Nexen Heroes v KIA Tigers, Sunday 6th June, 5pm

June 7, 2010

I’m on a bit of a roll with this baseball malarkey and last night I went to my third game in five days. That’s part timer stuff with baseball though. I picked up a fixture list when I was at the Hanwha Eagles game the day before and discovered that in the five month season that runs from late March to late August, they have a match just about every night of the week apart from Mondays. Each team plays 124 games in 148 days, with each game being between three and four hours long.

I wondered about whether they sell season tickets and who would buy them. You would have to be pretty keen to intend to go to sixty two home games, sometimes on up to six consecutive nights as well. Mind you, the fans do seem dedicated; there is also a big away following at all the games, often up to half the crowd, so it wouldn’t surprise me if some fans saw most of those 124 matches. You would need a winter off after a season like that.

Tonight’s game was Nexen Heroes against KIA Tigers. Nexen were the home team and they have a stadium at Mokdong, which is about an hour away from me. There is a football ground right next to the baseball stadium but from what I can gather nobody plays there these days. It was about a ten minute walk from the subway to the stadium, the route lined with people selling those inflatable sticks that you bang together, beer, fried chicken and other snacks. I bought a general admission ticket for 12,000 won and went straight in. At the turnstiles security were confiscating soju, but didn’t seem bothered about beer.

Unlike the other stadiums that I’d been to, this one didn’t have seating in the outfield, just along the sides. It was full though, with people having to move their bags and food off seats to allow latecomers to sit down. There seemed to be more fans from KIA than from Nexen and both sets kept up the noise all game. Neither team had cheerleaders though, just a couple of camp blokes who led the chants.

After the comment about the lack of a starting pitcher from the Doosan fan the previous night, I kept an eye on the pitching this time. The starting pitcher for Nexen struggled a bit, eight of his first nine balls were wides and the KIA Tigers batsmen seemed to spend more time walking to first base than hitting the ball. Tigers took an early lead and were 4-0 up after three innings. The starting pitcher was replaced about half way through and his replacement was himself taken off a couple of innings later. It doesn’t seem like cricket where you would rotate you bowlers. In baseball it seems like you bowl your best pitcher until he is either exhausted or is getting hit too easily and then you bring on your next best pitcher and so on. It seems a big workload for a six games a week schedule.

Nexen hit back in the fifth innings with consecutive home runs and drew level at 4-4. It was still all square at the end of nine innings and they went into extra time. I thought they played an extra three innings each, but something I’ve read this morning leads me to believe that they might just play single innings until someone wins, but to a maximum of three extra.

I didn’t stay till the end though. Three and a half hours was enough for me. The extra hour that three more innings would warrant is fine if it’s your team that is playing, but as a neutral who doesn’t care who wins, I’d seen as much as I wanted to for that night. So I can’t even tell you who won. Maybe I’ll have to pick a team to follow and try and build up some allegiance. Doosan Bears seem to have the prettiest cheerleaders, so I’ll perhaps I’ll overlook their lack of a starting pitcher and give them a bit of a try.

And that’s it from Korea for a couple of weeks. I’m off to the World Cup next where amongst other games I’ll be seeing South Korea take on Argentina. It’s the game that Lee Dong Gook is aiming to be fully fit for, so I might get to see the Lion King come off the bench to take on Lionel Messi and co.

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Daejeon HNP v Gimhae and Hanwha Eagles v Doosan Bears, Saturday 5th June 5pm

June 7, 2010

This was quite a big weekend for the National League as it was the final day of the first half of their season. I know that doesn’t sound much like a big weekend, but it’s different over here. Instead of the fifteen teams just playing each other home and away for a twenty eight game season, they split it into two halves and the top two teams after the first fourteen games go into a four team play off with the top two teams from the second half of the season. I believe that if the same team wins both halves then they don’t bother with the play off.

So, going into the final weekend there were two teams level on points at the top of the table. Incheon Korail and Daejeon Hydro and Nuclear Power (try getting that on a scarf or in a chant). Daejeon had a slightly better goal difference so if Incheon were to take the title then they would have to better the Daejeon result by two goals. Both teams were at home and were expected to win. I’d already been to see Incheon Korail play, so I thought I’d lend my support to Daejeon.

An added benefit of going to Daejeon was that next door to their ground was the baseball stadium of the Hanwha Eagles and they had a game too, although in a poor bit of scheduling both games started at 5pm. Actually that wasn’t such a bad thing as the baseball games often go on for three and a half to four hours. This way I could watch the football, gate crashing their title celebrations and then nip into the baseball for the last hour and a half. Pretty perfect really and at the risk of giving the end away, that’s what I did.

Daejeon town centre

I got the KTX to Daejeon; it only takes fifty minutes and then booked into a hotel. Or a motel. Or a love motel as they are known. Intended for courting couples, they come complete with shakey beds, red light bulbs in a number of the sockets for that hooker and client fantasy role playing and a supply of condoms. I was by myself this weekend though so none of that stuff was much use to me. It did have a big telly, air conditioning and a computer in the room with free internet. And all for forty thousand won.

I expected the baseball to be busy and to save a bit of time after the football I bought my ticket for it in advance. 7,000 won for a general admission ticket.

 I paused at one of the old biddy stalls to get some beer and then made my way into Daejeon’s stadium. Again, there was no need for a ticket and I just turned left and walked upstairs to the centre of the main stand. I got talking to a Daejeon fan who was adamant that the President of Korea was sat in the VIP section in front of us. I pressed him as to whether he meant the President of the club, but no, definitely the President of Korea. I’d have thought he would have had more important stuff on his mind than the title prospects of Daejeon, but perhaps not.

As Koreans tend to do, the Daejeon fan quizzed me about England, generally in the form of what was the best of something. Who made the best football shirts, was it Umbro? What about universities? Was Cambridge better than Oxford? Rooney or Beckham? Ballantynes whisky versus Royal Salute? I couldn’t really grasp why he would care about it all, unless he was planning to spend his college years in the UK knocking back spirits and commenting upon the sartorial elegance of the footballers, but he was friendly enough. I decided to turn the tables a bit and discovered that the best Daejeon player was the number fourteen, Kim Yeong Nam.

After the presentations of the players to the President, the game got underway, Daejeon were wearing an all red Adidas kit reminiscent of the one the Boro used to wear around about thirty years ago. If I squinted a bit I could see the Hodgson, Proctor and Johnston out there. Gimhae were in white shirts with red shorts.

After seven minutes the Daejeon number ten scored with a tremendous strike from outside the box. Five minutes later ‘Best Player’ Kim Yeong Nam was brought down by the Gimhae keeper who caught him head high with a kick that would have brought him ‘Best Ninja’ status. Kim Yeong Nam recovered to take and score the penalty and after twelve minutes Incheon Korail already needed four goals in their game to deny Daejeon the title.

I was a little surprised at the low attendance for what was probably quite a big day in Daejeon’s history. There couldn’t have been more than two hundred people there and they didn’t make very much noise. I think Gimhae brought four fans with them, but with those two early goals there wasn’t a peep out of them.

I was hearing quite a lot of noise coming from the baseball though. It was a bit like those snooker games on the telly where they have two table divided by a screen. The noise from the crowd on the other table always seems to come at an inopportune moment, distracting you from the game that you are watching and making the one that you cant see sound more exciting.

The expected rout didn’t come though and although Daejeon showed plenty of urgency in the rest of the game, word must have come through that Incheon were only drawing one each and that they would need a further four goals to deprive Daejeon of the title. The last ten minutes were played out at a gentle pace with Daejeon keeping the ball and Gimhae who had nothing to play for happy to keep the score respectable.

At the final whistle Daejeon celebrated in the way that any team does.

They sang along to ‘We are the Champions’, sprayed each other with champagne, bobbed up and down behind a banner and they threw the President in the air. Well, maybe not everyone does the last one, but given the opportunity I think they should.

I stayed for a few minutes and then when it had quietened down, made my way towards the baseball. I’d timed it very well I reckon as the fifth innings had just finished and there were four more to go.

It was 6-5 to the home team Hanwha who were batting second. The place was pretty full, with lots of families and small children. An hour and a half later it was over with Hanwha winning 10-6 and not needing their ninth innings.

The Doosan fans didn’t seem too downhearted, making plenty of noise and at one point all holding sparklers in the air. I envied them. I wasn’t allowed sparklers as a kid after I’d once turned one around in my hand as it burnt downwards and I’d taken hold of the still red hot tip.

It's not fair. I want a sparkler.

As I left the stadium a Doosan Bears fan commented to me that they were struggling because they lacked a starting pitcher. I don’t know if he is injured or whether they actually don’t have one for one reason or another. I dare say I’ll find out at some point as I get more into it. I couldn’t find a bar that I liked the look of, most were either underground or a couple of storeys up and empty because the Koreans were still at the stage of the night where they were eating in restaurants rather than drinking in bars. It was a warm night and I wanted to be out in the open so I got a can from a convenience store and drank it at a table outside. As my daughter would say, “Scruffy as”, which I’ve only just realized is abbreviated from a slightly longer phrase. Appropriate though.

My hotel

Meanwhile Lee Dong Gook was continuing his recovery from injury as South Korea went down to a late goal in a 1-0 defeat to Spain.

North of the border, the other Koreans had caused a bit of a stir at the World Cup by naming a striker as their third keeper in an attempt to give themselves more attacking options. Unfortunately the lad in question will be limited to playing in goal, which should be a fun experience for him. A bit more fun than the experience that awaits whoever made the decision when they get home, I suspect.

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Doosan Bears v Nexen Heroes, Wednesday 2nd June, 6.30pm

June 7, 2010

I made my second trip to a baseball game last night. I’d had the day off work because it was polling day in a variety of local elections, but I hadn’t really done very much. I’d been out the night before with colleagues and had a bit of a hangover. At lunchtime I nipped out for a pint of milk but then changed my mind and got on the subway instead. It’s only three stops to the baseball stadium so I thought I’d see if there was a game on.

I know that seems a bit of an arse on in the age of the internet, but I’ve yet to find a fixture list in English for the baseball games and it is only three stops, which is about ten minutes ride. It was pretty quiet when I got there so I had a walk around the stadium, got some lunch and read the paper. They don’t cover the baseball games in the English language newspapers either, but they had the details of the World Cup squad. Lee Dong Gook had made the final twenty three despite not being expected to be fit until the second game of the tournament, the match against Argentina. The report reckoned that as Korea seemed to be playing lately with just the one striker; his best chance of getting on the pitch would be if they were chasing a late goal. Still, after being left out of the 2002 World Cup squad and missing 2006 through injury I expect he is relieved just to be on the plane.

Whilst I was there I tried to have a look inside the Olympic Stadium. I was hoping that there would be a door open somewhere and I could run the 100m. I’ve got a bit of previous for that sort of thing, recreating Mary Peters Pentathlon gold in the Olympic Stadium in Munich as few years back. I also re-enacted Gerd Muller’s winning goal in the World Cup final the same afternoon. I managed to swivel and shoot with a glass of wine in my hand too, which made it just that little bit more impressive, I thought, and made up for having to use an imaginary ball. Anyway, the gates were all locked, so I’d have to wait until another time to play at being Ben Johnson. Shame really, as after the previous nights drinking, my eyes had that yellow tinge that Ben acquired by having steroids for his tea.

There were a lot of statues and monuments to the 1988 Olympics, including a wall engraved with the names of the gold medalists. Steve Redgrave was on there, although that’s not surprising. He will have his name inscribed at more places than the most prolific graffiti taggers. As I read the names I recalled Malcolm Cooper winning his shooting gold and the hockey team getting theirs. I paused at the boxing list and noticed Lennox Lewis on the list for Canada and also Ray Mercer at the weight below. At light middle there was a Korean that I didn’t recognize, but I remembered his triumph. He was the lad who got that outrageous decision over Roy Jones. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t resist a bit of a chuckle.

As I wandered back towards the Baseball stadium a military helicopter flew overhead. I’ve seen one or two lately, no doubt as a consequence of the South getting its act together in case things escalate with the North. It doesn’t seem to be a big deal amongst the people in Seoul, despite this being the likely place that any missiles would be aimed. I prefer it that way, no sense worrying about stuff you can’t control so you might as well get on with life as normal.

Speaking of which, there was a queue at the ticket office and an electronic sign indicating that there was a game that evening between the Doosan Bears and the Nexen Heroes. It didn’t start for another four hours though at 6.30pm. That was a bit too long to hang around and so I got the subway back to my flat, undecided as to whether to return later.

By six o’clock I’d just about forgotten about the baseball as I was doing other stuff. I glanced at my watch, remembered it and thought, sod it, why not? An evening at the baseball sat in the sun with a couple of beers sounds ideal. I set off and fifteen minutes later I was there. I bought an 8,000 won ticket for high up in the main stand, Block 312 and three cans of Cass beer from one of the old biddies outside.

 I took my seat with a minute to go before the start, missing all the pre-match stuff like the celebrity introductions, the ceremonial first pitch and the national anthem.

It was another good night; Doosan Bears were well supported by an enthusiastic crowd. Later I moved further around the curve and sat near the few hundred Nexen fans, they made plenty of noise too. I drank my cans in the sunshine then got a couple more. I quite like the rhythm of baseball, the ebb and flow as they alternate batting with fielding every ten or fifteen minutes. There are some moments of tension too, as the batting team ‘loads the bases’ as I believe they say, or when a pitcher has already thrown the three ‘wide’ balls he is allowed. Even more so if he has also thrown two ‘strikes’.

Not that it really mattered, but Nexen won 7-1. I’ll probably get along to a few more games I think.

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Yesan v Goyang KB, Saturday 29th May 2010

June 7, 2010

It had been over three weeks since I’d been to a football match and with the K-League shut down for the World Cup, I thought I’d take the opportunity to go to another National League game. Most of the matches were taking place on the Friday night though and as I don’t finish work until after 6pm they are quite difficult to get to in time.

Not Yesan though, they had a more traditional Saturday three o’clock kick off and so that’s where I went. I had a bit of a mishap on the subway though where I got on the train going in the opposite direction. I didn’t realize until I’d traveled three stops out of my way and so I didn’t get to Yongsan railway station until 10am. There were plenty of trains to Yesan, but they were all booked solid for the next two hours. Fortunately you can buy a standing ticket and so that’s what I did. I paid 6,900 won (less than four quid) for a ticket on the 10.35am train, which got to Yesan an hour and three quarters later. It was quite a slow train, with plenty of stops, but it was direct so I wouldn’t have to change.

The train was starting from Yongsan station and so it was completely empty as it pulled into the platform. I noticed that it had a buffet carriage and so I got into that one, hoping there would be some unallocated seats in there. It was better than that though, as it had internet terminals, so I was able to sit at a computer and surf the net for the duration of the journey. It was just like being at work, but without the pesky interruptions for meetings or writing letters.

Anyway, in the hour and three quarters that I spent on the train I discovered that Yesan is famous for its apples and that Yesan FC, who are bottom of the National League, moved to Yesan two years ago. A move that was no doubt influenced by the prospect of all those apples. As I read about them I recognised their name and remembered that they were the team that I’d seen get beat at Incheon Korail on the opening day of the National League season.

Yesan turned out to be a quiet town, not really a place for tourists. In fact, it didn’t even get a mention in any of my guide books. Surprising really, particularly when they seem to make such a fuss about those apples. All of the shops appeared to be for practical things, like car maintenance, industrial equipment or trade places that sold stuff like light switches and sockets. I managed to get hold of a map from their town hall and discovered that I wasn’t too far from the football ground. I asked about hotels and was told by a girl with an extremely short skirt that showed off a pretty much perfect pair of legs they didn’t have any. Tourists all stayed at a spa town that you could get to in about twenty minutes in a taxi.

With plenty of time to spare I walked back into town and had a pizza for lunch before getting a taxi to the ground. The stadium didn’t look too busy. In fact, apart from a team bus outside there was no real sign that a match would be taking place. I walked through the main entrance and was stopped by a bloke at a desk. I was expecting him to tell me that I needed to buy a ticket from a kiosk on the other side of the ground. But, no, he had stopped me to hand me a paper bag with a sandwich and a carton of juice in. I thanked him whilst secretly wishing that I hadn’t just scoffed a whole pizza.

I took a left turn and went up some stairs, emerging as seems commonplace now, in the director’s box. I thought I’d adopt a lower profile at this game though and so I moved upwards a bit to a place more suitable for a lowlife with a couple of cans in his backpack. The stadium was oval shaped, with just the centre of the main stand above me having a roof. It had an artificial pitch inside a running track. Just before kick off club officials came up into the stand and shook hands with us. I have to say that they really seem to appreciate a bit of support here. Free admission, free food and a personal welcome from a club official. If I’d had my boots with me I’d have asked him if I could come on for the final twenty minutes.

In a further show of hospitality, both captains and the ref were presented with flowers before the start and then we all stood for the national anthem. Yesan, who were wearing an Italy strip last time I saw them, were dressed up as Chelsea today. Goyang, their opponents from the northern suburbs of Seoul were wearing white shirts with maroon shorts that looked like they had been washed a few times too often.

Within twenty seconds Goyang had taken the lead. The game was back underway again before the stadium clock had moved on from 15:00. As I settled back in my seat with a beer, I noticed how badly patched the artificial pitch was. It didn’t seem to affect the game though. To my left, just beyond the main stand were a small band of Yesan supporters, most of them with drums or tambourines. They kept the noise level up throughout the game. If there were any Goyang supporters in the crowd of maybe a hundred, I didn’t see them. Despite it being free to get in, there were quite a few people watching through the fence, having parked their cars on the road passing the stadium. 

Goyang were the better team, playing some very clever through balls, whilst Yesan tried to play on the break but were fairly easily contained. There weren’t any more goals before the interval and at half time I went for a slash only to meet one of the Yesan players coming out of the toilets as I went in. You don’t often see that at the Boro.

Yesan missed a good chance in the opening minute of the second half before Goyang went straight up the other end and made it two nil. If Yesan had taken their chance, people would have praised their attitude in coming out for the second half fired up, the coaches half time team talk, even their professionalism in remembering to go for a piss. By conceding themselves a moment later though, they will have been branded sloppy and half asleep. It’s a small margin between failure and success.

And that was about it, as the game finished up two nil to Goyang. As I came down from my seat and left through the main entrance, both sets of players were getting on their respective buses. So probably no showers in the dressing rooms either.

I walked back into town and then got a taxi to Deoksan, the nearby spa town that I’d been advised was the place to stay. The taxi dropped me off at the hotel suggested by the girl at the Town Hall, but it turned out to be a resort hotel where you had to be a member. I walked down the road for ten minutes and checked into the Ducksan spa hotel. That’s not a spelling mistake by the way, not unless they also spelt it wrongly on the sign on their roof. It cost me eighty thousand won for the night, which is quite expensive by Korean prices. When I checked in they told me that the hot spring spa was on the second floor. I asked them if they sold swimming trunks and they gave me a bit of an odd look before advising me that you didn’t wear any.

Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life but that seemed a bit odd to me, lolloping about in the nudey in front of lots of other people, albeit blokes. Still, I thought I might as well give it a try. You put all your gear into a locker and then just moved about between pools of differing temperatures and saunas, hoping that your privates didn’t shrink too much with the extremes of temperature or even worse, start to twitch if your mind wandered back to the girl with the legs from the Town Hall. Some of the men in there were having a shave and you could even have a haircut if you wanted. It was ok for about half an hour but then it got a bit boring.

It’s all very well sweating out the impurities in a sauna, but all that lost fluid needs replacing and as the hotel didn’t seem to have a bar I wandered back up the road to where there were a few restaurants. The roadside had recently been planted with apple trees, perhaps to try and build upon the Yesan reputation for apples. I found a barbecue place that looked ok, but it was one of those without chairs and so I had to sit cross legged on the floor. I had the beef, but one beer was enough as I’m still not supple enough to get my legs under the table.

The next morning I decided against another sauna and got a taxi to Sudeoksa. It’s the oldest surviving original Buddhist temple in Korea, dating back about eight hundred years. I had a wander around before the coachloads of visitors got there and watched some monks chanting and praying.

I could have hiked to the top of Mount Sudeoksan, especially since the taxi had made it easier by dropping me about halfway up at the temple but decided not to bother and got a bus back to Yesan. It wound through all the little villages picking up people wherever they happened to be standing. There were lots of rice fields and people planting new crops. The bus driver watched out for my stop, told me when we had got there and then pointed out the right direction to walk. I booked a ticket for the train back to Seoul and went for some lunch. Since I was here I thought I’d better try one of their apples and bought an enormous one from a greengrocer for 1,500 won. That seemed a bit excessive; just wait until the trees at the side of the road start producing, that’ll cut the prices. I got the train back to Yongsan station, arriving back at ten to three.

Meanwhile, South Korea were taking on Belarus in their final warm up game before the World Cup squad was finalised. Lee Dong Gook was still with the squad of 26, but training by himself in an effort to show that he should be fit in time for their second game against Argentina.

Posted in Dead people and stuff, Football | 1 Comment »

Hiking on Dobongsan and a trip to Hongdo and Heuksando, 21st May 2010

June 7, 2010

View from the bottom

This weekend coincided with Buddha’s birthday and so I got the Friday off work. Excellent. Many happy returns, Bud, the extra days holiday is much appreciated.  So, what to do? I was going away the next day with my hiking group for a two day trip to a couple of islands off the South coast and since that was more of a partying trip by the look of it, I thought I might as well get my hiking fix on the Friday instead.

 I’d been re-reading one of my guidebooks and it mentioned a hike in Seoul that was supposed to be pretty good. It was at Dobongsan, about an hour north of me on the subway and looked ideal. One of the things that I’m not too keen on when I’m hiking in Korea are the crowds, I like to hike in the company of a small number of friends, not hundreds of strangers. However, if you are going alone and don’t have a map or much of a sense of direction, I can see the advantages of the hills being crowded with other people all on their way to the top.

 I got off the subway at Dobongsan and as expected just followed the swarms of hikers across the road towards the mountain. There were lots of stalls selling everything from hiking gear to food. I could probably have turned up completely unprepared and kitted myself out from scratch. As it was I limited myself to a bowl of potatoes and a neckerchief that was overprinted with a map of the National Park. Whilst I thought it might be useful for navigation, its main purpose was to keep the sun off my neck and to make me look like a twat.

Busy at the start

 I followed the crowd along the pavement until we left the road and entered the park. After a few minutes we came to a fork and almost everyone went left. I noticed a sign for something to the right, 350m away. It could have been a sewage works for all I knew, but I thought I might as well have a look anyway.  I wasn’t in a rush and one of the advantages of walking alone is you can go wherever you like. It turned out to be a temple, decorated with lanterns and with quite a few visitors milling about. I had a quick look and then had to decide between retracing my route to rejoin the throng of hikers or to press on up the path through the forest. I’d like to say it was a sense of adventure that kept me going along the unknown and much quieter route. But it wasn’t really, it was more an unwillingness to concede the gain in height that I’d already made. If I went back down to the main path I’d have to do all that uphill stuff for a second time.

A bit quieter here

 I pressed on upwards confident that the path must lead to somewhere and not too bothered which of the peaks that I got to the top of. There were a few other people heading the same way, but it was certainly the quietest I’d seen any route out here so far. After a while I came to a signpost that confirmed that I was still on the same mountain, although on a slightly less direct route which was fine by me. As I say, I wasn’t in a rush. About half way up there was a bit of a monument, although I’ve no idea what it was commemorating, and an hour or so later I reached the top. Some sections had been a bit strenuous and I’d had to haul myself up using the iron railings and rope thoughtfully provided, but overall it wasn’t too difficult.

Monument, about halfway up

 There were plenty of people at the peak, some in groups of a dozen or more, sat around elaborate picnics. There is a lot of effort goes into these picnics, with lots of different dishes, stools, blankets, even little napkins. A bit less effort from me though as I took my potatoes from my backpack. They aren’t too big on potatoes over here. As you may have guessed, it’s more a rice sort of place, and so they were just about the only ones I’d had since I got over here.

View from the top

 Now that I was back on track I could have a look at the guidebook again and it offered me a different option for getting down. I could walk a bit further along, nip up another peak and then descend via another Buddhist Temple at Mangwolsa. That seemed ok and that’s what I did.

 As I approached the temple there was quite a bit of noise, the usual drumming and bells. The path to the gate had been decorated with lanterns and there were more hung up inside. I stopped for a coffee and then went up the steps to a courtyard in front of the main temple. A group of Chinese girls were dancing in front of about a hundred people.

Happy Birthday Bud.

I watched for a while before they finished and the crowd dispersed.  I had a look around the temple and then made my way down the path and got the subway home.

I know, I know, but I didn't want my neck getting sunburnt.

 Next day was an early start. I had to meet my hiking group at 7.10am for the bus ride to Mokpo. The plan was to get a ferry there to an island about sixty miles away, Hongdo, stay overnight and then return the next day via a different island. We got there just before lunch and to my surprise it was pissing down. That was something that hadn’t entered my head. It had been so sunny the previous day that I hadn’t even brought a coat with me. It got worse, the organizer was informed by the ferry company that the conditions were marginally good enough to sail today, but the forecast was for rougher weather tomorrow and that if it materialized then the ferry wouldn’t sail. That would mean we would be stuck on the Korean version of Craggy Island on a day when I was supposed to be three hundred miles away at work.

 We went for lunch, before making a decision on whether to get on the ferry. It was crab soup, with crabs cut in half, shells and all, providing the flavour. In addition there were some small crabs as a side dish. They were about the size of a penny and you just ate them whole. I had a couple and it was just like eating a shell full of sea water. They were soft rather than crunchy and whilst they tasted very fresh, there wasn’t much to them.

 Of the nine of us on the trip, three felt we shouldn’t travel. I don’t like missing work when I’m supposed to be there and two of the others, both Americans, felt the same way. We let the other six get on the ferry and we cleared off to the pub. A few beers later we were on the train back to Seoul after an interesting but ultimately pointless day out. From what I saw of Mokpo, it’s a working fishing and ferry port. Most of the shops seemed to sell stuff like fishing nets, buoys, wooden legs, parrots, you know the sort of thing. We worked our way through wine, makgeolli and beer on the journey back and I was fairly merry by the time I got home. The next day I felt pretty rough, which I attributed to those two mini crabs full of seawater. I’d been fine before I had them.

 Meanwhile, Lee Dong Gook wasn’t doing very much, just waiting to see how quickly his injury would clear up and whether he would make the final squad of twenty three.

Posted in Dead people and stuff, Hiking | 4 Comments »

South Korea v Ecuador, 16th May

June 3, 2010

This was looking as if it was going to be an even busier weekend than normal as different events kept cropping up as it got closer and I tried my best to fit them all in. Friday night was a ‘teambuilding’ dinner after work where about fifty of us went to a local Korean barbecue restaurant. I’d been here a few times before and the food is always pretty good. A charcoal barbecue is set into a hole in the middle of your table and you cook your own beef and pork, cutting it into small pieces with scissors and then eating it with spicy paste and wrapped in a lettuce leaf. You wash it down with beer and frequent shots of soju. This time we were in the room upstairs where you sit on cushions on the floor beside low tables. As a foreigner, and a not particularly supple foreigner at that, I was given about eight of the thin cushions to sit on. It was quite a precarious seat, especially as the empty soju bottles stated to mount up. I made my excuses at about ten o’clock, pretty much the worse for wear and leaving most of them still at it. There is quite a big after work drinking culture in Korea. As I’m not looking to build a career, just dropping in for a single project, there’s no need for me to adopt any of the customs that I’m not keen on and if I had a young family as a lot of them do, I would probably resent the time spent drinking with the same people that I’d just spent all day with. However, as I don’t have too many other commitments and I find my colleagues to be good company, I quite enjoy ‘teambuilding’ events like these. Although I doubt my liver would agree.

Saturdays have developed into hiking days, with a regular group of walkers. This week’s walk was due to start from Hoeryong and was a fair distance by subway from my apartment. Fortunately we weren’t due to meet up until 12.30pm which allowed my hangover to settle a little. I set off just before eleven and after some poor choices of subway line and some unusually long waits for trains, at noon I was still a change of line and seventeen stops away from the meeting place. They would no doubt have waited for me if I’d asked, but I didn’t want to be selfish and so phoned ahead to let them know that I wouldn’t be able to join them this week. As I had my hiking boots on I thought I might as well have a bit of a walk anyway and got off the train at the next station. It was Eungbong, over to the east of the city and just north of the Han River that runs through Seoul. As there was a path alongside the river I decided just to follow it until I got bored. It was quite an interesting walk. There wasn’t much happening on the river itself, a little bit of dragon boat training and the odd jet ski, a few fishermen, generally with four or five rods each, but every few hundred yards there would be permanent outdoor gym equipment, basketball courts, five a side pitches and badminton nets. I even passed a croquet pitch where a few pensioners were having a quite fiercely contested game. It was all free to use and seemed well taken care of and very popular. A cycle path ran alongside the path I was walking along and was also very popular with a mix of cyclists ranging from those on top of the range bikes and kitted out as if they were setting off to the Tour de France, to students on hired tandems and families with small children on bikes with stabilizers.

I walked for about three and a half hours, covering about ten miles and ending up on the other side of the city. It wasn’t the hike I’d planned for, but I saw parts of Seoul that up until now I’d only glimpsed from train windows, so it was a worthwhile day.

My plan for Sunday had initially revolved around the South Korea v Ecuador match in the evening. It was the only home ‘warm-up’ game for South Korea and I’d suspected that the Seoul World Cup Stadium would be close to its 65,000 capacity as the Korean fans gave their team a bit of a send off. Park Ji Sung, who is a superstar out here and appears in adverts in just about every media possible, would be playing and I was anticipating a bit of a party atmosphere.

Then I found out that the Korean Derby was taking place on the Sunday too. I’d been to the racetrack at Seoul a few weeks previously for a normal race meeting and it had been pretty busy. Whilst I didn’t care which horse won the Derby, I was quite keen to see if the spectacle differed much from the regular races day. The American girl I’ve been seeing isn’t much of a sports fan but has quite an inquisitive nature and so was happy to tag along to the races and the match. Then she mentioned that there was also a big lantern festival going on that day too, no doubt as part of the build up to Buddha’s birthday in a few days time.

Well, I’m all for festivals, even more so if there are naked flames involved, and so we thought we would try and squeeze that in too. First stop was the races. The crowds coming out of the subway were bigger than the last time I was here, which given that it was Derby Day wasn’t much of a surprise. The silkworm pupa on sale outside the station didn’t seem any more popular mind, despite the extra crowds. I was wondering if the 800 won admission charge would change with it being Derby Day, and it did. We were just waved through the turnstiles without having to pay.

After that though, it was all pretty much the same as the last time I was here. There was maybe a slightly larger crowd but no other indication that it was any different to a normal race day. I picked up an English form guide and discovered that the Derby itself wouldn’t be run until five o’clock. Well that didn’t really fit in with our plans so we hung about for about two hours, watching only three races due to the way that the races are so well spaced out around lunchtime and then cleared off to the Lantern Festival. There were still people coming in as we left about three o’clock and maybe that was the best way to do it. If I’m here next year on Derby Day, I’ll saunter up about half an hour before the big race, stick my bet on, collect my winnings and then celebrate with a tub of silkworms on the way out a few minutes later.

So next up was the Lantern Festival. My plan had been to spend a couple of hours there and then head off to the match. When we got there the streets were packed with people. There were stalls along the roadside offering various lantern making activities, insights into various different types of Buddhism and selling a variety of food. I had some sort of beans from Nepal that looked like peas, some of those clear noodles and some spicy dumpling that might have been pork. We were given lanterns with candles in for the parade later that evening and I thought that rather than dash off I’d rather miss the football on this occasion and stay at the festival. I might not get another chance to experience it all again, whilst I’d be watching South Korea play Argentina in the World Cup in a months time, that would probably be a bit better than a friendly against Ecuador. Apologies to those who read this far hoping for a match report, but that’s a risk you take with this blog. Still, if you keep reading I might tell you the score.

Anyway, it got dark and there was a lantern parade, which whilst it was quite impressive, wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped it would be as we didn’t manage to find the place where everyone lined up. Instead of marching down the High Street brandishing flaming torches we ended up watching the parade from behind a barrier manned by policemen that looked no older than twelve years old. I didn’t even get to light my lantern. After an hour or so of floats and lanterns, we cleared off to a bar for beer and raw tuna.

Meanwhile South Korea won 2-0. Lee Dong Gook played just over an hour before being subbed with an injury that puts his World Cup participation in doubt. Interestingly, the match was reported as being a sellout, although attendances do get exaggerated here. It’s possible then that had we left the festival before the parade to get to the match we might not have got in, meaning that in the same day we would have turned up for, but failed to see the Derby, the Lantern Parade and the South Korea v Ecuador game. That would have been some hat trick.

Posted in Dead people and stuff, Football, Hiking, Horseracing | 5 Comments »

Geomdansan, 8th May

June 3, 2010

This was another weekend where my plans kept changing. It was the final week of the K-League before the mid-season break for the World Cup and initially I’d planned to head south to watch the game between Gwangu Sangmu and Gangwon. It wasn’t a game that particularly stood out from that week’s fixture list but what caught my attention was the nearby butterfly festival. A lot of places in Korea seem to try and publicise themselves by having festivals of one sort or another. The bullfighting one at Cheongdo being a prime example. Hampyeong’s big idea though was butterflies. Cheaper than bulls and less trouble if one escapes.

We used to catch butterflies in nets when we were kids, although we never really knew what to do with them once we caught them. Sometimes we would put them in a biscuit tin, sometimes a Tupperware container. If we remembered we would put a few holes in the lid to let some air in, although in the case of the Tupperware containers that didn’t always go down well with our Mams. Invariably, though, they all seemed to die within a few hours of being caught, which we took to be proof of the short life cycle of a butterfly rather than any consequence of our care regime.

I shot one once, when I was a bit older. It made the mistake of settling on a rock whilst it was my turn with the air rifle. I didn’t even put a pellet in the gun, just shot it with air from a range of about an inch. It just disintegrated. Anyway, I don’t do stuff like that these days, not least because I don’t have an air rifle, and so a trip to the butterfly festival before going on to a K-League match seemed a pretty good way to spend a weekend.

That was until a group that I’d been hiking with when I first arrived in Seoul suggested a trip to Jirisan. Jirisan is the second highest mountain in South Korea at 1915 metres and a weekend trip to tackle it would have meant an overnight bus ride and a 4.30am start in the dark. I liked that idea and so the butterflies would just have to wait for another year. Unfortunately, not enough other people fancied the early start and so the trip was cancelled at the last minute. I’d got my hiking head on by that time though and so I skipped the football and butterflies and went up Geomdansan with my other hiking group instead.

A bit crowded at the top

Geomdansan, at 657m, is nowhere near as high as Jirisan, but some stretches were a bit of a slog. It was enjoyable though and we had a bit of a picnic at the top before stopping at a barbeque restaurant at the bottom. There was plenty of makgeolli drunk on the way around with more at the end and a few shots of soju. I didn’t see a butterfly all day though.

More graves in the middle of nowhere

Whilst I was enjoying myself in the hills, Jeonbuk didn’t have a game. I don’t think it was their turn to miss out because of there being an odd number of teams in the K-League. It was more likely to be as a consequence of them having an Asian Champions League Game against Adelaide United in Australia four days later, which they won 3-2 courtesy of a Lee Dong Gook goal four minutes from the end of the second period of extra time. The lack of a final K-League game meant that Jeonbuk finished the first phase of the season in eighth position with sixteen points from ten games, eight points behind leaders Ulsan Horang-i, but with two games in hand.

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Suwon Bluewings v Daejeon Citizen, Wednesday 5th May

June 3, 2010

On Wednesday, we got the day off work as it was Children’s Day. An excellent concept, in my opinion, where families are encouraged to spend the day together. Unfortunately my children were six thousand miles away, so I decided to go to a football match instead. Somebody asked me recently if I miss them, now that I’ll only see them every four months or so, and I suppose that I do. Not as much as you might imagine, as I talk to them on the phone a couple of times a week and we send each other emails. What I do miss though, is them being children and there’s nothing I can do about that. I really enjoyed them being young. I have a great relationship with them as adults, but it’s not as much fun. They have their own grown-up lives now and I’m a smaller part of it than I was when they were kids. It’s just the way it is, I suppose.

I had a couple of different options for my choice of match. I had looked into going to Jeonbuk’s away game at Chunnam Dragons, but there didn’t seem to be a train back afterwards. In the end I settled for Suwon Bluewings against Daejeon Citizen. Suwon is a city just south of Seoul and you can get there with about an hours ride on the subway. When I got there I took a bus to Paldalmun, which is one of the main entrance gates to the Hwaseong fortress wall. The wall runs around the old city, it was originally built over two hundred years ago and is about three and a half miles all the way around. I thought I might was well have a wander around it before going to the match.

First though, I wanted something to eat. I stopped at a little café and had some pork dumplings. They were very nice, although as they had been deep fried I suspect that they probably weren’t too good for me. When I came out of the café I followed a sign for a palace, thinking that it would be something to do with the fortress wall. It wasn’t really, but there was a display of people dressed up in period costume, although which period I’d no idea, waving swords and sticks about. I watched them for a while and then conscious that I’d a wall to get around before the match I thought I’d better let them get on with cracking each others skulls and left them to it.

Careful, sonny

On the way to the wall I passed a hairdressers. The barber’s shops here are denoted by a red and blue pole outside. The only problem being that only some of them offer haircuts whilst the rest of them are brothels. I think the general rule is that if you can see inside and they have barber’s chairs then you will probably get a haircut, otherwise you won’t. To make life difficult, some do offer haircuts as part of an overall package at, I imagine, a bit more expensive price than a regular trim.

I had stuff to do so didn’t really have time to have some hairdresser fiddle with my bits afterwards, but I could have benefited from a haircut. It had been five weeks since the Japanese barber had shaved my head and some bits of it were starting to stick up at odd angles. The hairdresser’s shops have a different coloured pole to the barber’s, with a bit of yellow in them, so I thought I’d be safe with that. I went in and waited until the girl had finished with the old biddy in the chair. She didn’t speak any English, but I was able to mime the shaving of my head. To be fair, there wasn’t a lot else that she could have done with it. Maybe burnt the stubble off with a blowtorch, I suppose, but I was hardly likely to be looking for a curly perm or to have it highlighted. Ten minutes later and I was back outside after having my hair cut and washed for six thousand won. At that price I don’t think there was much prospect of any hanky panky.

Around the corner was the start of the fortress wall. It had been quite badly destroyed during the Japanese occupation but had been rebuilt using the original plans. I’d picked an uphill bit to begin with and for the next fifteen minutes had a steady climb until I was able to look down on the town. The wall was an impressive sight, although I couldn’t help but think that it would have been breachable by anyone with a twelve foot ladder. Perhaps they didn’t have them in the olden days.

I'd just walked up that.

Every hundred yards or so was a gatehouse or a temple, all with helpful explanations in English. A bit further around was a great big bell that you could ring for a thousand won. You hit it with what looked like a railway sleeper on a couple of ropes and you got three goes. The first was meant to signify gratitude and respect for your parents, the second was for the health of your family and the third one was to bring about the realisation of your dreams. Well, I don’t have too many dreams, not if you exclude the recurring one with Konnie Huq and the baby oil, but I was happy to toll the bell in honour of my parents and the health of my family.

I rang that. Three times.

Job done, I continued around the wall for about another thirty minutes until I came to an archery ground. It being Children’s Day, there were plenty of families shooting at the targets. I watched for a while, recalling how I used to take my children to Sherwood Forest when they were small. My son would dress as Robin Hood and fire arrows at my daughter, who would have to be anything from the Sheriff of Nottingham to a deer, depending upon whatever storyline my son could think up.

Safer than Sherwood Forest.

I’d spotted the Bluewings stadium from one of the higher points of the fortress and when I’d got about three quarters of the way around it was time to leave the wall and head for the stadium. It had been built for the 2002 World Cup and had a very distinctive roof, shaped to resemble a pair of wings. I bought a ticket for the East stand for 12,000 won, mainly so that I could get a good view of the winged roof opposite. There were no free pizzas this week, but we did all get given a banana on the way in instead.

No pizza this week

I wasn’t expecting a classic, Suwon were bottom of the league, with Daejeon just two places above them. There isn’t any relegation from the K-League so it doesn’t have the drastic financial implications of relegation in England, but the Suwon fans weren’t happy with their lot. There had been a few protests against the manager, Cha, and the rumours were that if they lost today he would resign.

Suwon fans

It was a decent sized crowd, with my stand being virtually full and with a lot of noise from the Suwon fans behind the goal to my right. It was goalless at half time and the best chance of the second half fell to Suwon’s Brazilian substitute Juninho. Yes really, but not him, and not the one who used to play for Lyon and who possibly still does either. There must be a Juninho factory somewhere. Brazil I imagine. That would be the sensible place to have it. Anyway, I was hoping that the crowd might sing his song, so I could join in for old time’s sake. Any chance of that disappeared though when he hit a penalty straight at the keeper.

Ole, ole, ole, ole, Juninho, ho, ho..

Daejeon lost a player with a quarter of an hour left when he gave the ref a bit of slaver and picked up his second yellow card. Despite the last few minutes being end to end stuff, it finished goalless. I ate my banana and headed back off to the fortress wall to finish the remainder of the circuit, before getting the subway back to Seoul. Meanwhile Jeonbuk lost 3-2 at Chunnam Dragons to slip to seventh place, five points off the top of the table. Lee Dong Gook didn’t get on the score sheet this week and was substituted after an hour.

The Wings

Posted in Dead people and stuff, Football, Haircuts, Hiking | 2 Comments »

My Beautiful Mint Life, Sunday 2nd May

June 2, 2010

My Beautiful Mint Life. It sounds like I’m showing off doesn’t it?  Well I’m not. Ok, maybe just a bit, but that’s the nature of blogs. They tend to either be a rant against the world or a bit of a smug ‘look at me, aren’t I having a great time’ sort of thing. I’m not really one for ranting, more for trying to have a great time so I suppose this blog falls into the latter category.

Anyway, My Beautiful Mint Life isn’t my latest attempt at telling you how wonderful everything is. No. It’s a festival, a music festival. Great name, eh. Perfect for a Teesside festival where those of you who don’t live there probably wont know that ‘mint’ is the word of choice for describing something that you quite like. Except this one wasn’t in Teesside, it was in Seoul.

One of the things that I have missed whilst I’ve been in Seoul is going to see bands. Hang on, perhaps this is turning into a ‘rant blog’ after all. I could have seen Bob Dylan about a month earlier, but it clashed with my trip to Japan to get my visa. Apart from that there hasn’t really been much else going on. I’ll particularly miss going to festivals. In recent years I’ve been cutting down on them, giving up Leeds and V, but I’ve still been going to the likes of Glastonbury and End of the Road when the opportunity arises. So the chance to see a music festival over here was something that I was keen to do.

Although I couldn’t have been that keen, as it ran for two days and I only went to one of them, the second day, Sunday. Another thing that I’ve been missing is going hiking (see, definitely one of those rant blogs, I’ll be complaining about work colleagues not appreciating me and locals pushing in front of me in queues next, it’s how these things work), so I decided to go hiking on the Saturday. The downside of this was that something had to give and this week that was the football. Apologies then, if you actually read this because you have an interest in Korean football. Although if that’s the case, then you’ve probably realized that you have to wade through an awful lot of dross just to find out the Jeonbuk result. Skip straight to the end now if you want to find out how Lee Dong Gook got on.

Seoul Racetrack from the top of a hill

So on Saturday I hiked up Mt. Cheonggyesan with a hiking group that I’d found on the internet. They were a friendly and interesting bunch, a mixture of mainly Koreans and Americans, with the odd Brit as well. Particularly odd, I suspect they thought, but that’s just my way. We walked for about five hours, with frequent stops for makgeolli, that milky looking Korean rice wine, bits of cake and pretty much any excuse for a chat that we could think of. One of the benefits of hiking with a group is that you don’t have any responsibility for where you go. I quite like that. It’s laziness I suppose, but as navigation isn’t one of my strong points, it’s a lot more enjoyable to leave it to people with a map and a sense of direction. At one stage when we were near the top we were able to look down on the racecourse that I’d visited a few weeks earlier and we passed some old burial mounds as well. When we were back down again we called into a Korean restaurant for more makgeolli and a barbeque. As the new boy I had to make a speech, which despite being kept down to about fifteen seconds, I was later told was too long. Fair point.

Graves

Sunday I didn’t have to make any speeches, but I did have to do a bit of navigation. I’d been seeing an American girl and thought that I’d take her along to the festival for a bit of company. Some things I prefer doing alone, the trips to football matches, for example, but some things benefit from having a drinking companion and, for me, music festivals fall into that category.

It was a bit of a trek to get there as it took place right on the outskirts of Seoul, three stops from the end of Line 3 at Jeongbalsan. I’d naively assumed that it would be signposted from the subway exit, but it wasn’t. We wandered about aimlessly for a while before I spotted a sign for it, quite close to the subway exit as it happens. We bought our day tickets, exchanged them for wristbands and went in. It wasn’t a particularly big festival, set in the grounds of a college I think. There were three stages, a main stage with tiered seating, a second stage where you just sat on the grass and a third stage that we didn’t bother even walking around to. There were probably about a thousand people in there, so it was easy to get around and get served.

It was a very pleasant way to spend a day, sitting in the sun listening to music whilst knocking back a variety of drinks. I started with beer, switched to bags of sangria that resembled blood bags from a hospital, tried beer with tomato, which I wasn’t too keen on and then moved onto some other stuff which I no longer remember. Possibly tequila sunrises. Without the accompanying coffee this time though I think.

The bands were pretty good, mainly folkie type guitar bands, with the odd acoustic one thrown in and a little bit of easy listening and jazz. Towards the end there was a flamenco style band who were very well received. It got a bit colder as it moved towards the finishing time of ten o’clock, but I’d brought a coat so that was fine too. My Beautiful Mint Life indeed.

Meanwhile, for those of you who are keeping up with his progress, Lee Dong Gook scored an injury time equalizer for Jeonbuk in their home draw with league leaders Gyeongnam. He was also named as one of the six strikers in the provisional World Cup squad of thirty. A couple of the others are pretty young and inexperienced, so as long as he stays fit it looks as though his good run of form will earn him a trip to South Africa.

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Gyeongnam v FC Seoul, Sunday 25th April

June 2, 2010

This was meant to be one of those ‘two matches in consecutive days’ trips, as I’d noticed that both the teams that play in Changwon were at home in the same weekend. Changwon City of the second tier National League had a game on the Saturday night, followed by top division Gyeongnam on the Sunday afternoon. I’d had a bit of a late night out in Bundang though on the Friday that included ‘Coffee Tequila’s’ at 3am. A ‘Coffee Tequila’ involves licking what appeared to be instant coffee powder off your hand before knocking back the tequila shot in one. It’s not a variation that I’d tried before and I’m still not wholly convinced that either my companion or the barman weren’t taking the piss somewhere along the line.

Whatever. The upshot though was that next morning I didn’t fancy doing anything at all, particularly taking in a match involving a lower division team that I’d just discovered shared a stadium with their top tier neighbours. Part of the attraction for me of going to these games is seeing the different grounds and turning up twice within twenty four hours at the same place just doesn’t have the same appeal.

So, it was Sunday morning by the time I set off for Changwon. I caught the 9am KTX, changing at Miryang and passing the Cheongdo Bullfighting Stadium on the way before arriving at Changwon just after midday. I’d had a bit of a read about Changwon during the week and to be honest, it was probably just as well that I was only there for the afternoon, there didn’t seem a great deal else there that was worth seeing. It seemed to be mainly shopping malls and office blocks. I got a taxi into the city centre and then after some lunch, got another taxi to the ground.

Since there isn’t much to say about Changwon, I’ll take the opportunity to fill you in about Korean toilets. Instead of just having a seat and a lid like ours do, they have a plug in unit that sits on top of the bowl. You can buy them in the electrical stores and supermarkets for a couple of hundred quid. It looks like a seat, but is thicker and has a panel of buttons down the side. When I first moved into my apartment I couldn’t work out how to flush it and, as you do, just pressed all the buttons in the hope that something would happen. Well, it did. What happened was that a jet of water shot out of the bowl into the air and started flooding my bathroom. No matter which other buttons I pressed it wouldn’t stop, not until about thirty seconds had elapsed anyway. I’ve unplugged it now.

At work, the panel at the side of the seat has seventeen different buttons on it. When you sit down the toilet plays a tune and then the seat warms up. I’ve learnt my lesson though and don’t touch any of the buttons. I daren’t in case a wire brush appears and gives my piles a scrub.

The ground looked pretty smart from the outside and was decorated with a lot of banners in the Gyeongnam colours of red and black. It was only built last year and holds 15,500 people, perfect for a club of Gyeongnam’s size. I walked along the front of the stadium and then up behind the goal where I bought a ticket. I’m used to the odd surprise at these ticket offices but today’s was one of the best yet. I handed over the exact money for a 10,000 won ticket and in return got not only my ticket but a 6” square pizza box with a slice of pepperoni pizza in it. I took my snack, declined the offer of a couple of those inflatable sticks to bang together and went into the ground. You could sit anywhere at all, so I decided to sit in the shade. It was a hot day and I’ve been finding recently that my severe new haircut doesn’t give my scalp much protection from the sun. Mind you, I don’t get compared to Meat Loaf any more, so I’m not going to complain about trivial stuff in comparison. Second degree burns seem a lot more preferable to some smirking twat whistling ‘I’d do anything for love’ behind your back.

I bought a couple of cans of cold beer to accompany my pizza and took a seat high in the main stand. The teams came out and lined up before being presented to someone who looked important. We then got a minute of mournful music during which the players stood respectfully with their heads bowed whilst the crowd sat, a little less respectfully, eating their free pizzas and chattering away amongst themselves.

As the game kicked off there were a lot of people outside, perhaps being held up by the need for more pizzas. In fact, twenty five minutes into the match there were still people making their way in. This was probably the closest to capacity that I’d seen any ground in my time here, but I suppose that shouldn’t be much of a surprise, given that Gyeongnam, in second place, were playing the league leaders, Seoul. Gyeongnam were in red shirts and black shorts whilst Seoul, who usually wear AC Milan style red and black stripes were in white shirts with a diagonal red and black stripe and black shorts.

The official attendance was given as fourteen and a half thousand, but I reckon that there were more than a thousand empty seats, maybe two or three thousand in total, but even so, a twelve or thirteen thousand strong crowd in this stadium certainly made for a better atmosphere than the similar sized crowds at the much larger World Cup Stadiums that I’d been to at Seoul, Incheon and Jeonbuk.

The stadium announcer was doing his best to get the crowd going and with the help of the scoreboard displaying the words, soon had the fans chanting along and banging their inflatable sticks together. After any bit of excitement on the pitch, it seemed as if he summarized it afterwards, usually getting a decent cheer out of the crowd. Quite how he managed this after some dismal finishing from the home team I’m not sure, but no matter how bad the miss, the crowd would roar after his comments. Perhaps it was something along the lines of…

“Another terrible miss from that useless apology for a centre forward, but give him a cheer because I hear that he is nice to his Mam and he got his dog from a rescue shelter”

A few minutes before half time Ha Dae-Sung picked up two yellows in quick succession to reduce Seoul to ten men, but they hung on until the break. I took the opportunity to have a walk around to the other side of the ground and picking up another beer, sat behind the goal for a while. There was an enormous football obscuring the view of anyone unfortunate to be sat behind the corner flag. That would have been interesting had it been a sellout.

Worse than Goodison Park

The Gyeongnam fans were making a pretty good effort with flags, drums and almost non-stop singing. The best bit though was the close up view of their goalie, Kim Yong-Dae. With his shaggy ginger hair he looked like a cartoon lion. He seemed very popular with the small children, who probably thought he was a mascot. I was given some dried squid to eat by a gang of old biddies. This seems to happen a lot and when I moved later to the other end of the ground I got given some Pringles. I must look like I need feeding up.

Kim Yong Dae

Five minutes before the end Gyeongnam’s Ghanaian striker Alex Asamoah was subbed. Nothing unusual about that normally, but in his case he had only come on twenty minutes earlier. There was a lot of booing but I couldn’t tell if it was aimed at the player or the decision. Whatever the thinking behind it was, it had a positive effect and the place went wild as Gyeongnam got an injury time winner. A second Seoul player, Kim Jin-Kyu, was sent off afterwards after picking up two yellows for dissent. It looked as if the second was for whatever he was muttering to himself as  he walked away from the referee. The final whistle had gone even before he was back in the dressing room and I headed off past the piles of empty pizza boxes to get a taxi back to the station.

Goooaaalllll

Meanwhile a last minute goal from Lee Dong Gook wasn’t sufficient to prevent Jeonbuk suffering their first defeat of the season at home to Ulsan Horang-i. That dropped them down to sixth place, five points behind new leaders Gyeongnam who had leap frogged over Seoul with that injury time goal.

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