World Cup Fever!!

Hey all,

I know it's been a long time, now I'm coming back home.  I'll chalk up the long absence away from the blog to a relatively busy schedule after school as well as the beginning of the World Cup and the absolute mayhem and pandomonium that started with South Korea's first game 10 days ago.  These pictures are from downtown Seoul, taken during Korea's first game with Greece.  The whole country has been swept up in the "Shouting Reds" mania!  And for good reason, the South Korean team, possibly underrated going into the tournament, has played pretty well so far.

They handled Greece fairly easily in their first game, but ran up against a much tougher opponent in group leader Argentina in their second game.  Unfortunately, their last group game, against Nigeria, doesn't start until 3 am in Korea tonight/tomorrow morning, so I'll find out the result tomorrow morning.  Hopefully it's a win; teaching on Friday after the loss to Argentina last Thursday night was not an easy task, made all the more difficult by the lack of A/C at school. 


Oh, and how could I forget the other important team I'm following:

Two weekends ago it worked out very nicely that the South Korea-Greece game was the early game on Saturday night, which acted as a nice warmup to the main event later that night (or early Sunday morning, however you look at it), England vs. USA.  We headed into Itaewon to watch the big opening match and the atmosphere was electric, although I don't think it could compare to the delirium that took over for South Korea's first game.  For the USA's second match, a group of us got together in Suwon and camped out outside the GS25 convenience store (a true Korean experience!) and watched the game on the big screen outside a restaurant on the opposite side of the street.  Another draw for the USA has given them some control of their destiny heading into their last group game against Algeria.  It would be great if South Korea and the USA could both advance to the knock-out stage (the next round, 16 teams).  Thankfully, the USA-Algeria game is on tomorrow night at a viewable hour and it goes without saying that I will be watching.

Outside of the World Cup Fever that has swept across the nation and most of the world, I have been pretty busy keeping up with tennis, playing some pickup basketball at a local university, and slowly learning some more Korean.  Last Saturday, a few of us took a little trip out to Chinatown in Incheon.  I was in search of some authentic dim-sum and was sure that if any place in Korea would have a selection, Chinatown was that place.  But, to quote the movie Chinatown, "Forget it Jake, you're in Chinatown."  I was literally awed that Chinatown, of all places, did not have any dim-sum restaurants.  They had plenty of Chinese restaurants though, and we settled for some Peking duck (I say settle very loosely) after watching a Chinese dragon parade.  The overall Chinatown experience was pretty good, it was enjoyable and worth the trip and definitely worth the freebies, the best of which were the sticky rice balls (no Chinese hot dog though).  The weekend adventures have slowed down a little bit, but they should pick up again very soon.  Whitewater rafting has been thrown around as a possibility, as well as bungee jumping.  I still need to go to my first Korean baseball game.  July will be a big month for some escapades, including the Boryeong Mud Festival and the Jisan Valley Rock Festival.  I can't believe it's already nearing the end of June, this past month has just flown by.  Almost a month until I'll be back in North America, which seems a little unreal to me right now.

That's all for now, time for the birthday shout outs section, being that it's that time of year.

Happy Birthday Bubbie!  I wish I could come to Toronto to celebrate with everyone, but at least I will be in town not too long from now.

Happy Birthday Mom & Dad!  I'm not sure whether I'll have a new post up by the time your birthdays come around, I'm guessing probably not since they're both this week.  Anyways, hope you two have a great time celebrating!

What I'm listening to:  "Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers