The right place at the right time: at SEOUL while KOREA displays skill with a 2-0 WORLD CUP win against Greece

EMI with MR damper Research

Let's just say that the research so far is going good. I have a lot of reading to do but ehh it can wait. Blogging is fun and tiring, and the rest of the energy left is for researching hehe. Eh good thing "we" are working hard because there's a reward for it, besides getting paid to do it. Dr. Yun saw that we were still working on a Friday evening, so he decided to take us out to dinner. Good thing NSF is loaded because we're using a big chunk of their budget ;)

Korean BBQ

I must say, this has to be on the list of "Top International Food" list somewhere because it was absolutely mouth-watering exquisite. If you see the pictures we were brought many side dishes, with lots of lettuce for our beef. Need directions on how to eat? Let me explain:

1. Pick up beef with chopsticks (ATTENTION: must be a pro with the hollow sticks)

2. Grab a lettuce and place beef nicely in the middle

3. Add small amounts of other side dishes on top of meat (i.e. cooked onions, garlic..)

4. Place chopsticks down

5. fold lettuce nicely as to cover meat

6. Place in mouth and enjoy

Gotta love admiring the kimchi on the side.. sorry Koreans, but I can't get myself to ever finish the it though.

---------- Seoul, Corea -----------

Lunch, Shopping, and Temple visit

After arriving in Seoul by the high speed train from Daejeon our stomaches were grumbling. Not surprising the three Korean grad students found a perfect Korean restaurant to satisfy our hunger. ("Na nan baegopa"! = "I am hungry")

I'm not sure which district Bomin and JungSu (the graddies = grad students) took us to, but

Annika and I got most of our basic Korean souvenir shopping done! There were all kinds of beautiful paintings, great Korean shirts... everything related to Korea. It must be noted that after a while I obliviously began to give out my money to every vendor that had ANY artifact with KOREA on it. I commented to David West that "at first I got too excited that people had their shops outside selling things that I bought everything I saw.. but as a kept walking I realized that many vendors sold the same thing but the further I walked the cheaper it got." Oh boy, c'mon Allie! Be a smart shopper!

Quickly stuffing my pink, Nike bag with colorful plastic bags obtaining my precious gifts, slow-walking to let the group keep up with me, and avoiding the speedracers that always seem like they aim to make me roadkill-- all while trying to keep my blue&green polka dotted umbrella vertically stabled; I found myself admiring the Korean palace called "Gueongbokgung."

Interesting fact: "Queen" Min was assassinated here. (I put queen in quotations because one of the graddies [the historically-inclined one] explained to me that she was not a Queen, but was the wife of the King. I didn't really get it but went along with the enlightenment news anyways)

Description: Chinese-structured, nail-less buildings, red gates,

mountain scenery in the background, awe-struck people taking photos to "capture" the moment while not admiring it in person, open doors leading towards new findings, antiques on displa

y to show an example of buildings at their time, looming walkways with trees on each side, museum (with a restroom YES!), animal-sculptured sages in a circle-like manner, muddy grounds, and beautiful trees dancing with the wind.

DINNER

'course we couldn't go to the game with our bellies empty! The graddies found us ANOTHER Korean wonder to eat.

We were ready for the game. RED shirts, bandanas, fists. Yup, we were part of the team. We had to eat fast because we knew that the team "needed" us.

World Cup at Seoul
I always thought that I had some great experiences with the

World Cup.. waking up at 4 am to watch a match, eating CEVICHE while watching PERU beat MEXICO a long time ago.. but wow was I missing out.

Here are two sentences on Korean football to begin my discussion:
1. Korea held the World Cup in 2002 (along with Japan) , advanced to the semi-finals, and lost to Turkey even though Park Ji-Sung displayed great potential for the future of Korean football.
2. There is a reason for all of the advertisements saying "SHOUTING KOREA": the RED

devils sure know how to cheer for their country.

After wondrously "promenading (Fernando: leisurely walking) the streets and subway undergrounds of Seoul, buying GO REDS! jerseys, and (might I add) huge cape-like flags (Anthony went crazy), we decided the most convenient location for us to watch the match: City Hall, Seoul. If you watched the game most likely you saw the crazy fans at their best. Even with the fact that all of Seoul had received a little blessing from above, at least from umbre

lla vendors perspective, not a single Korean complained about the wetness of the streets. In fact, it was a perfect chance to buy a RED raincoat without having doubts about looking redly fabulous.

As we bustled through beer sellers, hot food vendors, policemen in yellow outfits, people-screaming Korean cars, and high-rise buildings all in the center of Seoul, we found about 5 huge TV screens all over. The grad students guided us to the middle of the entire city, but as we were speed walking towards it we hear SHOUTING and see people JUMPING and screaming "YAYYY!!!!!"

"JAM CHUM HAMNIDA! MIN GOK HAMNIDA CHAM CHAM S'HAMNIDA!!!!" (note: these are not actual words, but they do provide an example for non-Korean speakers to experience what my ears heard that night.)

Turns out that I had missed the first Korean goal of the match, scored by Lee Jung-Soo. Oh I have to believe that the Koreans jumping created vibration that must have gotten close to the natural frequencies of all of the buildings around city hall (engineering joke). We found a spot to watch the game, cheered in Korean (yes, I learned a new cheer: DAE HA MIN GUK! [clap x 3] ) It was absolutely entertaining and by far one of the greatest experience I have ever witnessed. I'm sure the Park felt his home country screaming his name, got super motivated, and score

d one for his people. Boy, what a night to remember!

Soon after the match was over we began to slowly walk as people continued

to celebrate; it wasn't long that this walk turned into a run towards a coke car, jumping over people, reaching out along many other desperate hands, opening our eyes like fish, and joyfully holding a cold bottle of Coca-Cola as we pushed to get out of a crowd of more desperate people ready for some free coke. Hey everyone was so happy by the 2-0 win with Greece to resist any feelings related to being sheepish. Besides, what a great way to express your excitement than to rush towards a crowd if reaching hands for some free Coke?

Yes, lots of celebration took place in the streets, in the restrooms, at the bars, subways... you name it. It wasn't a long break for us after that though, since John (this time he was with us) had to watch his country(Nigeria) play on the big screen. Good thing there was a bar in front of our Youth Hostel. Sadly for him the game favored Argentina with a 1-0 win. Go S. America!

After all of that our bodies could not withstand watching the USA game..

So on goes time, tick tock-ing away without a care if I need more time to continue my wall. Now that I've had a good day of "rest" and seeing that it's 11:00 pm, I must get back to the World Cup. Germany plays at 3:30 a.m. and since I'm not too interested in the Serbia game, I think I'll take a quick nap.

Cheers and Congrats to COREA,

-Allie R.