Year 1 - World Cup 2002 memories

I was fortunate enough to be in Korea while the World Cup was here. I have watched every World Cup as far back as I can remember. I never thought I would be able to watch a game in person. As the email I posted showed I wasn't disappointed.

I know when most foreigners talk about World Cup 2002 and Korea they aren't favourable towards Korea. Me? Well, I had a great time. I enjoyed watching Korea play and the festivities around it. I REALLY enjoyed the festivities. :)

My co-workers and I watched every game from Korea vs Portugal on at the same samkyubsal restaurant. They had a projection screen. The place was PACKED. It was just fun. We met some nice people and shared a lot of soju with strangers.

Yes, there were some lousy calls but they weren't all in favour of Korea. (I wanted Korea to go as far as possible because it meant the partying would continue.) The Italians particularly irked me. The BS with Ahn JangHwan. The whining because Totti, who was notorious for diving, getting red carded for ... diving. They were acting as immaturely as Koreans often do when something goes against them.

Fondest memories?

The live game in Ulsan of course.

The chick who snogged me after Korea beat Spain. Everyone was celebrating. Strangers shaking hands and some hugging. This cute chick hugs me and starts kissing me. And it wasn't a little peck on the cheek. It startled me at first. We exchanged phone numbers and made plans for a date. (Of course it turned out she just wanted to practice her Englishee. She wanted her boyfriend to join too, he was the guy who shook my hand and thanked me for cheering for Korea after I finished kissing her. Strangee.)

A guy sporting wood riding on the roof of a truck. Cars were all over the place after the games. Lots of Korean flags flying out windows. One pick-up truck was meandering down the street with a guy getting his groove on. Matt noticed the guy either had a hard on or stuffed his pants. Matt noticed stuff like that.

The family that ran the mart in my apartment building. They were such nice people. Still are. I go there from time to time. The mother was always slipping us vitamin drinks in the morning. Or some bacchus for energy. After a hard night of partying that was always welcome. For the Korea-Spain game we painted our faces up. The grand kids were at the store so we did them too. Soon we had strangers asking to be painted.

The partying. It was just pure good fun. I can't recall any mooks ruining things. There were mooks, you can't avoid them here, but they were low key.

Ok, one incident with mooks does come to mind. You knew one would. As I said we went to most games at the same place. We pre-booked our table. If you didn't you wouldn't get one. We invited some friends to come as well. BumSuk brings a gaggle of Koreans. His sister, her fiance, some friends. All in all about 5-6 extra people. Friends of theirs come and go. They ALL left without leaving ANY money to pay. Hilda and I ended up with a bill of around 150,000 won. All of the bastards ate and drank ... and buggered off.

We told BumSuk that he could come next time but not to invite anyone else. The ricetard brings his sister and fiance again. Friends pop in again and they all manage to bugger off leaving a whole 20,000 won with BumSuk to pay for their share. Needless to say BumSuk was not invited anymore. (Ok, I didn't invite him anymore but Hilda stupidly still did. I made sure to keep a separate bill for myself.)

All in all I had a great time.