Samsung Lions v Hanwha Eagles, Sunday 15th August 2010, 5pm.

August 22, 2010

The regular baseball season is drawing to a close and so I thought that whilst there’s still time I would try and get to see a game at a stadium that I hadn’t yet visited. There are eight baseball teams in the league, but as Doosan Bears and LG Twins share the Jamsil Stadium there are only seven different ball parks. Actually that may not be true as I’ve a suspicion that one of the teams from the south might play their home games at more than one stadium. Anyway, I’ve been to four of the stadiums so far and as Lotte Giants were playing away I was left with a choice of Samsung Lions or KIA Tigers.

Samsung Lions play in Daegu and when I found that the Daegu K-League team were also at home on the same day it was an easy choice to make. The football was listed as kicking off at four in the afternoon, with the baseball starting an hour later. I’d been to watch Daegu before and their stadium is only about thirty yards from the baseball park, so it seemed a pretty good piece of scheduling. I could watch their match against Pohang Steelers and then call into the baseball game which by that time should be no more than a couple of innings old.

Jen asked me if I’d like to accompany her to a barbecue that a friend of hers was having near Gyeongju on the Saturday and as Gyeongju is only an hour away from Daegu it all fitted together very nicely.

We got the bus from Seoul to Gyeongju late on Saturday morning. It was meant to be early on Saturday morning but when we turned up to get the tickets it was two and a half hours until the next departure. The silver lining was that it enabled me to get an overdue haircut. It’s probably thirty five years since I’ve been for a haircut with someone else and in those days I used to go with my Dad. To my frustration the barber would invariably direct his questions to him rather than me. In that mid-seventies era when it was a major source of embarrassment at school to have even the lobes of your ears exposed, you did not want the barber checking with your oblivious to fashion father as to whether he had taken enough off yet.

Generally over here, I get by in the barbers with a combination of mime and gesture and I’ve tended to survive. However, once the hairdresser realised that Jen could speak Korean, it was as if I was six years old.

“Does he want it grading at the back?” and “Should I shampoo it for him?” were asked and answered without any reference whatsoever to me. I half expected to be told to visit the toilet before I left and to be given a lollipop for sitting still. The shampooing was very enjoyable though, with my head being rinsed for a couple of minutes with cold water. The temperatures in Seoul seemed to have taken another step upwards lately and I could quite happily have foregone the barbecue, the football and the baseball and just remained in the barber’s chair all weekend with the cold water washing over my head.

The bus to Gyeongju took four hours and then we had another short connection to get to Doug’s house out in the countryside. Unfortunately our late arrival meant that the original barbecue had finished and the guests departed. Doug was a great host though and we spent a few hours with him and his girlfriend, eating and drinking in his front garden miles from anywhere, with a backdrop of the hills and his dog at our feet. Doug grows his own vegetables, makes his own cheese and had apple makkgeolli to supplement the beer. Whilst I love my life, every now and again I get a glimpse of someone elses and can’t help but feel that I’m missing out somehow.

The view from Doug's front garden.

At about ten o’clock we got a lift back to Gyeongju and checked into the nearest hotel to the bus station. This was quite a fortuitous choice as it’s the best hotel I’ve stayed in over here so far. For the connoisseurs of the idiosyncrasies of Korean love motels our room was on the top floor and had a six foot wide circular skylight above the bed so that we could look at the stars if there wasn’t much on telly. It opened and closed with a remote control and seemed a little like the sort of gadget that a villain in a James Bond film might use to launch missiles from an island hideaway. The room had disco lights in the bathroom and a small dance floor that also came complete with its own multi-coloured light show. We couldn’t quite work out how to switch off the flashing dance floor lights and so had to resort to covering it with a towel to diminish the effect. It had the usual love motel staples of a big flat screen telly and computer, plus the added bonus of a complementary bottle of red wine. I searched in vain for a humidor full of havana cigars but had I found them they would not have seemed out of place.

The dancefloor.

The next morning we went for a look around Gyeongju. It’s a town that seems to have a predilection for barley bread, with a shop selling it every five yards or so. We were going to look at the tombs rather than visit the bakers though, and in particular Cheonmachong, or the Heavenly Horse Tomb. This was the grave of some unknown royal from Silla kingdom and it had been excavated a few years previously giving visitors the opportunity to have a wander about inside. Disappointingly all the artifacts inside were replicas which made the sign stating that visitors should show respect towards what was an empty fake coffin a little bemusing. On the plus side, however, it was air-conditioned and so well worth the visit regardless of the authenticity of the artifacts.

The real stuff is in a museum somewhere.

We had a wander aroound the rest of the park, which resembled tellytubbyland, and looked at the other unexcavated tombs before getting the bus to Daegu where I had spicy tuna bibimbap for lunch.

Tinkywinky, La La, Poe and whatever the other one was called.

 This version of the rice dish was different to those I’ve had before as it’s eaten hot. It’s known as dolsot bibimbap and served in a red hot stone pot that I did my best not to burn myself on. Its an interesting variation and I quite like the way that the rice gets a bit crusty where it’s been in contact with the hot stone bowl.

We walked to the stadiums only to discover that the time of the football game had been changed and both matches now started at 5pm. Bugger. There was a large banner advertising the football and you could see where a patch saying `5pm’ had been stuck over the previous `4pm’. Quite why they couldnt coordinate the start times to accommodate fans who would like to see both games baffled me. The last time I’d watched Daegu, the conclusion of the baseball game coincided with half time in the football and the Daegu commercial staff were trying to entice the baseball fans into the football match for free. This time though, it was one or the other and as I’d seen Daegu play in their stadium before I decided that I’d rather watch the baseball.

After the previous weeks visit to the outfield at the Jamsil Stadium I thought it would be quite good to be a bit closer to the action and we got seats in the posh bit right behind the catcher for twenty thousand won each. They were front row and with a table in front of us for food and drink. The only downside was that it looked as if the roof didn‘t quite extend far enough to protect the first couple of rows if it rained. However, it was hot and sunny so I wasn’t too concerned.

On the way in we were given a bottle of chocolate water each. Yes, chocolate water. I’d heard of chocolate milk before, but this was a variation on those bottles of water that are usually flavoured with fruit or possibly more likely just sugar. I tried it, out of curiosity, and it was terrible. I like chocolate and I like water, but together, I dont think it will catch on. Fortunately there was another freebie, apple juice, to take away the taste and if that didn‘t work there was plenty of beer for sale.

The stadium was probably the smallest capacity of all those I’ve been to and there were plenty of empty seats. Samsung Lions are pretty much certain of their play-off place and perhaps Hanwha Eagles aren’t much of a draw. The home fans were loud enough, singing along at one point to Slade’s `Cum On Feel The Noize‘.

Like a lot of the games I’ve been to recently, the innings were being rattled through at a fair pace and within three quarters of an hour we had already seen the first three of them. It would have been even quicker had it not been for a lengthy delay for treatment after the batter had mistaken the catcher’s hand for the ball and tried to hit it out of the stadium.

Hanwha had the best of the early play including picking up a run when successive hits deep into the outfield that were both caught were in the air long enough to allow the bloke on first base to eventually make it all the way home. By the fourth innings though a Samsung home run had put the home side into a 3-2 lead.

At six o’clock it started to pour down with absolutely torrential rain that had the players running for the dugout and Jen and I scurrying to the back of the stand. Ground staff were quickly out with tarpaulins but the water was lying in pools around each of the bases. After a while I managed to get a glimpse of the Daegu game in the football stadium next door. The players were still out there, but it looked as if all of the fans were in the concourse.

I was waiting for the announcement that the match would be abandoned when the rain started to ease off and within a few minutes a combination of the drainage and blokes with brushes had cleared most of the water away. At seven o’clock we were off again. The only problem for us was that our front row seats were still ankle deep in water. Again the staff did the business and the excess was soon swept away and the seats and table dried off. We got another forty five minutes of action before the next thunderstorm arrived with the scores level at four apiece. We moved further back again, this time taking the seats of some people who had decided that enough was enough. A tramp had come in off the streets, more for a bit of shelter than the prospect of seeing the remaining innings I imagine, and he occupied his time by collecting up the uneaten fried chicken that people had left in their hurry to get away. He didnt seemed too interested in the chocolate water though.

We waited for the next lull in the rain and at half past eight we headed off to get the KTX not knowing if the game would be completed or abandoned. As we neared Seoul the baseball scores came up on the screen in the carriage and one of them had won 5-4. I don‘t remember which team won, but then I didn‘t really care. It’s still all about the occasion with baseball for me at the moment, rather than the result.

Posted in Baseball, Dead people and stuff, Haircuts | 3 Comments »

South Korea v Nigeria, Wednesday 11th August 2010, 8pm.

August 16, 2010

Last Wednesday I tried a couple of new things. Firstly, I went to see South Korea play Nigeria. I’d seen the national team play against Argentina in South Africa during the World Cup but after missing their warm-up game against Ecuador a few months ago in favour of a lantern festival, this was the first time that I’d actually watched them on their home soil in front of a Korean crowd. And then, after the game, I ate my first silkworm pupae.

I’ll start with the football. Mainly because eating silkworm is more interesting and so I’ll save that until the end. Plus the football happened first, so it keeps things in the right order.

The international matches are usually played at the 68,000 capacity Seoul stadium, but for some reason this game was given to Suwon, which is a city a little south of Seoul. I’d been there before and had walked around the ancient fortress wall before watching the K-League game between Suwon and Daejeon Citizen. On that occasion it had taken me virtually all day to get to the ground, a luxury that I didn’t really have time for when I have to work until six o’clock and the game kicks off at eight.

The schedule was too tight to take on the Suwon Fortress Wall Ninjas, so we got the bus.

Luckily I had a bit of assistance in fellow Teessider Alan, who I’d gone with to the Seoul v Suwon League Cup game a couple of weeks earlier.  Alan met me at the subway station in Gangnam whilst his wife waited in the queue for our bus. It meant that twenty minutes after I’d left work bang on six o’clock, we were already on our way as the bus set off in the rush hour traffic. Normally it takes about three quarters of an hour to get to Suwon, tonight though, with the extra match traffic it was twenty to eight before we arrived.

It was quite busy outside the ground.

Fortunately Alan had already bought the tickets and so it was straight to one of the lengthy queues to get in.  It was free seating, even to the extent of which stand you chose and after abandoning our initial attempt to sit under cover at the side of the pitch, we ended up behind the goal.

It looked as if we were in the away end at first, as the only people in there appeared to be Africans, but with the free seating policy it soon filled up with Koreans as well. There wasn’t any segregation, although there were a lot of police present and the Nigerian fans mainly took up residence in the lower tier.

This was a big game for Korea, their first under new manager Cho Kwang Rae and his promised 3-4-3 formation.. Unfortunately for Lion King fans, Cho had decided not to call up Lee Dong Gook and when asked about the omission of the 85 times capped striker he was quoted as saying;

“Lee Dong-gook is a good player. But I’m looking for more of an active player with strong passing abilities,” Cho said. “If Lee improves his conditioning, there’s always a possibility that he will return to the team in the future.”

So, whilst the door wasn’t entirely closed on Lee Dong Gook,  for another long standing player it was to be a farewell appearance. Veteran goalie Lee Won Jae had decided to call it a day at thirty seven. After sitting on the bench in South Africa in what was his fourth World Cup, he had been recalled to the starting line-up for a final appearance and a presentation had been arranged at half time to mark his service and 132 cap career. It would have been even more caps had he not been suspended for a year for partying with Lee Dong Gook and a couple of other players before an Asian Cup game three years ago. Still, all that seemed forgotten as the teams lined up for the national anthems in a stadium that was probably about two thirds full, but with a lot more people still queueing outside or stuck in the traffic.

Nigerian fans during their national anthem.

Judging by the noise of the crowd, there were a lot of youngsters there and any attacking movement by South Korea was greeted by the sort of noise that I’d last heard at schoolboy internationals. There were quite a few vuvuzelas too, not enough to recreate the South Africa drone, but enough to supplement the shrieks that were heard whenever South Korea got into the Nigerian half of the pitch.

Go on, sonny, put some effort in.

Korea’s new wing back formation worked pretty well with Choi Hyo Jin  in particular getting forward at every opportunity and after a quarter of an hour Korea were in front with a very well taken goal from Yoon Bitgarem. Fifteen minutes later and it was time for retiring goalie Lee Won Jae to depart to get showered and changed for his half time retirement ceremony. Unfortunately for him, as his replacement stood waiting to come on Nigeria scored from a set piece and his last act as a player was to pick the ball out of the net. The applause as he left the field was a little muted, perhaps a consequence of the unfortunate timing as much as anything.

Lee being subbed so that he can smarten himself up for his half time presentation.

A few minutes before the break South Korea were back in front with the wingback Choi Hyo Jin making a well timed run to finish off a chance from a very cleverly placed through ball.

Half time brought the Lee Won Jae retirement show and we were treated to a lone trumpeter playing the Pet Shop Boys ’Go West’, a display of drumming and on the big screen a highlights reel of just about everything he’d ever done bar the late night drinking incident.

An emotional Lee, who was now looking very dapper in a suit and tie, made his way onto the pitch with his daughters, received a couple of presents, made a speech, hugged his goalkeeping successors  and finally, to great applause, bowed to all sides of the stadium.

Farewell to Mr Lee.

After all that the second half was a bit of an anti climax. There were plenty of substitutions but no more goals and South Korea finished up winning 2-1.

There were big queues for the buses so we decided to go for something to eat afterwards and let the crowds clear. We went into quite a small restaurant and as we sat down a couple of small dishes were placed on the table, a bit like tapas. Except that when I lived in Spain I didn’t ever get given silkworm pupae to eat.

I don't think that they will catch on in the UK.

I’d seen and smelt silkworm at some of the stalls in the street and managed to walk past without being tempted. Still, its different if they are put on a table in front of you and although I’d only had a couple of pints at the match I thought, why not? They tasted a bit like Oxo, although I’ve no idea if that is because of the seasoning or whether that is their natural taste. They were soft, not crunchy, but they weren’t filled with pus in the way that maggots are. Or at least they didnt seem to be. I just ate them one at a time and maybe had half a dozen in total.

Chopsticks seemed appropriate, I doubt I could have eaten a spoonful of them.

For the main course we had dotorimuk, which is made of acorn starch. I’d had this before at work and unlike the silkworm it’s a nightmare to eat with chopsticks.  It came with a variety of vegetables which were a little easier to handle.

We got more vegetables with ours.

We washed it down with dongdongju, which is a fermented rice wine, a bit like makkeoli but with more flavour and alcohol content. I hadn’t drank it before so it was yet another first for me in a night of new stuff. An hour or so later the crowds had cleared and we were able to easily get a bus back to Gangnam.

Posted in Football | 2 Comments »

LG Twins v Samsung Lions, Sunday 8th August 2010, 5pm

August 11, 2010

This one should really have been all about Messi against Lee Dong Gook, Barcelona versus the K-League Allstars. The Catalans were in town last week, playing a pre-season friendly against a team made up of K-League players selected by popular vote. Lee Dong Gook got enough votes to start up front for the Allstars which would give him another opportunity to compare his talents with Lionel Messi, currently regarded as the World’s best player and only a few weeks after their last encounter in the South Africa World Cup.

It wasn’t a full strength Barcelona team by any means, all the World Cup winning Spaniards had been left at home and as the game drew nearer it looked as if Messi wouldn’t be playing either due to a lack of match fitness. The organisers kicked up a fuss, revealing that Barcelona had a clause in their contract stipulating thirty minutes of pitch time for the Argentinian and by match day the understanding was that he would make `an appearance’. I’m not a big fan of pre-season friendlies, particularly ones featuring mainly a reserve squad, but Messi is Messi. If I’m quite happy to travel a couple of hours to see a third division game, it doesn’t make sense for me sit at home when Messi is playing in the city where I live, even if he is likely to turn out for less than half an hour.

I’d seen him live before, playing for Barcelona in the Spanish and Champions Leagues and for Argentina in that South Korea World Cup game, but you can’t really have too much of a good thing. Unless it’s raining, that is. I came out of work at ten past six to torrential rain. Even with an umbrella I was soaked within fifty yards as the rain bounced back up from the tarmac and so I decided to go home and watch the match on the telly instead. Anyway, as I said to myself as I dried off, he’s no Georgie Best.

Messi came on as a sub after half an hour, with the K-League Allstars leading 2-1 courtesy of a very well taken Lion King header. The Argentinian missed a couple of chances and scored two good goals before being withdrawn at half time after what must have been the allotted fifteen minute compromise cameo. Barcelona’s reserves rarely seemed to break out of a stroll and finished up winning by five goals to two.

So, which of these two played for the Boro?

Jeonbuk were playing on Saturday, in a table topping clash with Seoul. I wasn’t going though as I was `teambuilding’ instead. This was a works day out that consisted of an early morning start, two and a half hours on a train, then an hour and a half on a bus, lunch at a seafood restaurant, ten minutes standing on a beach, fifteen minutes on the bus again, an hour at a tea plantation, another hour and a half on the bus, half an hour riding a `railbike’, another hour and a half on a bus followed by two and a half hours on the train.

My colleague Mr Park at the tea plantation. Later we had green tea ice creams.

Bonding through adversity was the objective I think, although the occasions where we weren’t being transported from points A to Z were very enjoyable.

The Sunday football games in the K-League were all kicking off too late in the evening for me to be able to get a train back the same day and anyway, I’d had enough of looking out of a window for one weekend. I went for a bike ride down by the Han river again, three hours this time, which just about finished me off. I’m starting to get the hang of the gears and so went a fair bit faster than usual. As I didnt fall off I regarded it as a successful morning out.

In the afternoon I went back to the river, this time for a boat trip in the company of the American girl I’ve been seeing.

The view to the North. It's the direction that the missiles will come from.

The trip was a very pleasant way to spend an hour or so, watching the waterskiers and people paddling about on surfboards. They had some pedaloes on the other side of the river, the ones that are shaped as swans, which looked like something that might be worth a future visit. One of the best things though was that the boat jetty was right next to the Jamsil Stadium Complex. That’s the one with the Olympic Stadium and amongst others, the Jamsil baseball stadium. As the boat trip finished at four thirty, it made perfect sense for us to pop along and watch the game between the LG Twins and the Samsung Lions.

The Olympic and Baseball stadiums. How convenient.

There were queues at the ticket office and so when we were approached by a tout I was quite happy to take a couple of tickets off his hands. He asked for twenty thousand won for two seats in the outfield, which is the bit furthest away from the action. I’ve never been in that part of the stadium so thought it might make an interesting change, but as the game had already started and I could buy tickets from the ticket office for six thousand won apiece, I certainly wasn’t going to pay over the odds. I offered him face value, which he accepted and then due to a bit of arseing around with the money he ended up with fourteen thousand. It didn’t seem worth arguing over a quid.

The seats in the outfield give you a great overall view of the stadium and made me wish that my camera could take wide angle pictures so that I could fit it all in. Actually, it has since occurred to me that it probably does take wide angle photos, it’s just that I’ve never done much more than use the automatic settings. Our seats were a little too far from the action though and next time I think I’d go back into the main stand. Still, like the boat trip, it was a very pleasurable way to idle away some time on a hot summers day.

It was wider than this.

Jen knows her baseball which is a bit of a bonus, and so I was pleased to be able to have someone to quiz on the bits that I hadn’t quite worked out. She has watched a fair amount of Major League Baseball in America and wasn’t overly impressed with the standard of the Korean League, particularly the amount of balls being hit behind. She was also a bit surprised at the way the fans supported their teams too. In America, you make a bit of noise to put the other team off. The inflatable sticks that the Koreans wave and bang together as part of their songs would be used at the likes of basketball games to try and distract the opposition at free throws. She was impressed though with the way that the losing LG Twins supporters continued to back their team all the way through the match, regardless of the score. In America, the fans demand success and a losing team would get the same sort of barracking that the Boro get these days whenever we aren’t a goal up within the first twenty minutes.

Samsung Lions, as you might expect from a team currently in second place in the standings, were always on top and finished up 8-3 winners. The defeat moved the LG Twins down in to sixth place and outside of the playoffs. With the season drawing to a close that’s not the position to be in unless you are looking forward to your holidays.

And whilst all this was going on, Jeonbuk Motors were playing at home to league leaders FC Seoul. Lee Dong Gook was suspended for that elbow in the chops last week but a goal from the Brazilian Eninho was enough to give the Lion King’s team the win and to move Jeonbuk ahead of Seoul. Jeonbuk were denied top spot though as former leaders Jeju United won 4-0 to regain pole position on goal difference. 

The crowd at Jeonbuk was listed as being over thirty thousand, but I’d expect it to have been more like twenty. It’s still a large turnout for this league though and probably not too dissimilar from the attendance at the baseball. Next week Jeonbuk travel to Changwon to take on third placed Gyeongnam who like Jeju and Jeonbuk are also on thirty one points. Before that though, it’s international week with Nigeria providing the opposition for South Korea. They don’t have anyone thats quite the standard of Messi, but I’ll pop along anyway.

Posted in Baseball | 3 Comments »

SK Wyverns v KIA Tigers, Sunday 1st August 2010, 5pm

August 9, 2010

I’d walked past the SK Wyverns baseball stadium at Munhak not long after I’d arrived in Korea, whilst on my way to an Incheon Korail game, but five months on I still hadn’t managed to get back there to see a game. The regular baseball season finishes this month so I thought I’d better make the effort to get there before it’s all over until next year.

I’d got back from my trip to Jeonju to see Jeonbuk Motors at around Sunday lunchtime and as the baseball game didn’t start until 5pm, I had a bit of spare time. Enough spare time to be able to ride down to the river on my bike. Sunday, as you would expect, is a much quieter day in Seoul than the other days of the week and so it was easy enough to cycle the twenty minutes or so from my apartment to the River Han. Streets that would normally be full of traffic and pedestrians are certainly a lot easier to negotiate on a Sunday lunchtime. Even so, I still spent most of my time riding on the pavements. Everyone does that over here, including the motorcyclists. Whether it’s kids on scooters or pizza delivery men, they all just ride on the pavement, venturing on to the road only when they want to use a pedestrian crossing or when the pavement is blocked by parked cars, fortune tellers, street vendors selling golf balls or sports socks and old blokes who have peaked too early on the soju and are sleeping it off.

Riding alongside the River Han is a lot simpler, there are dedicated cycled tracks along both banks and with very few uphill sections it’s easy to get into a bit of a rhythm. There’s usually something new to see as well, the on-going programme to install sporting equipment into just about every available space is progressing well and this time I noticed what I assume will be a temporary swimming area for the summer. Mind you, I don’t think there will have been much actual swimming going on. The place was full of families having a day out and the swimming pool had so many kids in it that it was strictly standing room only. There were that many of them packed together that I couldn’t be entirely certain that there was actually any water in there with them.

River Han

I rode westwards along the south side of the river for about half an hour before turning back. I knew the subway trip to Incheon would take a while and so I didn’t really want to be out on my bike for longer than about ninety minutes. Finding my way back to my apartment wasn’t as easy as you might think it would be. Firstly I have an absolutely terrible sense of direction and secondly, I can’t resist taking short cuts. Of course, if the short cut takes me off course, I can never quite seem to compensate properly and get back on route. Twenty minutes after leaving the riverbank I should really have been just about home. I wasn’t of course, but instead I found myself at a subway station that I recognised as one that I often visit for a haircut and which is at least a half hours walk away from where I live. Still, at least I know my way back from there.

When I first came out here I had long hair, it was dyed brown as I reckon that long grey hair makes you look as if you are one step away from sleeping in the gutter. With my dress sense I can’t afford to have too many other tramp like qualities, not if I want to get into bars and restaurants, that is. Unfortunately, the long brown hair was too much trouble to persevere with. If I cant express myself well enough to a taxi driver to have him take me to a landmark feature like a World Cup Stadium, there’s no way I could have explained to a hairdresser exactly what I wanted. So, to the disappointment of my colleagues, I had it all shaved off. I think that quite a few of them failed to recognise me at first and probably assumed that long haired waster who had previously sat at my desk had been sussed out and fired.

I tend now to visit the same barbers every three weeks or so, the one in the subway. It’s staffed by three Korean women who speak very little English, although they have managed to establish my age, job and whether or not I have a wife. As I already know what their jobs are and have little interest in how old they are or whether they have a husband, the conversations tend to be a bit one sided. I was in there last week for a number five cut, which is about the equivalent of a number three in England. I asked for a number three the first time I went in there and it was so closely cropped that my head squeaked when I rubbed it. So by trial and error, I’m now settled at a Korean number five.

The bloke in the chair before me wasn’t even getting his hair cut, he had just popped in to tell them his age and marital status before having his head massaged with an electrical contraption about the size of a house brick. I think I’d last seen something like it in a Victoriana museum, next to the stuffed kittens dressed up as a wedding party.  It was explained that in the olden days doctors used the brick-like vibrating device to cure `hysteria’ in their female patients. These days though it is apparently used to stimulate hair growth. An ideal piece of kit, I suppose, for a barber wanting to increase trade. The hairdresser pressed it against the head of the man ahead of me in the chair and vibrated his skull until I was convinced that his eyeballs would soon be hanging by their optic nerves, somewhere level with his chin.

You thought I'd made this up, didn't you?

One other notable item in the barbers is the machine where you pay. Instead of just giving your six thousand won (about three quid) to one of the women, you are supposed to feed it into a machine. As a foreigner, I’m not expected to be capable of carrying out this task and so I give my money to my hairdresser, she feeds it in to the machine for me and then when no change comes out she gets a key, opens up the front panel and manually extracts my change from inside. It all seems a little pointless and strikes me as not much more advanced than when we were in junior school and built a computer which consisted of a large cardboard box with one of the cleverer kids sat inside. You would write `6 + 3’ on a piece of paper, post it through the letterbox and he or she would return the answer in no more time than it took to find the bit of card with `9’ written on it. It was cutting edge technology in 1974.

I left my apartment for the baseball just after three o’clock. I’d remembered that last time I’d been to Incheon it had taken me an hour and a half to get there and so this should have been sufficient for a five o’clock start. As you might have guessed though, if you have been reading this stuff for a while, it wasn’t enough. One of the subway lines that I had to use went to more than one destination. Not just right or left, but different locations in the same direction. I wasn’t paying attention, got on the wrong train and by the time I’d retraced my steps and got to Munhak, I’d spent two hours, twenty minutes on the subway. To put that into perspective, thats about the same time that it takes to reach the far south of Korea on the KTX express train.

Wyverns fans at first base, Tigers at third.

Fortunately baseball games last for a long time and getting in to the stadium half an hour late wasn’t much of a hardship. I bought a ticket from a tout outside for face value, saving me a trip to the ticket office and ridding him of a ticket that I’m pretty sure that he thought he would have been stuck with.  I was very impressed with the Munhak Stadium, it has a capacity of 28,500 and for today’s visit of Kia Tigers it was near enough full, with some people even sitting in the aisles. I was allowed to go just about anywhere for my 7,000 won ticket, except for the really posh area behind the batsman. If I’d got there early enough I could have had a barbecue as there was an area dedicated to those who wished to cook their own food.

Barbecue area.

They also had standing areas, smoking areas and for those who like to stretch out a bit, they had a grassy section where people were having picnics, pitching tents or just sleeping in the late afternoon sun.

Munhak, better than Wigan.

A couple of years ago I went to watch LA Galaxy and they had a similar grassed area as the the upper tier behind one of the goals. It was a lot less crowded than today at Munhak, but the same principle and a pleasant way to stretch out and watch a bit of sport in the sunshine.

Los Angeles, better than Wigan too.

I can remember going to Wigan back in 1986 with the Boro and standing on what would have been a grassy bank behind the goal if the weather had been a bit better. Instead, on a day memorable for us seeing the floodlights of a stadium and nipping into a nearby pub only to emerge at ten to three to find ourselves outside the rugby league ground, we watched the game on that occasion from a mud heap behind the goal. No picnics, tents or barbecues back then.

I watched the baseball from a variety of vantage points, trying out the different parts of the stadium. Confusingly, the SK Wyverns fans waved red inflatable sticks, the colour worn by the KIA Tiger’s players. The SK Wyverns players wore white, whilst the KIA Tiger’s fans brandished yellow sticks. I soon got used to it though.

SK Wyverns fans

SK are top of the league with KIA down in sixth place. If SK can maintain their position until the end of the season it will give them an automatic place in the play-off final, a sort of Korean World Series. As for KIA Tigers, they would have to move up to fifth place to qualify for the post-season games and then play the team that finishes fourth. The winner of fourth vs fifth then plays the third placed team and so on. League position seemed to be counting for little though as KIA Tigers had taken an early lead by the time I arrived, a couple of home runs within the space of five minutes later in the game took them out of reach of SK Wyverns and gave the away supporters cause for celebration. 

After two home runs in a row.

As the game drew to a close at eight o’clock the visiting KIA Tigers led 7-0, which must have been quite a surprise for the table-topping Wyverns. 

Final score.

I got myself a tray of deep fried pork dumplings on the way out which were well worth the undoubted clogging of my arteries and they were certainly a lot easier to eat than the dried squid I’d had the previous evening. Fortunately I managed to select the right trains on the way back and by resisting the urge to attempt any short cuts I was back in my apartment no more than an hour and a half after leaving the stadium.

Posted in Baseball, Haircuts | 5 Comments »

Jeonbuk Motors v Busan l’Park, Saturday 31st July 2010, 7pm

August 5, 2010

This was meant to be one of those days where I managed to see two matches, but it turned out to be just one of those days.

I’d watched Jeonbuk’s last two league games, away at Daejeon and Gangwon, and whilst I’m enjoying following their season I really want to get around as many different places as possible. I’d already been to their home town of Jeonju, so I hadn’t really considered going to see them for a third week running. Not until I saw that the K3 team Jeonju EM were at home to Seoul Martyrs in the afternoon.. That meant that I could go along to Jeonju for the third division game, see a new ground and then treat a trip to the World Cup Stadium for the Jeonbuk Motors fixture in the evening as a bit of a bonus. Does that need for justification sound a bit geeky? It does to me too, but it’s the way my mind works these days.

After the success of the bus trip to Gangwon last week, I opted to travel by road again and made my way down to the Express Bus Terminal at about ten o’clock. It was a bit of an arse on to be honest, involving queueing for a ticket in a hot building only to be told that the Jeonju buses went from a different terminal, which was described to me as `outside’. Well I went outside and I couldn’t see it. It turns out that the buses for Jeonju depart from the Central City terminal which is cunningly concealed inside a shopping arcade across the road.

There was a ticket window helpfully marked `Jeonju’, but somewhat less helpfully it was shut. I then joined a queue for an automated ticket machine, only to get to the front  and discover that it was solely for collecting pre-booked tickets. After asking for a bit of help at the information desk I managed to buy a ticket to Jeonju for 17,000 won. Whilst the buses seemed to depart every five or ten minutes, it must have been a popular destination as the first seat I could get was in thirty five minutes time on the 11.05am bus. This was scheduled to get me into Jeonju for 1.55pm, just over an hour befor kick off in the first game.

This is where you buy your bus ticket.

The bus was described as luxury and I was pretty impressed. It had a two and one seating configuration and I got a single, wide, reclining seat with plenty of leg room. What wasn’t quite so impressive was the time it took to get to Jeonju. At 1.40pm we pulled off the motorway, not because we had arrived, but because we were making a stop at the services.

One of these was my bus.

We finally arrived at Jeonju just after half past three, over an hour and a half late and with no prospect of me getting to the Jeonju EM game until into the second half. I decided to give it a miss. Looking on the bright side it would give me an opportunity to justify to myself a further visit to Jeonju.

I managed to get a couple of English maps of the area from a very surly girl in the tourist information office who clearly resented having to give them away and then went to check into a hotel near to the bus station. If I tell you that I had a choice of paying 15,000 won for a room for an hour or 35,000 won for the night, that should give you an idea of the sort of hotel it was.

My hotel.

The manager showed me to the room and as I’ve learnt to do here I removed my shoes before entering. There were a pair of flip flops at the door and I put them on. He quickly told me to take them off again, so I did and just walked around in my bare feet. It was only as he left and put the flip flops on himself that I realised that I’d stepped into the footwear that he had removed himself as we’d gone into the room.

The room was clean, although eccentrically decorated and complete with a big flatscreen tv, air conditioning, a fan, fridge and what looked like two judo suits hanging by the window. Ideal for those couples with a wrestling fetish, I imagine. It also had a condom machine on the wall, perhaps for guests who are too shy to buy their condoms in public. For those of you who believe in attention to detail, it was a thousand won for a pack of two, one ribbed, one plain.

I suppose the wallpaper is ok if you are only staying for an hour.

It was about time to get something to eat before the match and as Jeonju is famous for its bibimbap, thats what I got. Its basically a bowl of boiled rice that you mix up with a few other vegetables, mushrooms, beansprouts, that sort of thing, a bit of red pepper paste and a fried egg. A few side dishes came with it, kimchi, green beans in garlic, noisettes of spam and some gherkins. Not bad for six thousand won.

Full up, I stopped at a 7-Eleven, picked up a couple of cans of Asahi and got into a taxi. The driver didnt understand `World Cup Stadium’, so I showed him a photo of it on the map that I’d earlier managed to prise from the grip of the surly tourist information girl. `Ah’ he said, `World-uh Cup Stadium’. I obviously need to work on my pronounciation.

Note the greeter, below a slightly oversized banner of Lee Dong Gook.

It was fairly quiet outside the ground as I drank my cans, although there was over an hour to go to kick-off and I got a ticket for the East Stand, opposite the tunnel, for 10,000 won. I could have sat behind the goal like last time I was here for less, but I fancied a change. It was as well I had eaten, as apart from crisps and pot noodles, just about the only thing you could get were squid.

Six sick squid for six quid. Or something like that.

They are dried and you have to warm them up yourself on a little camping stove.

Someone warming his squid.

I got a couple of beers and went into the stand to watch the highlights of previous matches on the big screens before the teams were announced. Lee Dong Gook was starting but the Croatian lad who had come on as a sub last week and made such an impact was back on the bench.

Jeonbuk, wearing green shirts and black shorts to Busan’s white shirts and red shorts, took the lead after five minutes, with their centre half, Sim Woo Yeon, scoring from a header after a free kick into the box. Jeonbuk were playing with just Lee Dong Gook up front of a midfield five, but he seemed to have a bit more support than he had received the previous week at Gangwon.

Gooaaal, 1-0 Jeonbuk.

Eighteen minutes into the game and that was it for the Lion King. Wengeresquely, I didn’t see the challenge, but the linesman flagged and advised the ref that Lee Dong Gook had elbowed a Busan defender in the chops. He disputed the red card, as you would, but was soon back in the dressing room. Brilliant, I travel for four and a half hours to get here and he lasts less than twenty minutes. The Busan defender was temporarily removed to have his head re-assembled on one of those little golf cart stretcher things.

Don't mess with the Lion King.

Seeing someone driving on the pitch reminded me of a Sunday League game I played in that also featured a sending off. Back then, the lad  had also struggled to accept the decision and rather than simply getting changed, he returned in fury in his car, driving across the pitch and aiming for the bloke he had tangled with, the ref and anyone else that caught his eye. I was safely down the other end in goal, and as I was as likely to catch his eye as I was any well placed shots, I could watch with a certain detached amusement. Disappointingly, Lee Dong Gook took his sending off with slightly better grace so we were spared the wheel spins and the tyre marks.

Jeonbuk reorganised into a sort of strikerless 4-1-4-0 formation that just invited the pressure from Busan and a few minutes before the break they equalised. After a quick half time beer, I was feeling a bit peckish so I waivered and got a squid, with another couple of beers for the second half. I missed the restart as I gave the mollusc a quick blast on the camping stove. It was a fine balance between warming it up and setting it on fire, a balance that I wasn’t entirely successful with.

Just a little bit on fire.

I’m not sure if heating it was intended to soften it a bit, but it didn’t and it was like eating shoes. I discovered that the best technique was to leave a piece in my mouth for a while to soften it before chewing. It did take my most of the second half to work my way through it though.

The game looked to be heading towards a draw until in injury time Jeonbuk sub Kang Seung Jo nipped in with a goal. The Jeonbuk fans must be starting to expect injury time winners these days. After the final whistle I struggled to get a taxi so hung around for a bit outside the ground and had a couple more beers at a food stall whilst chatting to some Jeonbuk fans.

No squid.

They were understandably pleased with the victory that took them up to second place in the table, two points behind new leaders Seoul who had beaten that morning’s front runner Jeju United. Next week Seoul visit Jeonbuk in a game that could see Jeonbuk move into the top spot. I expect Lee Dong Gook will be suspended for impersonating Dean Ashton and if I go I’ll be taking the train.

Posted in Elbow in the chops, Football | 2 Comments »

Doosan Bears v Hanwha Eagles, Fri 30th July 2010, 6.30pm

August 3, 2010

This one was a bit of a last minute decision. I didn’t have anything arranged for Friday evening and as I was walking out of work I thought, yeah, why not? Fortunately, my apartment is only two or three minutes walk from my office and I quickly got changed, travelled the three stops on the subway and was outside the Jamsil Stadium for five past seven, thirty five minutes after kick off. That doesn’t sound right. Thirty five minutes after the first pitch is better, I suppose.

I’d had a few stares from people on the subway and realised it was my tee shirt that was interesting them. It was a British Sea Power one and it didn’t look like many of those doing the gawping were familiar with the band. I suspect that most thought it had some sort of nautical or military theme, although why some old bloke would be wearing it would probably have baffled them. They’ve had a bit of trouble with their Navy lately, so perhaps any mention of sea power is a little bit tactless. Mind you, the number of tee shirts that you see over here with complete nonsense written on them in English is incredible. I think the designers just select a headline from the newspapers and change a word or two so that a phrase that made no sense due to being out of context becomes doubly irrelevant by making no sense in any context. I suppose then that British Sea Power probably wasnt too much out of the ordinary after all.

Once at the stadium I dodged the blokes outside selling off their remaining boxes of fried chicken. I hadn’t had my tea, but wasn’t entirely convinced that the chicken would be at its best after at least an hour of being touted about outside the ground in eighty degree temperatures.

Despite the game having already started there were still a few people queueing at the ticket office. I got my usual eight thousand won ticket (thats just over four quid), for high up above first base. This is the area where the home fans sit, whilst the away fans tend to take third base. Mind you, I move around that much during the game it doesnt really matter where I get a ticket for.

I hadn’t even checked which teams were playing before I set out. The Jamsil stadium is shared by the Doosan Bears and the LG Twins, so there is pretty much a game every night of the week except Monday, which is the day off in Korean baseball. Tonight it was the turn of the Doosan Bears and they were playing the team from Daejeon, Hanwha Eagles. I’d been at one of the reverse fixtures the previous month and Hanwha had ran out fairly easy winners. Despite the previous score, it’s Doosan who have done the better of the teams this season and with not long to go to the play-offs they are currently third out of the eight teams in the league. Hanwha aren’t doing quite so well in seventh. The top five (I think) make the play-offs but I’ve no idea if Doosan are safely in there yet or whether Hanwha still have a chance of moving up to fifth.

There wasn’t a very big crowd at all, the lowest I think I’ve seen here, with the stadium less that half full. The visitors were already leading 4-0 as I took my seat and cracked open a can of Max. I’d missed the first innings and Hanwha’s second. Not that it makes a lot of difference to my enjoyment. Each team gets nine innings in total, so there was still plenty to see.

The early Hanwha runs were at odds to the rest of the game, where the pitchers had the most success, both sides rattling through their innings at a fair pace. By the time I’d finished my third can, we were already into the seventh innings and it wasn’t even half past eight. The crowd had swelled a bit as the evening progressed, it’s cheap enough to just drop in halfway through a game and still feel like you are getting value for money. I didnt recognise many of the songs but a little oddly, Doosan sang along in English to Modern Romance’s Best Years Of Our Lives, whilst Hanwha had a song that pinched the tune from Karma Chameleon. I felt like I’d walked into one of those Eighties nostalgia tours.

Not long after nine o’clock it was all over, I’d seen two runs in two hours of baseball with the visitors holding on for a 4-2 win. As I came out of the stadium the Hanwha players were already boarding their bus for the hours journey south, still in their kit. And the blokes I’d passed on the way in had just about got rid of their remaining chicken.

Posted in Baseball | 1 Comment »

FC Seoul v Suwon Bluewings, Wednesday 28th July 2010, 8pm

August 2, 2010

The Korean League Cup had reached its semi final stage and my local team Seoul FC were still in it with a home tie against Suwon Bluewings. Jeonbuk were in the other semi and as they are also still in the FA cup, Champions League and in contention for the league, it could turn out to be quite some season for Lee Dong Gook’s team.

The 8pm kick off meant that if I got away from work reasonably promptly then it was quite possible for me to get there in time for the kick off.

The issue of what time to leave work is an interesting one over here. The culture is for people to be seen to be working long hours and whilst the official finishing time is 6pm, almost everyone is still at their desks a lot later. I tend to leave at about quarter past six, the fifteen minutes being my nod towards the Korean way. Thats a bit like the Pennine Way but with musical bogs rather than peat ones. On the rare occasion when I’ve still been in the office after seven, very few other people have left for home and it is more usual for them to be still at their desks beyond 9pm. Mind you, the productivity isn’t great. Once you consider the cigarette breaks, the trip to the canteen and the surfing of the internet, there isn’t much time left for meaningful work. But the important thing in corporate Korea is to be seen to be there.

I’m lucky. I dont have to play that game. I’m not a long term staff man and when this project finishes I’ll just move on like The Littlest Hobo. Albeit hopefully with fewer fleas. For those keen to advance their careers though, the way forward is long days with little time available for families or League Cup semi finals.

I’ve actually no idea how important a trophy the league cup is seen as over here. In recent years the English version has had a bit of a resurgence as the demanding owners of the big four seek some silverware in return for their investment. As a Boro fan, it’s obviously a big deal. If you discount the Anglo-Scottish Cup where we beat those well known Highlanders Fulham in the mid seventies, it’s the only thing we have ever won. I remember listening on the radio to us losing to Man City in the semis thirty odd years ago and the home semi final against Liverpool in 1998 where we overturned a first leg deficit in the first few minutes is probably the best atmosphere the Riverside has ever seen.

Marco Branca - As debuts go, that was some debut...

I wasn’t expecting anything like that at the Seoul v Suwon game, despite it being a derby of sorts. There isnt the same passionfor football here beyond the small number of hardcore fans.

Anyway, I got out of work as quickly as I could and got the subway up to the stadium. Early evening is probably the worst time to travel on the tube here as the trains are packed full of commuters looking to get home. It’s hard to imagine anywhere being warmer than the Seoul streets in July, except perhaps for the Seoul streets in August, but the subway in the evening manages to crank the temperature up another notch or two.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the best place to be in Korea in the summer is in a cave. I’d visited one last Sunday after my trip over to Gangneung for the Jeonbuk match and it was fantastic to walk into a place where the temperature suddenly dropped thirty degrees or so. It was like stepping out of a sauna and into a fridge. I’d got a couple of buses from Gangneung to the Hwanseon Cave and then had a bit of a trek up to the entrance.

This was one of the buses that I took.

I did cheat a little by using the monorail for part of the way, but even so, it was still a decent uphill walk. What was interesting though, was the way in which the temperature changed in the space of a couple of yards around the entrance to the cave. If you took a step forward, it got cold, take a step back and the air was noticably hotter. I couldn’t resist bobbing backwards and forwards, hot,cold,hot,cold. I couldn’t do it for long because people started staring and pointing so I settled for cold and went inside.

To be honest there wasn’t much to see inside the cave. There was a walkway of over a kilometre, but no real notable features. I’ve seen much more interesting rock formations in other caves I’ve been to, but that didn’t matter. It was cold and that was enough. Every now and again a section of the cave would be given a name for no good reason, `Valley of Hell’ or `Palace of Dreams’ or something and a perfectly normal rock would have a sign telling you that it looked like a lion or a dragon. They didn’t really though. One rock was supposed to resemble the Virgin Mary. All I can say is that it’s no wonder she couldn’t get laid.

As I approached the exit I slowed down, eager to prolong my time in the cold and damp tunnel, but all too quickly I was back outside in the warm air. Quite why subways cant be modelled on caves is something I’ve been wondering a lot since then. In fact, quite how people were ever enticed out of caves into apartments in the first place has been weighing heavily on my mind too.

Still, I survived the hot subway journey to the match and got to the World Cup Stadium about twenty minutes before kick off. I was meeting a fellow Teessider, Alan, and to save a bit of time he had already sorted the tickets out for behind the goal in the main Seoul section.

There was a reasonable crowd by Korean standards, perhaps ten to fifteen thousand, helped by a decent turnout from local rivals Suwon, although I suppose that you could say that was a low turnout when you consider that it was a semi final.

One of the things that caught my attention was the number of officials. In addition to the referee and his linesmen, we had a couple of those goal line fellas too. I don’t think I’ve been to a live game where this experiment has been going on before, so I kept my eye on them. They were dressed the same as the other officials, unlike the ones I saw on the telly wearing tracky bottoms at a Europa League game last season. Just as an aside, how weird is that? UEFA’s second most prestigious club football competition named after a Middlesbrough Parmo House. We’ll be seeing the top four qualify for the Club Bongo League next. I know this will appear as total gibberish to any of you who aren’t from Teesside, although if it helps I suspect that it’s probably just as incomprehensible to a lot of the people from Teesside too.   

The extra officials didn’t have flags and didn’t appear to be connected by microphone to the ref. Probably just as well really, there are a few refs that I’m sure hear too many voices in their heads to begin with, so I doubt an extra couple would be particularly welcome. The goal line blokes didn’t do a lot. If someone went down in the box, they didnt make any signal whatsover. Not even to confirm to the ref that it was a fair challenge. An hour had gone before I saw one give a bit of guidance over whether it was a goal kick or a corner. They looked a bit lost really. I’d have given them flags and allowed them to point theatrically for corners and goal kicks, just to let them feel involved. All they seemed to do was write the bookings and the substitutions down. There weren’t many yellow cards, but with each team using the full League Cup allocation of five substitutes, it kept them a bit busier than they would have been. The fourth official, or the sixth official as I suppose he must be now, was very involved though. He stood by the edge of the pitch all the way through, shouting instructions like a Dad at a kids game and at any free kick near him he would intervene to ensure that the defending team were the full ten yards back.

The other thing I noticed were the vuvuzelas. At Gangwon last week there were two blokes with horns in the Jeonbuk end. Blowing horns that is, not wearing them on their heads. Although after ten minutes of listening to the horn blowing it wouldn’t have surprised me if each of them did have a couple sprouting from their skulls. Ive come to the conclusion that two horns are fine on a cow but are maddening at a football match. It just doesn’t work. They aren’t blown to lead a chant like an air horn would be, they are just blown to draw attention to the prick blowing them and to annoy anyone within ten yards. At South Africa it worked because the thousands of horns conbined to create a humming sound that small numbers of horns just cant do.

Seoul seemed to be encouraging the use of the vuvuzelas, selling them at the ground and then every now and then, usually at a Suwon set piece, the big screen would display a message exorting the faithful to blow their horns. It worked pretty well however, not by South African standards, but with enough horns to create a bit of racket and to fire up the rest of the crowd.

Dejan Damjanovic opened the scoring for Seoul in the second half, prompting official fireworks to be set off behind the goal almost before the ball had hit the back of the net. The Seoul fans then let off fireworks of their own, some of them those repeater types that send a new one up every two or three seconds. I love the smell of fireworks, I’d make them compulsory at all matches.

The lead didnt last long and within fifteen minutes Suwon had scored twice and looked to be heading towards the final before an equaliser from Lee Seung Ryal eight minutes from time set off a second wave of Seoul fireworks and took the game to extra time. Another goal apiece from Damjanovic and Lee Seung Ryal finished Suwon off and with the flares supplementing the fireworks, Seoul were through to the final.

In the other tie Jeonbuk beat Gyeongnam 2-1, with Lee Dong Gook getting the opener, his fifteenth goal of the season. A better record in the group stages earned Jeonbuk the right to stage the final on Wednesday 25th August. A shame really because if it had been in Seoul I would have been able to get to it. Whilst I’m usually the first to leave the office, I’d have to be sneaking out mid afternoon to get to that one.

Posted in Football, Hiking | Leave a Comment »

Gangwon FC v Jeonbuk Motors, Saturday 24th July 2010, 7pm

July 26, 2010

After last weeks away win for Jeonbuk at Daejeon Citizen I thought I’d go along to see them again, this time at second from bottom Gangwon. Gangwon play over on the east coast and because of the mountain ranges between there and Seoul it isn’t really feasible to go by train. There isn’t a direct route and the journey would take about six and a half hours. Fortunately there is a fantastic bus network in Korea and so I decided to travel by road for a change.

There’s a silver lining to most things and the same mountains that were causing problems for the trains meant that I had a chance to combine a bit of walking with the match. The game didnt kick off until 7pm on the Saturday, so if I got up early enough I would be able to nip up a hill or two before the game. And thats what I did.

When my alarm went off at 5am, I felt like I’d just gone to bed. Which is probably because I had. Still, I’m not too bad at getting up early in the morning and by quarter to six I was at the subway. It wasn’t quite fully light at that time and in the area around my apartment there were still people who weren’t prepared to call it a night sat at the tables of the street vendors, finishing off their soju. The subway was surprisingly busy with a mixture of people who had finally decided to head for home mingling with those who were on their way out to work. There were plenty of people in hiking gear too, looking to get an early start on the hills before the crowds arrived.

My bus left from Dong Seoul Terminal at half past six for the two and a quarter hour journey to Jinbu. It was only 11,900 won, about six quid, and the bus was about half full. As we headed east the rain started to fall and I looked out of the bus window wondering about the wisdom of leaving my waterproof trousers at home. On the face of it, it did seem a little bit stupid. I was hiking up a 1500m high mountain in the middle of the rainy season, so I suppose waterproofs would be on most peoples lists of things to pack. Thing was though, the fact that I was doing a bigger mountain than normal and that I would have to carry not only my hiking stuff, but also all my gear for the rest of the weekend too, meant that I was trying to be ruthless in what I took with me. In the end I left them out and gambled that in the event of rain my normal trousers would dry out quickly in the heat.

I arrived at Jinbu at a quarter to nine. There were connecting buses to the start of the hiking trail at Sangwonsa in the Odaesan National Park, but they didnt leave for another hour. If I waited at the bus station for an hour, it would cut down the amount of time that I would have to get up and down the mountain and then make my way the thirty miles or so to Gangneung for the match. I decided to save the time and got a taxi. It took half an hours driving through the National Park to get there, with quite a significant height gain as we did so. In fact, the temple where I got out was at almost 500m, so my 1563m peak was made a whole lot easier at a stroke.

Apparently there was a big bell at Sangwonsa Temple, a thousand years old and pretty famous. I didnt see it though. Not that I was too bothered. I’d seen the bell at Suwon a couple of months ago and you were allowed to ring that one. Just looking at a bell didn’t seem anything like as much fun. I did see a couple of monks practising their baseball pitching. They weren’t too impressive either, spending more time running after the ball than successfully catching it. Perhaps they were dogs in a previous incarnation and had retained some of the characteristics.

I set off for Birobong peak at half past nine and reached the top, three kilometres away, two hours later. There was a temple halfway up where I stopped for a while and listened to the chanting. There were also a lot of tame stripey squirrels which were brave enough to eat peanut cookies from my hand. I don’t know if peanut cookies normally form part of their natural diet in the wild but they seemed to like them.

 The path up the hillside was well maintained, but it got quite steep towards the summit. It didnt rain, but there was a constant moisture in the air that meant I was soaked through anyway. I dont think the waterproof trousers would have made any difference if I’d brought them, the humidity was such that I was as wet from sweat as from the dampness in the air.

Because of all the trees, there wasn’t much of a view on the way up and when I got to the top the mist meant that it was no better there. I posed for a photo at the top as this is possibly the highest mountain I’ve ever walked up, even if I did get a taxi for the first third of it.

After feeding some more cookies to the squirrels I moved on to the next peak, Sangwangbong (1493m), which was about forty minutes away along an overgrown path. The route dropped down a bit more than the sixty metre height difference, so I had a fair stint of uphill stuff to contend with again. After posing for another photo at the top I headed back down in a looped route that added up to about twelve or thirteen kilometres altogether, getting back to the Sangwonsa Temple where I’d started almost five hours earlier.

 It must have been time for prayers as I couldn’t see the baseball monks anywhere. Although they could have been busy chasing cats or sniffing each others arses.

The difficulty now was that with four and a half hours to go until kick off there were no taxis to be seen and the next bus wasn’t due for a couple of hours. I stuck my thumb out and got two quick lifts that had me back at Jinbu bus station in not much more time than it had taken me to do the reverse journey in the taxi that morning. I hadn’t hitched for years, I used to do it all the time as a kid, Boro games, trips to the Lakes, back and forward to college in London and holidays in France, but it’s something you tend to grow out of. Still, if I can visit DVD rooms and fall off a bike at my age, I can stick out a thumb when I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I got a bus from Jinbu to Gangneung and checked into a hotel across the road from the station. Unlike last weeks place, this one didnt have any horses above the door, but it was smart enough and with an hour to go to kick off I got a taxi to the ground.

 Actually I got a taxi to just about every football ground in Gangneung. I’d taken the precaution of asking the lady in the Tourist Information Office to write down the name of the stadium in Korean for me as I didn’t want the same arse crackery as I’d had trying to get a taxi to the Seoul Martyrs ground a couple of weeks earlier. Unfortunately she had written down the name of a stadium that Gangwon had occasionally played at but, as you might have guessed, weren’t playing at that evening. Not to worry, the taxi driver told me that he knew where the other stadium was and he confidently took me to a couple of artificial pitches belonging to a school up in the hills on the outskirts of town. Now I’ve never seen Gangwon’s stadium before, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t it either. Third time lucky, he dropped me at the real place twenty minutes before kick off with a big grin and a generous reduction on the metered fare.

I got a six thousand won ticket for the Jeonbuk end, which was the South stand behind the goal. The stadium was bowl shaped, with a roof on the West stand only and with a running track around the pitch. There only seemed to be about four thousand people in the stadium, with Jeonbuk contributing perhaps about a hundred or so. Gangwon were in orange shirts with white shorts, Jeonbuk in their away strip of all white with green trim.

The pitch was heavily waterlogged, particularly towards the edges, and you could see the water splashing up as the players ran through the worst parts. The referee, possibly regretting leaving his waterproof trousers at home too, rarely strayed from the centre of the pitch. Perhaps he feared getting his boots wet, or even drowning.

Gangwon started the better of the two teams, missing a good chance in the first few minutes. Jeonbuk had left out Krunoslav Lovrek and were playing Lee Dong Gook up front by himself where he did well enough winning free kicks but it wasn’t a formation that looked like producing a goal.

Towards the end of the first half Kim Young Hoo scored a direct free kick for Gangwon from about thirty yards, rocketing it in off the underside of the bar. Not long after the restart for the second half, Lee Chang Hoon got Gangwon’s second when he finished well after cutting inside from the left.

Jeonbuk made a change a few minutes later, bringing on Krunoslav Lovrek and switching to 4-4-2. It almost paid immediate dividends as the Croat sub got clear on goal and tried to play in Luiz Henrique when it would have been easier to score. Lovrek was combining well with Lee Dong Gook who set him up for a shot that the keeper did well to turn around the post.

The breakthrough for Jeonbuk almost came after seventy three minutes when they had a goal disallowed for offside. It didnt matter though as a couple of minutes later Henrique played a great ball out to his fellow Brazilian Enhino, whose cross was tapped in by Lovrek. A few minutes later Jeonbuk got their equaliser, again courtesy of the two South Americans, Henrique letting the ball run through his legs to Enhino who took it himself this time.

Both sides were pushing for a late winner and each had plenty of chances, Gangwon failing to convert a couple of quick breaks and Lee Dong Gook having a volley blocked.

A minute or two into stoppage time both Jeonbuk strikers chased after a through ball and Lovrek got the final touch, scoring a winner that had seemed unimaginable just a quarter of an hour earlier. The hundred or so Jeonbuk fans celebrated their unlikely victory with the players at the end as the Gangwon fans filed out, no doubt muttering never to return.

I got a taxi back to my hotel, calling into a nearby cafe where my technique of just pointing at someones food and gesturing that I would have the same backfired as I got a bowl of what appeared to be raw kidney soup. I made do with the rice and kimchi that came with it.

Jeonbuk’s win moved them up to fourth place in the table. Leaders Jeju United maintaining their three point lead courtesy of a similar injury time 3-2 win at Incheon. With only four points separating the top six teams at the halfway stage in the league it is promising to be an interesting second half of the season.

Posted in Football, Hiking | 2 Comments »

Daejeon Citizen v Jeonbuk Motors, Saturday 17th July 2010, 7pm

July 21, 2010

It was about time that I got along to see Lee Dong Gook play for Jeonbuk again and as they were playing at Daejeon which is only an hour away from Seoul, I had the ideal opportunity. I’d been to Daejeon last month when I’d seen the National League side Daejeon Hydro and Nuclear clinch the first stage of their league and then I’d popped into the Hanwha Eagles baseball game with the Doosan Bears. This time though, it was going to be the top division stuff, in another of the 2002 World Cup stadiums. In fact, if you can remember, it was at Daejeon where South Korea knocked Italy out in the quarter finals.

The game didnt kick off until 7pm Saturday and I’d been wondering for a few days how best to fill my weekend. I quite fancied doing a bit of hiking in the hills around Daejeon and toyed with the idea of heading down there on the Friday evening or early Saturday morning and getting my miles in before the game rather than on the Sunday. However,  I’ve recently been seeing an American girl and on Friday evening we found ourselves at a dvd bang instead.

Bang means room. So, thats another Korean word I know. Perhaps the language is slowly beginning to sink in without me realising. I can now say hello, thank you, count as far as two and I know the word for a silver fish used in the context of taking the mickey out of someone wearing a shiny suit. Not bad for nearly five months. Anyway, the dvd bang. It’s another one of those popular Korean things that I doubt would really catch on in the UK. Its just like a video shop, except after selecting your film you dont take it home, you give it to the bloke behind the counter and then you watch it in a private room. It’s a bit like the Noraebang karaoke places but without the requirement to sing quite so many Celine Dion ballads. The dvd bang  tend to be a bit smarter as well, small rooms with a big screen, big settee and a big amount of embarrassment for your schoolteacher date when she bumps into a former pupil on the way in. Apparently these places have a bit of a reputation as being somewhere for courting couples to spend an hour or two alone. Of course, as a film buff I wouldnt know anything about that sort of thing.

Saturday morning and it was pouring down in Seoul.That was a bit disappointing as I’d been planning on going for a ride on my bike. I’m aware that this is starting to sound like the blog of a fifteen year old boy, but it’s an age thats not far below the surface in most of us. I’d walked alongside the Han River a few weeks back, saw the cyclists and thinking that it might be a pleasant way to spend an afternoon I’d been to a bike shop last Sunday and got myself sorted.

The bike shop was north of the river and it took me a while to get there on the subway from my apartment in the south. My plan was to cycle to the river on my new machine, ride alongside it for a while and then head back home after about an hours pleasant meandering around. It didn’t quite go to plan, as I got lost on the way to the river and found myself heading in the wrong direction on a dual carriageway. By the time I’d found the river I was starting to feel the pace a bit. I got a bit of a second wind though and had a very enjoyable ride alongside the other cyclists, hikers, old biddies playing bowls, old blokes working out on the gym equipment and families having picnics. I passed a couple of football games where I was tempted to pull over and see if I could join in and a cafe where I stopped for a drink. It was all going pretty well until I started to  pick up the pace a bit,  my chain slipped off and my momentum hurled me sideways off my bike onto the tarmac.

Ouch. As they say.

I’d taken the skin off my elbow and given myself a few scrapes on my legs and feet. What was odd though was that nobody stopped to see if I was okay. Whilst I sat on the ground there must have been another twenty or thirty cyclists who passed by and did nothing more than generously swerve around me rather than ride straight over the top of me. I set off again a few minutes later, leaving a mixture of skin and dignity on the tarmac and rode on for about another half an hour or so before realising that if I wanted to cross the river I’d have to turn back to a bridge I’d passed before my crash. So, after about three hours of pedalling and dripping blood I eventually got back to my apartment, a little more tired and battered than I’d intended to be. Still, I’m sure it’s doing me good.

With no bike riding on the Saturday due to the rain I set off for Daejeon on the KTX train mid-afternoon and less than an hour later I was there. Fortunately the rain had stopped within about twenty minutes of me leaving Seoul.The last time I’d been in Daejeon I’d stayed in a hotel in the south east of the city, close to the station and the baseball ground. This time I decided that I would be better off in the Yusong Spa area in the north west, close to the World Cup stadium and the hills where I was planning to hike the following day. Daejeon has a subway that consists of just a single line, bless them, and I used it to make my way up to Yusong Spa. There were plenty of motels in the area around the subway station, with names ranging from the Cosy Motel to the Rich Motel. I settled on one called the Luxury Motel.

 Luxury sounds better than Cosy or Rich, and besides, it had four lifesize horses above its door.

I paid the forty thousand won (about twenty two quid) and was given my key. No forms to fill in, no credit card swipe, it’s all very easy. My room was pretty good even if luxurious was pushing it slightly. It had a bed, which I mention just because not all Korean rooms do. In a lot of places you sleep on the floor which no matter how much of a spin you put on it is an experience that I’d struggle to describe as luxurious. As well as the bed I got air conditioning, a computer, a fridge, a water cooler and a big flat screen television. A big flat screen television that turned on as I inserted my key into the slot by the door and was tuned to a porn channel.

There wasnt much of a plot but the happy couple certainly seemed to get around a bit, managing to get their kit off and snatch a moment or two of fun everywhere from a field to a shop changing room. And all without bumping into former pupils too. It was getting on a bit though so after a while I thought I’d better leave them to it and get a taxi up to the stadium.

I got to the ground about an hour before kick off and bought a ticket for ten thousand won. It looked as if you could sit wherever you liked as the ticket didnt seem to specify a particular stand. With plenty of time in hand I joined a few fans sat outside a 7-Eleven convenience store and had  a beer whilst watching a line of people trying to win a vuvuzela by scoring a penalty past an inflatable goalkeeper. I was pleased to see that not many succeeded as whilst I enjoyed the novelty that the vuvuzelas brought to the World Cup I’d rather they didnt catch on elsewhere.

As kickoff approached I took my place in the North Stand with the Jeonbuk supporters. There were probably a few hundred of them there in a crowd that I’d estimate to be about five thousand. The stadium was well designed, with no running track and steep slopes to the stands ensuring that the fans were close to the pitch. I got a couple of Hite beers to see me through the first half as the teams came out and was pleased to see that Lee Dong Gook was back in the starting eleven after his two goals as a substitute the previous week.

Jeonbuk were in their usual luminous green shirts with Daejeon in maroon. Just before kick off the Jeonbuk fans unfurled a variety of home made banners that looked like they had been made after, or perhaps during, a particularly heavy drinking session. Quite a few of the Daejeon fans were playing those little cymbals alongside their songs and so sounded a bit like a group of Buddhist monks. Even so, it’s still better than the vuvuzelas.

Jeonbuk started the better of the two teams with Lee Dong Gook twice going close in the first quarter of an hour with a volley from the edge of the box and a close range header that was very well saved. The first goal wasn’t far away for Jeonbuk though as Tae-Uk Choi beat the Daejeon keeper at his near post. Ten minutes before half time Jeonbuk made it two as Lee Dong Gook and his fellow striker Krunoslav Lovrek broke clear. Lee Dong Gook drew the keeper and generously rolled the ball across an open goal for the Croatian to tap it into an empty net. The Jeonbuk fans chanted Lee Dong Gook’s name in recognition of his unselfishness.

The game was over just before half time as in another quick break Eninho added a third for Jeonbuk to finish Daejeon off. I got another couple of Hites for the second half and as darkness fell the Jeonbuk fans made the most of one of those days when it all goes right.

 Jeonbuk had a song which I’m sure was in English and appeared to consist mainly of the words,

“Don’t forget you’re shite, don’t forget you’re shite, don’t forget you’re shite, woah woh”

Aimed at the Daejeon fans as a bit of constructive criticism on the performance of their team it seemed to make perfect sense. But then, remembering the Korean tendency to pick up every piece of their litter before leaving I did wonder if they were actually reminding each other to tidy up after themselves before going home,

“Don’t forget your shite, don’t forget your shite, don’t forget your shite, woah woh”

Jeonbuk rounded off the day with a fourth goal, a long range shot from Luiz Henrique, fifteen minutes from the end. Lee Dong Gook had a few late chances, but despite the Jeonbuk crowd willing him on to get a goal it never quite fell right for him.

 At the final whistle I got the subway back to my hotel, the four horses above the door making it easier than normal to find it

Next day I got a taxi to Sutunggol and hiked up Bingyesan and Geumsubing. The first of those two peaks was 358 metres high and it took just over an hour walking through thick forest to reach it. In fact the forest was so dense that there wasn’t much of a view, even at the top.

 I had hoped that carrying on to the next peak, Geumsubong, which was listed at 532 metres, would mean a leisurely 150 metre stroll up a ridge. It didn’t. In a snakes and ladderesque disappointment there were a series of stairways downwards off the peak that meant ten minutes after being sat on the top of Bingyesan, I was down in the valley between the two hills with it all to do again.

An hour or so later I was at the top of Geumsubing sharing Makkeoli and food with three Korean lads I’d got talking to on the way up. Unusually, they werent kitted out for hiking as seems to be almost compulsory here, but were wearing quite smart shoes and trousers. Two of them were in the Korean Army and appeared to have just decided on a whim to have a quick jaunt up a couple of hills.

On the way down we stopped at a river where, as customary, everyone removed their footwear and cooled their feet down.

At the bottom of the hill we nipped into a restaurant for some duck and what was possibly the spiciest pepper I’d had since getting here. We had a couple of kettles of makkeoli and one of the lads went through a litre of soju in about half an hour. Thats the equivalent of drinking two thirds of a bottle of vodka with your tea.

It was still early and with the makkeoli kicking in we headed back into town in their pickup truck, fortunately not driven by the soju drinker. He did come close to falling out of the door a couple of times though. We rounded the afternoon off at a billiard club where, to my relief, they agreed to play pool or ‘pocketball’ as they call it here, rather than billiards on the tables without any pockets. After a pleasant hour or so, I got the train back up to Seoul where it had eventually stopped raining.

Jeonbuk’s win had kept them in sixth place, but narrowed the gap to top of the table Jeju United to three points. Next week Jeonbuk are away to Gangwon and I think I’ll pop along to that one too.

Posted in Football, Hiking | 3 Comments »

Seoul Martyrs v Cheonan, Saturday 10th July, 5pm.

July 14, 2010

It was time for my first football match since the World Cup. If I’d wanted to I could have gone down to Jeonju to watch Jeonbuk play in a K-League game. They had got a bit behind in their fixtures due to their Asian Champions League run and so were starting up again a week before everyone else was due to resume after the break for the World Cup.

Whilst the prospect of seeing Lee Dong Gook and his mates get back on track in their championship challenge was quite appealing, I’d already been to Jeonju and so thought that I’d have a trip out to see Seoul Martyrs in the third division instead. I left the house at about half past three for the five o’clock kick off after first putting on a layer of sun cream. It’s getting pretty hot over here at the moment and now that I don’t have much hair my head seems to burn so much more easily.

I’d got a bit of an unwanted bronzing the previous Sunday when I’d spent a day rafting on the Hantan River, a couple of hours to the north east of Seoul. It was an enjoyable day in a very scenic valley, but I’d come home a lot redder than when I went out. I’d also come home with one knee bigger than the other, as whilst on one of those occasions when you get out of the boat to just drift along with the current, I’d whacked my legs on a rock hidden a couple of feet below the surface.  Still, I’m not going to complain too much as I count any day in the water as a success if I can manage not to drown. And speaking of successes, I’d doubled the number of Korean words that I know by the frequent use of  “One, Two” or “Hana, Dul” as we rowed. If the gas industry ever dips into recession I’m confident I could now make a reasonable living coxing Dragon boats.

I should really have allowed a bit more time to get to the match as I had to sit through twenty four stops on the subway before arriving at Soyu station in the north of Seoul about twenty minutes before the 5pm kickoff. I hopped into a taxi and asked the driver to take me to Gangbuk Soccer Stadium. Normally I like nothing better than putting people straight on the correct `Football v Soccer` terminology, but today I didnt have the time or the inclination to get involved and just took the easy option. Or what I thought was the easy option.. He looked at me as if my over-reddened face was due to the telephone ringing whilst I was ironing rather than the effects of the sun and he kept repeating in apparent disbelief,

“Gangbuk? Soccer Stadium?”

It was as if I’d asked him to take me to Harrods in Billingham town centre.

“Yes, Gangbuk Soccer Stadium” I confirmed.

He shook his head and started jabbering away in that aggressive way that a lot of Koreans do, even I imagine when they are reading their kids bedtime stories. I often listen to my colleagues at work talking and from the tone of their voices I am usually convinced that they are having a violent argument that will end in one of them being hurled out of the fourteenth floor window. More often than not it turns out to be nothing more sinister than one telling the other what he had eaten for lunch.

Fortunately I had the address of the stadium written down and I handed it over with a smug look on my face. He read it, shook his head again and went back to his routine of;

“Gangbuk? Soccer Stadium?”

Now I know the third division doesn’t have big crowds, but as far as I was aware I was within a couple of miles of the stadium and he was a taxi driver who makes his living driving people to places in Seoul, so it shouldn’t really have been beyond him.

Anyway, he set off, still chuntering away. I was tempted to use my newfound knowledge and give him a quick burst of “Hana, Dul, Hana, Dul” to hurry him along but on reflection felt that it might not necessarily help. A hundred yards or so later, he pulled up at a taxi rank and got out to ask for directions, taking with him my piece of paper with the address on.

A minute or two later he got back into the taxi and picked up where he left off, like an Action Man with a jammed voice cord.

“Soccer Stadium?”

“Yes, but Gangbuk Soccer Stadium” I replied, not wanting him to try and solve his dilemma by taking me to the World Cup Stadium a few miles away instead. That was enough to set him off again.

“Gangbuk? Soccer Stadium?”

I think he sensed from me hitting my forehead with the palm of my hand that I was ready to get out and so he set off again, but with a bit more decisiveness this time. He cut across two lanes of traffic and swung the car into what looked like a school. Perhaps he thought that they would have a pitch there that he could pass off as the Gangbuk Soccer Stadium.  A few minutes later he was back on the main road and stopped to ask a woman stood at the traffic lights. He barked at her in the same way he had been doing at me and she, after giving him what appeared to be a mouthful back,  pointed  in the direction that we had just come from and gave him a few directions. A quick U turn and a couple of minutes later we were there.

I still don’t think he could believe that someone would choose to watch a game there, if indeed he had any idea that there was a match taking place. I’m pretty sure that he was expecting me to admit my mistake and to then sheepishly ask him to drive on to the World Cup Stadium or somewhere. But I didnt, I paid him as gracefully as my mood allowed, which wasnt very gracefully at all as it happens, and got out.

The stadium was at the top of a short incline and I could see through the bars of the large gate to the terracing at the far end. I went through a smaller gate to the right and was inside. Nobody appeared to be collecting any money, which wasnt surprising really as the six or seven step terracing was surrounded on the other three sides by woodland. A path ran all the way around the pitch and there seemed to be almost as many walkers taking a bit of exercise as there were spectators at the match. It was all very picturesque, although I imagine that had anyone been taking a walk through the woods, it would have been quite an odd sight to stumble across as you came to a clearing.

The teams were on the pitch and about to kick off. Seoul Martyrs, who were struggling towards the bottom of the table, were in red shirts, with black shorts and white socks. Their opponents, Cheonan, had the same shorts and socks combo, but were wearing white shirts.

The home team had the advantage of five fans behind the goal who were making as much noise as they could, with a drum, loudhailer and one who had made the unusual choice of banging two empty plastic drinks bottles together. Perhaps it will be the craze of the next World Cup.  I didnt see any away fans although if their taxi experience had been anything like mine, they could still have been travelling around Seoul trying to convince their driver that they really didnt want to be at the Olympic Stadium ten miles away.

There were maybe another hundred or so people watching, spread around the pitch, some in the small covered stand at the halfway line, others sat on benches and looking like they were just taking a short break from a stroll in the park.

The game was fairly even for the first twenty minutes or so, Cheonan looked marginally the better team and were passing the ball well. Seoul probably had the best couple of chances though before Cheonan took the lead with a well struck shot. There was polite applause from most of the crowd, so it looked as if they were neutrals who had just nipped out for a bit of fresh air.

I wondered if the first goal would open the floodgates. When the two teams had met last in October, Cheonan had won 12-0 and whilst I don’t like a game to be too one-sided, a score like that would more than make up for any lack of tension over where the points were going. By half time though, there was still just the single goal in it. I popped into the small convenience store just outside the main gate for a drink, only to find a couple of the Cheonan subs in there, one of them keeping his blood sugar levels up with an ice cream, the other taking on board a little extra energy by way of a Pot Noodle.

It didnt take Cheonan long to score a second after the restart, with a breakaway goal that was very well finished. The Seoul Martyrs fans kept up the noise though and their team still didnt look out of it. I was hoping they would pull one back just so that I could tell a passerby the score with my new Korean words, but they didnt. Still, it was a big improvement from the last time they had met Cheonan. Unfortunately I had to leave after an hour as I had stuff planned for that evening and so I had to wait a couple of days to find out that Cheonan had added a third after I’d gone. Fortunately the taxi driver on the way out didn’t find it too unreasonable when I asked him to take me to the nearest subway station.

Further south, Jeonbuk Motors beat Daegu by four goals to nil with Lee Dong Gook coming on as a second half sub and scoring twice in the final few minutes. It moved them up to sixth place in the table, five points behind leaders Ulsan Horang-i but with a game in hand. I’ll probably go and see them next week when they visit Daejeon Citizen.

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