Jeonju Baseball stadium we had a wander past it on the way for some breakfast. You know, just in case there was something going on. We’d had a look inside a month or so ago and on that occasion had just missed seeing a game because it had been rained off. Well this time we got lucky, the local tournament that had been going on last time had overrun and we arrived just in time for the final day of  matches.

They had all of the kit.

The only seats that were available were behind the plate. They were probably the only seats that were useable as the remainder of the stands had more weeds in them than a cannabis farm. There weren’t too many other people there and those that were watching looked as if they were either playing in the next game themselves or had come to watch someone they knew in action.

No cheerleaders for this lot.

It was early in the fifth innings when we took our seats and the team in white, Withus, were leading the team in black, Nosong, by five runs to one. The standard wasn’t that great, even for this level and there were plenty of dropped catches and bases gained after wayward throws.

A Withus batter prepares to face another 50kmph ball.

Withus looked to be the more talented team and over the next couple of innings increased their lead to eleven-one.

This fella rattled through his pitches, probably keen to get back in the warm.

We didn’t hang about for too long, half an hour or so was enough in the cold and it wasn’t as if the game was a finely poised thriller. It was nice to have seen some actual baseball take place in the stadium though, even if it would have been that much better on a summer’s evening.

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Daedunsan Hiking, Saturday 3rd December 2011.

December 14, 2011

The main event of this weekend was the second leg of the K-League play-off final between Jeonbuk and Ulsan. Jen and I had travelled down to Jeonju to watch it and with the game not taking place until the Sunday afternoon it meant that we could do some hiking the day before.

Jeonju is pretty well situated if you like spending time in the hills. We’d hiked in the nearby Moaksan Provincial Park a month earlier and Maisan Provincial Park isn’t too far east of the city. Maisan is famous for having a couple of peaks that are supposed to resemble horse ears. Rocks that are reputed to look like people, animals or bits of people or animals aren’t exactly uncommon over here but most of them just look like rocks to me. Still, rocks are good, even when they just look like rocks.

The other option was Daedunsan Provincial Park. It’s about an hour to the north of Jeonju and is probably somewhere that we could have tied in just as easily with a match in Daejeon as Jeonju.

Daedunsan map

Daedunsan’s advantage over Maisan though is that the hiking didn’t look as strenuous. Despite all of the walking that we’ve been doing on weekends I’ve gotten a little out of shape. I had a medical recently and from what I can gather too much of my body is made up of fat and not enough of it from muscles or bones. I’m not really sure what I can do to increase my bone content apart from maybe eat more chalk, but on this occasion the slightly easier hike seemed sensible.

We caught the bus from the Inter-City Bus Terminal at 9.40am. It was just as well that we didn’t miss it as the next one didn’t go until after 2pm. Daedunsan mustn’t be a particularly popular destination for people living in Jeonju as despite the fare being less than 6,000 won we were the only passengers on the bus. We picked up a couple of people on the way and arrived at Daedunsan, as expected, just over an hour later.

Daedunsan High Street

There are  a few hotels at the bottom of the hill and a row of shops selling mainly hiking gear and crappy souvenirs. There are also plenty of restaurants and food stalls, plus what appeared to be a couple of nightclubs. We bought a pair of cooked quail at one of the stalls to go with our lunch. You know as soon as you look at them that they will be more effort than they are worth to eat, but at 2,500 won a go I find it hard to walk past things like that.

Doctors would be impressed by the ratio of bones to everything else.

Despite our bus having been almost empty, the area around the shops was fairly busy. One of the attractions of Daedunsan is that it has a cable car that goes about three-quarters of the way to the top and so it’s a popular day out for people who don’t fancy hiking but are keen to combine quail and nightclubs with a trip up a hill. Despite my low ratio of muscles and bones to fat we didn’t bother with the cable car, at least not on the way up. I don’t mind saving my knees on the way down a hill but you don’t really get that sense of achievement if you’ve only done half the ascent by yourself. Besides, we’d just spent an hour on a bus, it was time for some fresh air.

Our route wasn’t too far away from the cable car, just closer to the ground and after about an hour we reached the point that the old grannies and small children had got to with a lot less effort. To give them something to see without the need for them to hike to the top, a suspension bridge had been built together with what I suppose you could describe as a ‘suspension staircase’.

The bridge enabled you to get near to where you had been 20 minutes earlier.

Neither of them were necessary, but had been built to allow people to go up in the cable car, cross the bridge, climb the steps and loop back to the cable car again. Fair enough I suppose.

Luckily it's one-way only.

After working our way around the single direction bridge and staircase we pushed on towards the 878m Macheondae peak. It was a lot steeper than I’d expected, so maybe I’d got this place and the horse ear park mixed up. Whilst most people seemed happy to return to the cable car without reaching the top, there were plenty who had decided to hike the final stage. They were rewarded at the summit with a shiny metal tower that looked as out of place as, well, a cable car and a couple of superfluous suspension bridges. I suppose that if your rocks don’t resemble equine extremities you have to jazz them somehow.

It blends in so well.

It was quite misty, so once again there wasn’t much of a view, although we were able to spot a couple who had found somewhere quiet to eat their lunch.

You can find the odd quiet spot if you try hard enough.

It took a while for us to get down to the cable car station. The rocks were slippery and after I had whacked my knee against a railing due to losing my footing I was more than happy to take the easy option of a ride down to the bottom. As part of my healthy eating regime we had some fried battered ginseng when we got there. It was ok, better than we expected and judging by the number of places selling it, pretty popular in Daedunsan. The area at the foot of the hill was just as busy as when we’d set off, this time with people selling acorns, chestnuts and mushrooms to the visitors who had built up appetites riding the cable car.

The lady on the right offered us what she said was a good deal on acorns.

Like a lot of places, Daedunsan is somewhere that we’ll probably go back to. There’s a route that misses out the bridge and staircase completely by following the ridge up one side to the peak and then continuing down the other side. I suspect that at the right time of year that trail would be virtually deserted.

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South Korea v Saudi Arabia, Sunday 27th November 2011, 2pm

December 13, 2011

I probably would have missed this game if I hadn’t seen it advertised on a banner near to where I live a couple of weeks earlier. It was under twenty-three level and a qualifier for the London Olympics.  I took the tube to the Sangam Stadium and paid one of the granny touts the ten thousand won face value price for a ticket as I left the station.

Usually in Korea you can take whatever you fancy into a stadium. At one match that I attended here earlier in the year people had shopping trolleys full of beer that they had just walked in with. Today though, there was a clampdown at the gates and the security staff were confiscating items as if we were boarding a flight rather than going into a football game.

They were quite considerate in the way they went about it, attaching a numbered label to each item so that it could be re-claimed after the game. Quite how many people would go back for a bottle of Gatorade I’m not sure, but as I watched the footballs, flags and vuvuzelas piling up it reminded me of a tombola stall at a particularly crap Summer Fete.

Roll up, win a second-hand football.

Maybe some of the people planning to attend had turned around and gone home in a huff when faced with the prospect of being parted from their picnic basket, as the crowd seemed smaller than normal for an international match. Maybe it was only my street that had an advertising banner. I was in the east stand where the lower section was about two-thirds full, whilst the north stand lower had roughly half its seats occupied. Everywhere else was virtually empty. I’d estimate that there were about twelve thousand people there in total, with the official figure of twenty-seven thousand being a somewhat wild exaggeration.

I was surprised that hardly any of the crowd stood for the Saudi national anthem, despite being requested to by the announcer. A little childishly I showed my disapproval at the lack of respect by sitting down when the Korean ditty was played. I resisted the urge to accompany it with that underarm farting noise though.

The Saudis were in all green with Korea in traditional red and white. It was a fairly open game and the home keeper made a couple of good stops early on. After twenty-five minutes the Koreans thought that they had taken the lead when the ball was headed across the face of the goal, then onto the bar before eventually being bundled home. The flag was up though, so the celebrations from the home fans were in vain.

How did he get that past security?

There were a couple of kids a few rows down from me, maybe five or six years old and I doubt that they or their mothers saw any of the game. The mothers chose to sit in the two seats directly in front of their offspring, so it’s unlikely that the kids would have been able to watch much of the action even if they had wanted to and unless the women had eyes in the backs of their heads then they won’t have seen anything either. They spent the entire time facing their children and hand feeding them. It was like watching birds passing worms to their chicks. If they had chewed the food for them before handing it over I wouldn’t have been surprised.

During the feeding session they were missing Cho Young Cheol being pretty influential for Korea, with most of his teams best moves coming through him on the left-wing.

That's him, in the red.

Korea took the lead after half an hour when they won a penalty for what looked like it might have been holding at a corner. It’s not often that those are given so I suppose the Saudis could consider themselves a little unlucky. And whilst the Mothers were moving on to sticking funnels in their kids mouths and force feeding them fois gras style, Cho Young Cheol sent the keeper the wrong way to make it one-nil.

Korea takes the lead.

At half time I moved to the south stand for a change of scenery and was asked by a Korean couple if I was an Arab. When I replied that I wasn’t, they didn’t seem inclined to believe me and told me that I looked like an Arab. I was tempted to ask them if they were Haruki Murakami and the Dowager Empress of Japan, but I didn’t. I’d have thought the can of Hite in my hand might have been sufficient to cast doubts on any Arabian heritage.

The south stand.

The second half was fairly even with Korea having a few chances and Saudi Arabia putting a bit of pressure on towards the end. They could have had a penalty when one of their blokes was nudged off the ball after a mazy run into the box. The highlight of the second half though was probably the appearance of a player with a mask on. I  didn’t  recognise him, but I suppose that’s the whole point of wearing a disguise. Perhaps he was supposed to be suspended. Or maybe he’d been out robbing a bank.

Who was that masked man?

Korea held on for the victory which takes them close to qualification for the London Olympics. I reclaimed my camel from the entrance gate and trotted off home.

Posted in Football | 7 Comments »

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