Korea hosted the World Cup back in 2002 and goes nuts every time the World Cup happens, which is every four years.
The color and slogan of the Korean team is the red devils. I don't know about soccer crazy countries, but it is definitely an experience to be in a country that loves soccer during these games. Plus, Korea is a pretty nationalistic country, so there's a lot of national spirit going on. For example, if one of the soccer players royally screws up during a game, the entire country will hate him. Seriously. I mean, if someone messes up during the Super Bowl people get angry about it, but a year down the road, people won't still hate his guts for it. Not so here. Plus, if Korea does really well, the team members get exempt from doing their mandatory military service.
Last Saturday was the first game Korea played, against Greece. It was pouring rain all day, but thousands and thousands of people showed up to cheer at cheering sites all around the city. EVERYONE was wearing red! Emily and Nik came to Seoul for the game, and we meet up at COEX mall to cheer. Since, I was still a bit sick, I didn't stay for the entire game. But, I felt I had to go for a bit. Haha.
Emily and I met up early and wanted to buy red shirts, since didn't have one. We were at TechnoMart and saw this huge line and a sign saying free shirts. We were like, 'awesome!' and hopped inline. When we were nearing the front, I noticed that everyone had tickets in their hands. I was like, 'oh no...' We asked the woman in front of us, and she said that we needed to get tickets on the 9th floor in order to receive a free shirt, but that the tickets were free. I turned to Emily and was like, 'run.' So, she ran up 9 flights of escalators only to find out that the tickets had all been given out. So sad. Meanwhile, I was holding our spot in line and the lady in front offered us one of her tickets. So Sweet! But turns out, you hand the ticket in, receive a number, and an hour later, at 7, you take the number and get your shirt. Wow, way way way too complicated. Plus, we had to meet everyone at 7, so it wouldn't have worked out. I thanked the lady but told her we had planned to meet friends at 7, so it wouldn't work out anyway.
So, Emily and I headed to COEX in the pouring rain without our shirts... We got to the place we were supposed to meet everyone a bit early, so we headed out to the cheering site to look around. We saw a line - not too long - and it looked like people we getting shirts. So we jumped in line. When we got to the front I asked for an extra shirt for Sarang (she was still sick and couldn't go) and they gave me one! Nice!!! Free shirts and we only waited about 5 minutes!
Korean teacher, Kim BoKyeong and me
Nik, Emily, and I
fans
people ontop of a shoe shinning booth
someone's attempt to climb ontop of the telephone booth
soccer cheer "대한민국 짝-짝 짝-짝 짝"
We met up with Nik, my speaking teacher from Sogang, who coincidentally has a mutual friend with Nik and Emily, and my teacher's two friends. We ate dinner and headed out to watch the game. I only stayed for about 20 minutes because I didn't wanna get sick again and also because I wanted to watch the rest of the game with Sarang, but it was really fun! the energy from the crowd was crazy!!!
It was a sea of red and unfortunately, it was so crowded, I couldn't really even see the screen. People were sitting on top of shoe shinning huts and climbing on top of payphone booths!
I went back to Sarangs, gave her her shirt and a pair of devils horns I'd bought her, and we watched the rest of the game. On the way back, I rode the bus and everyone was watching the game on their phones. When Korea scored their second goal, everyone on the bus cheered and the bus driver honked his horn to the tune of one of cheers. Korea beat Greece 2 to 0. NICE!
Korea's second game (Korea v. Argentina) was this past Tuesday. Originally, I was supposed to go to City Hall and watch it with SupHo people, but I ended up going to Sarang's house. We went and watched most of the game at a nearby park that had a huge screen. Since she lives in a more residential area, the cheering place was more family oriented and felt like the 4th of July but with soccer.
screen and the fans
~sarang and me~
right after Korea scored their first (and only) goal
Sadly, Argentina won 4-1... Man, everyone was so sad. Argentina brought their A game and Korea did not... They seemed to really lack on their defense, but I don't know soccer very well.. Sarang was upset about the outcome and couldn't stop talking about the game the entire night. But, in any case, I had fun watching the game and cheering. ^^
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