Metropolis

A couple of months ago, we found the perfect bar. After months of searching, months of endless Hite and Cass on tap, months of enduring fireshows and dicks on both sides of the bar, months of bartenders unable to understand you due both to language barriers and painfully loud, awful music, months of vain attempts to watch live sport - essentially months of inadequate drinking, we discovered a gem. It's in Nowon - a five minute bike ride away - serves real beer, has darts, foosball, quiz machine, big screens, sensibly-volumed music (that patrons can request), live sport, toilets, everything.

When we made our first few trips there the owner was manning the fort by himself, and we were his main customers. He speaks perfect English, and we got ingratiated quickly, helped by the continuous flow of won we were thrusting at him. I like to think our business helped to keep him afloat in those first few weeks. Right now, as the place is thriving, I like to think we're putting his kids through college. As of today they're employing five guys and a part-time girl. In no small part down to us I'd conjecture.

Last month we watched the FA cup final there, for which I was a temporary Everton fan. Sean provided a Toffees shirt which I happily wore, over my Leeds shirt of course. It's OK so long as it doesn't touch my skin.

I plan to enjoy my good riddance to ECC party in there this Monday evening. Champagne'll be involved and the Alley Kats will flow like wine.

I'd like to add: I've been there this evening, so if you feel this blog is written particularly poorly, attribute it to that. It's fine though: unlike some craggy idiots I don't do this sort of thing on a school night - tomorrow I don't start until 2pm.

As it happens, eleven classes to go... that's it.

Weather report

Today (despite what it says above) is the first day of October, and summer's still in full swing. It was, according to internet weather sources, 25°C today, and I just walked to the shops in shorts and flip flops. Still, there are signs that winter's on its way.

According to the same source, last Tuesday it was 30°C. The next day, it had dropped ten degrees. Autumn, it seemed, had arrived literally overnight. The first morning of the mysterious dip in temperature was a bit weird: for the first time in three months I was actually a little tiny bit cold. I soon realised, however, that I was merely experiencing what are normal British summertime conditions. Koreans, meanwhile, were wrapping up like a blizzard was coming. While a good number of jumpers, coats and even scarves were dusted off here in Korea, a quick glance at the crowd at the Premier League game on TV on Saturday and not a long sleeve in sight. I checked the temperature in Liverpool and yep, at 21 degrees it was the same as here.

I'd been enjoying the breeze and finally relenting humidity, but the last couple of days have been pretty warm. Winter's supposed to be bitter here - given the fact that the locals are layering up on balmy 21 degree afternoons, seriously, how bad can it be? (Check back here in about six weeks...)

Misc

In the absence of anything all that interesting to write about, I'm going to cover several unconnected events that have happened in the week just gone.

1. Today I noticed, when sitting outside Little Jakob's, that there is a bright swastika sign above my window. The whole hakenkreuz as not a nazi thing idea is something you get used to quickly. Still just a touch disconcerting, though.
You'll have to click on the picture for a closer view.

2. It's really really hot. The weather said it was 36 degrees today. I took a nice shady walk to Nowon earlier. Took about half an hour. Wisely got the 1142 bus back. Here's a bus! And some shade!


3. The Olympics. Yesterday I was a bit hungover, and spent pretty much all day supine on the sofa,watching the olympiad. All the best events too: mainly judo, shooting, women's handball, basketball and fencing. When Korea won gold in judo, I had the window open and a roar that was, considering that we're talking about judo, very loud indeed, came up from the galbi place downstairs. We won in the swimming today as well. I'm trying to find a video of the commentary because it was awesome. Reminded me of that commentator's moment of climax screaming when Steve Redgrave won his gold in 2000.

4. I had chicken galbi on Friday. That was quite nice.

5. Woman. There's a woman that works on my road, clearing boxes from the shops, sweeping, generally keeping the place in order. She looks I'd say 70, or older, and I'm pretty sure she works every day of the week from dawn until very late at night. I see her every morning on the way to school, and I can often see her from my window after midnight, still diligently tidying. Here's a picture of her tidying diligently after midnight.

6. Before I finished this post I was invited out to a DVD bang*, but couldn't find it and ended up in a different bang: norae. This of course necessitated soju, which on a Sunday night may prove foolhardy. I'm now watching the community shield.
*As noraebang is singing room, DVD bang is, well, guess. I'll discuss at length another day. This post is too long already.

Football

Last night Sean and I went down to the World Cup Stadium (see a couple of weeks ago) for the auspicious under-23 international friendly clash between Korea and Australia. When we arrived we circumnavigated the whole stadium searching for somewhere to buy tickets. We found nowhere, and with the match already having kicked off we were considering finding a TV. Then we were approached by a tout exclaiming: tickets! You want ticket?! Man won! Man won!

A fiver? Yes please.

OK, so we get inside, wait around needlessly for a warmish can of Hite and, twenty minutes after kick off, make our way to our seats, high up in the rafters. We sit down, praise the view, lament the empty seats and within about thirty seconds, before I'd even turned my camera on, promising striker Shin Young-rok cuts inside onto his right foot and curls a lovely shot into the far corner of the net: the only goal of the match.

Timing.

The rest of the game was less than thrilling, both sides obviously not wanting to overexert themselves before the Olympics. It did come to life in the last ten minutes, with Australia hitting the post and coming close a couple more times, and one Korea counter attack which resulted in the ball being desperately cleared off the line and the whole crowd rising to their feet.

My camera's battery failed me, but I managed to get some shots. Which are below.
Immediately after the goal. Just look at the.. euphoria.

Me playing spot the Leeds player. Then I realised Neil Kilkenny only came on at half time.

The maniacal fans with their flares and flags and chants of 한국! 한국! (Hanguk! Hanguk!) (Korea! Korea!) to the tune of Go West. This was where most of the volume was coming from. The majority of the other spectators were families and young couples, each with their complimentary commemorative paper fan, which when wafted by 20000.. uh, fans.. in unison, gave us from our viewpoint the impression of flowing water. Erm, yep. Bye!