World Cup Opening Ceremony and Mexico vs. South Africa

Last night was the opening game of the World Cup. We had wanted to go to a fun bar to watch the game. What actually ended up happening was going to a chicken HOF near Hanyangdae (where my friends ate nearly all the chicken before I showed up .... grrr... jk) and watched some of the opening ceremony. They had plenty of artists from all over, including the Black Eyed Peas, Juanes and Alicia Keys performing, not to mention plenty of other folks I didn't recognize. After a while, or maybe after I complained about not getting any food, we decided to go to the ddukbokki place downstairs to get some yummy food. But, much to our surprise, they were shutting down.. at 10:30. I guess they wanted to go to a bar and watch the game too... So after walking around the Hanyangdae area for a while without finding anyplace with decent food, we just decided to go home.

Fortunately, some friends of ours who thought they would be unable to hang out with us last night had a change of plans and decided to come by our place with a big plate of 회 or Korean style raw fish. So, 회 + 만두+ homemade beer + Mexico vs. South Africa wound up being a good time even at home. Not to mention the rain that started to fall cooled down my apartment immensely... I didn't have to turn on my air conditioner, which was also a nice surprise.


Now tonight, we'll see what happens with the weather, but I'd like to go to Gwanghwamun/ City Hall to be in the middle of the action for the big game: Korea vs. Greece. If I do something interesting, expect a blog soon!

View of North Korea Shows How a Policy Spread Misery

Here's a great article in the New York Times discussing everyday life in North Korea. If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend you read a book I reviewed a few months ago called Nothing to Envy.

View of North korea Shows How a Policy Spread Misery

FC Seoul vs Jejudo

Sunday I ventured out to World Cup Stadium to see FC Seoul vs. Jejudo. It was actually my second soccer match in Korea, but I forgot my camera when I went to my first game last year, so I never blogged about it.

Last time we sat on the sides, but this time we sat behind the goal in the FC Seoul fan's area. Here there's not much of a chance to sit down. There are some song leaders that keep everyone on their feet singing, chanting, clapping and basically going wild.


Before the game, everyone was asked to hold their fans up and show the Korean flag. I wish I knew where they got those fan thingies though...

Anyway, the game was great... at least for FC Seoul. 5-1 win against Jejudo. They never really had much of a chance, FC Seoul simply dominated the field most of the game. I was actually impressed that they scored at all.

This was great game for me to prepare for the World cup, which starts on Friday! For all you people who are clueless about the World Cup, it's a soccer tournament held every 4 years. This year it's being held in Johannesburg, South Africa and it's looking like it's going to be a great few weeks of soccer watching. All the teams I care about (aka all the countries I have some emotion for... I know nothing about soccer skills) are all playing; South Korea, USA and Chile. In an interesting note, North Korea is also playing and I'm excited to watch their games... mostly because it's North Korea... but unfortunately, they're grouped with Brazil and Portugal and they don't stand a chance to make it to the second round.

Korea's first game is Saturday night, so be prepared for craziness around the city. I may be going to Gwanghwamun where the biggest gathering of fans should be. I don't really expect to see much of the game around there, but it should be a fun time just being with a bunch of crazy fans! Evidently, at World Cup stadium, they're offering camping supplies to anyone who wants to camp out there for the night. Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about camping out on concrete for the heck of it, but who knows, I find out that something really exciting is going on there, maybe I'll go there instead!

World Cup: North Korea blunder gives it a built-in excuse for failure

I'll never understand North Korea.....

World Cup: North Korea blunder gives it a built-in excuse for failure

Two Movie Reviews: 하녀 (Hanyo) and 앤티크 (Antique Bakery)

하녀 (Hanyeo or Hanyo)

*Warning! Spoiler Alert!*

This movie was based on the 1960 movie called The Housemaid. Basically it's the story of a woman who picks up a job working in a house as a nanny and maid for an extremely wealthy family. Totally unexpectedly (note sarcasm) she starts to have an affair with the husband and the movie mostly pertains to the results of this affair, and what happened when the wife and the wife's mother found out. In the end, to get her revenge on the family for putting her through hell, she kills herself in a very graphic way in front of the children.

I was told great things about this movie from some Korean girlfriends of mine, though no one told me what it was about. I went in expecting some sort of chick flick comedy and instead I got this gruesome upstairs/downstairs story. I was not impressed at all with the story. The movie was quite predictable and I was quite disgusted by the fact that suicide is considered a good way to get revenge in the end. The characters all felt very flat and one dimensional. I'm no movie critic, but when I watch a movie, I like to be able to connect or at least like one of the characters. But here, I felt no empathy for anyone involved and I really hated every single character.

This movie is another example of Korean movies that have been made (somewhat) accessible to the English speaking ex-pat community in Korea. This year, Cinus is no longer running the subtitled movies, but there are still subtitled movies in the CGV in Yongsan and Myongdong. It still seems as though movie information in English is difficult to access for non-Korean speakers. I did find a section on CGV's website that allows you to sign up for regular updates by entering your ARC and name into their system, but for some reason it didn't recognize my number and or name. If anyone else figures out this, let me know what the secret is.


앤티크 or Antique Bakery

After doing some research on this film, I discovered that it was based on a Japanese manga of the same name. This movie is about four men running a bakery together. There's the owner with a strange past which makes him throw up if he eats cake, the gay master chef who hates women, the ex-boxing champion apprentice and the slightly off bodyguard/adopted brother who makes a mess of everything in the shop. It's a slightly odd situation which makes much more sense now that I know it was based on a manga. The movie is mostly light hearted and fun to watch. There is a mystery that needs to be solved as well which makes it more than just your average comedy. It's also one of the first major movies to portray a gay character in Korea, although I can think of some others that have come out in the past few years as well.

As Korean TV and film are still in the early days of portraying homosexual characters I think they still have some problems with stereotyping and strange assumptions about gay culture, but hopefully these movies are a step in the right direction towards bringing homosexuality into the light for average Koreans who still honestly believe that there are no gay Koreans. I'm sorry to break the news to them, but I've met quite a few homosexual people in this country and they really are real Koreans, not some strange foreign import.

This movie is definitely worth watching, and you can find it very well subtitled on mysoju.com.

The Domino's Ripoff

You know, I'd never been to a Domino's in Korea until last weekend. I always assumed it'd be a little more expencive than home, but not much, because they look about the same. No tables, just delivery or takeout only. They drive around on little motorbikes and deliver pizza just like every other delivery place in Korea. No one would dream of driving a car to deliver food. Too slow and too much gas I guess.

So, for some reason last weekend my house smelled like pizza... maybe my neighbors got delivery or something and it put me in a pizza eating mood. So, on my way to Korean class, we stopped by Domino's because it's just next door to the class to get a quick bite to eat.

Now, at home in the US, Domino's is pretty cheap, right? I'm looking at their website now. I guess it's a little more expencive than when I was in high school and I actually ate Domino's, but nowadays it looks like you can get two medium sized pizzas for $5.99 each, and buying a large size cheese pizza is about 10.99 depending on what kind of crust etc. So, I was guessing maybe 8-9,000 won for a medium sized pizza.... Pizza School starts at 5,000 won for their standard size pizza and it tastes pretty nice.

I was shocked when I looked at the menu and found that a medium size, regular crust, cheese pizza was about 18,000 won. I was ready to walk out of the shop, but the boyfriend didn't seem shocked at all by the price and just paid for it. When we got the pizza, it was just bigger than a small size at home (well, everything is smaller here, that's not necessarily a bad thing), and it didn't taste like anything special. The only redeeming factor of the whole pizza, actually, was the free garlic sauce which gave it some extra flavor it desperately needed.

So, the moral of the story here, folks, is if you want cheap pizza, go to Pizza School, and if you want gourmet pizza, go to Pizza Hut (or the best restaurant in the city) but, if you go to Domino's, expect high prices and low quality. How does this place stay in buisness???

Drinking our Makkoli

Three of us met up on Sunday to drink the makkoli we made the previous Friday. We were able to drink it at a little hidden travel cafe in Jongno where you're allowed to bring in whatever food or drink you like. Our makkoli turned out ok, but very thick. We diluted it with wine which tasted pretty good, but was super strong.


The owner of the travel cafe was kind enough to run out to a market and get us some snacks (aka lunch). He got us this lovely little plate of sundae (noodle filled intestine lining... not so gross when you think that sausage is meat filled sausage lining though), liver, pig ear and something else I can't remember and not visible in the photo. I ate a little of the sundae, but I couldn't bring myself to eat the other stuff.


This nice jeon was a much nicer snack.