World Cup! Fighting Korea! We are Twelfth!

You can't escape it. Red is everywhere. With only one game left to go in the first round (against Switzerland), it feels like the entire country is on pins and needles.

Exhibit A: The official songs.

Psy's "We Are the One"



Buzz's "Reds Go Together"




Exhibit B: The official dance.


(Mom, note the liberal use of jazz square!)

Exhibit C: The sand animation "trailer'



Exhibit D: The attire.



Exhibit E: The kindergarteners at breaktime.





Exhibit F: The reaction in Seoul when Korea won its first match, 2:1 against Togo.



And no, we were not completely immune. Here we are at a local "foreigner" bar, Benchwarmers, taking in the game with the only locals who did not cram themselves into Munsu Stadium with the rest of Ulsan.



Jim with Nova Scotian bar owner, Troy:


Reaction after Korea's first goal - scored by a fella from Ulsan, no less!


As for that upcoming final Group G game against Switzerland? The party starts at 4am Saturday morning, local time here.

A guided tour on an average night around town

After a long day of this...



...we like to treat ourselves to dinner at one of our favourite restaurants in the university district (Mugeo-dong). It's not fancy, but the food's good (very, very good!) and they give you free pop. All the tables have gas burners installed in them, and the food is cooked at the table by roving waitstaff. A common sight in most Korean restaurants!



Another option for cheap, on-the-go eating here is the dak bokki stall. The one pictured below is a little more "permanent" than many of the ones we see on the street - many of them are actually installed on the backs of small trucks.



And of course, if you're feeling flush and desperate for western food, you can always have pizza delivered to your door. (We haven't been bold enough to do this yet.)


But don't order from this guy unless you're a woman, according to their slogan:


After supper, we usually take a stroll around our neighbourhood, Dal-dong. This shot is our street - way in the distance to the west you can see the giant Lotte Wheel.


Here's Jim with his favourite truck:


This ubiquitous truck is not only used for election campaigning and as mobile dak bokki stalls, it's the main way fresh produce is sold (outside of the big grocery chains, anyway). Here's the guy from our neighbourhood who sells melons.

(Dad, that one was for you!)

Another shot of the ongoing neighbourhood street produce market on a Friday night:


And here's a super blurry non-flash pic of an average family in our 'hood, walking home after picking up their daughter from Tae Kwon Do academy.


A shot of our parking lot from our front balcony. White cars are popular.


And a shot of the moon later that night, from our back balcony:

Lazy Post

So, the news this week: we now have the internet happening in our apartment! This should mean that we are capable of updating this little site more frequently, but sadly, my English computer doesn't like the Korean digital scans of our most recent pictures.

Until we figure out this latest technological snafu, please have a look at our pictures from out trip to Ilsan Beach from last month!



The rest are here, with a bunch of other pictures we took over the last month or so. Several of these you've probably seen already.

...oh, and following up from that last post - the Grand National Party was able to claim a landslide victory in most regions of Korea, and Korea's world cup team lost one of its friendlies to Ghana last week. That hasn't dampened the fever around here, though!