thursday night miguel came by, and we ended up hanging out playing kart rider until like 2:30a. apparently it's the latest craze here in korea, it's a racing game you can play online against up to seven other people. amazingly, it's all free, too!

playing it brought back a lot of fond memories of playing mario kart 64 on the nintendo 64 back at calarts.

that's miguel's cart on the left there. as you can see, he was racing against santa clause there. basically, the more you race, the more points and virtual money you can earn, which you can use to buy better karts and other accessories, like the balloon miguel's guy has there.

if you wanna play, just go to http://kart.nexon.com/. it's all in korean, though...

last night was awesome, i got to fulfill one of my major goals on coming to korea, to see the national soccer team play. even better, i got to see them play in an actual world cup qualifier match, a game that actually counted and mattered for their 2006 world cup hopes.

back in 2002, korea co-hosted the world cup with japan, and it was then that i really became a soccer fan. i ended up cheering for korea, and they had an amazing run, making it all the way to the semifinals, beating such european powerhouses as portugal, italy, and spain. in the end they finished fourth, better than they ever could have hoped for. the nation was in a frenzy, there were amazing pictures of thousands and thousands of koreans taking to the streets to support their team, all wearing red.

i went to watch two games in koreatown, both of which were amazing experiences. i was among at least five thousand red-shirted screaming fans cheering for their team, watching on a big screen set up in an empty parking lot at 3:00a. it was so much fun, i really wanted to experience it again now that i'm in korea.

sunny got us tickets through a friend of hers, so it ended up being me, sunny, natalie, natalie's friend claire, sunny's friend, and her boyfriend, who was an american. korea was taking on kuwait, in the first game of the third and final round of qualifications for the asian football confederation. our seats were really high up, but we were right at the midfield line, so i thought they were great. i took tons of pictures and even some videos, i hope you enjoy 'em!

unfortunately i couldn't get a good shot of them, but i couldn't believe that all the scalpers for the game where these old ladies. now that's something i'd never seen.

it felt so amazing to actually be at the stadium where i'd watched so many memorable games on tv so long ago and far away.

the game hadn't even started yet, but the hard-core fans were pumped up and ready to go. the signs they're holding up spelled out 대한민국 (daehan mingook, which i think basically means great korea. it's a chant they did throughout the game, something i remembered from the last world cup.

on the left you can see the flag of kuwait, to the right is the south korean flag.

kuwait is wearing royal blue on the left, the koreans are in their dark blue warm-ups to the right. their game jerseys are actually a pinkish red.

korea struck first in the 24th minute on an incredible volley into the top left corner of the goal off the post and in. needless to say, the crowd went crazy. korea was dominating possession, the kuwaitis barely had the ball to start the game, but it was great for them to finally take the lead.

this guy ended up not being hurt too badly, he soon returned to the game. but it was funny seeing the guys with the white and light blue shirts bring out the stretcher for him. one of the really cool things about soccer is the sportsmanship you see in it. the clock runs constantly in soccer, and there aren't any timeouts. so if someone gets injured badly, whoever has possession of the ball, no matter which team it is, will kick the ball out of bounds to stop play. then once the injured player has been carried off the field and play resumes, the other team will kick the ball out again to return possession to the team who had it at the time of the injury.

the hard-core fans rolled out this immense flag of their mascot, the red devil, to start the second half. at this point korea led 1-0.

it was great being able to watch the game from such a high angle like this. on television you can't always see what's going on all around the field, so it was really cool to be able to take it all in here.

korea finally got their second goal in the 81st minute on a nifty line drive shot that bounced over the goalie's outstretched hands. korea had dominated throughout, the kuwaitis hadn't been able to muster any offense, but with the score at 1-0, all they needed was one lucky play to tie the game. korea had lots of close calls to score again, but once they finally got through and got the second goal, we could all relax. as it turned out, kuwait never got anything going, they had one shot that went far over the goal in the first half, and it wasn't until the 90th minute that korea's goalie made his first and only save.

it was a great game, even more fun since korea won. the only bad thing about the experience was that we were freezing our butts off out there. still, it was totally worth it for such an amazing experience. at one point, some fans behind us gave us some mandu they had brought with them. it was good, and after i ate it, i turned to thank them again, and they insisted that i have another. they were cool, throughout the game they were commenting on and criticizing the player's actions in korean.

i took some videos with my camera, too. right click on the image and say save target as… and choose a location to save it to your hard drive. you'll need the divx codec to watch them, which you can download for free fromhttp://www.divx.com/divx/download/.

yesterday was the start of the lunar new year, also known as the chinese new year, which was the reason i've been off all week. jerry bought over lots of food from his mom for me, so i cooked it all up for lunch. it was really delicious, see for yourself.

wow, it's so much food, i'm set for the next few days or so. the kimchi will last me a while, which i'm really excited about. that was so nice of jerry and his mom, thank you!!!

besides the korean teachers, the foreign teachers, and my supervisors, my school employs around three or four koreans that are known as helpers. it's pretty much just a part-time job, they help out with keeping the kindergarten kids under control during break times and whatever other odd jobs the school has to do. they don't usually stay too long, in the few months i've been here a lot of them have come and gone.

the only one i ever really got to know was jerry, who started just about a week or two after i arrived. he's a nice guy, and mostly i got to know him because i had a class three times a week where i just basically tutored him in english. by far it was my easiest class, i'd just sit and speak english with him. he'd ask me questions about idioms or other expressions that were hard to figure out the exact meaning. trying to explain more difficult english concepts has really made me realize just how difficult english is, there are so many exceptions to everything.

at one point, jerry brought in a section of the american pie 2 script and asked me to help him understand all the slang and expressions in there. i never thought i'd have to explain to someone what you're the guy who boned stifler's mom! meant. there were lots of phrases i had to explain the meaning of, only to turn around and tell him to never actually use since they're so vulgar you'll get your ass kicked if you actually say it to a girl.

the english tutoring was all in preparation for jerry since he's heading to minnesota state university next week to study music business. he was thankful to me for helping him out, so he took me out for dinner tuesday night. his mom was apparently also thankful, because she sent him with a bunch of food for me to eat later, too.

we had a good time, and i was especially happy because the search for the perfect spicy pork finally ended. this was the stuff, it was so good, i was in heaven.

it was also coincidentally the lunar new year's eve, and jerry said his extended family were all at his house. i guess he wanted to escape them, so he hung out at my place and we watched a korean gangster comedy movie i downloaded.

i woke up at 6:30a monday morning in anticipation of watching this year's super bowl, which was being played two hours later at 6:30p local time in jacksonville, florida. i've been a super bowl enthusiast since i was nine years old, the first one i ever watched was in 1988. this one was particularly exciting since the philadelphia eagles, my hometown team, were making their first appearance there since 1980. i've never been an eagles fan (i cheer for the dallas cowboys), but my father and most of my friends and family are die-hard. so, for their sake, i was rooting for the eagles to finally win a super bowl.

i called home and got a chance to talk to my dad, who was giddy and sounded like a kid on christmas. to say he was excited would be an understatement. we only got to chat for a minute before i had to get ready to go.

i woke up natalie and adam fifteen minutes before we were supposed to go, and by 7:30a we were out the door. normally, of course we'd have to be at work by 9:30a, but we totally lucked out since the chinese new year is this week we're off until friday. we hopped in a taxi and headed out to itaewon, which we figured would have the game on somewhere since there are so many americans there.

the first place we went to was already to crowded, but luckily adam knew of another place nearby, and after we found it to be open and not to crowded. they were also serving breakfast, which was great.

so, we ended up drinking beer, eating breakfast, and watching the super bowl at 8:30a on a monday morning. it was great. a little while after half time, a korean guy from work named jerry joined us. he's moving to minnesota for college in about a week, so we were trying to get him up to speed on the rules. of course it's kinda hard to catch on to, but i think he basically got the idea, he seemed to enjoy it.

as everyone probably knows by now, the eagles came up short, and the patriots won their third title in four years.

i won't get into the specifics of the game, but i will say that i have the utmost compassion for eagles fans everywhere. like i said, i'm not even a fan of them, but the few times i've rooted for them, it's always been disappointing and frustrating. i can't imagine what it must be like to always be pulling for them and have them manage to flub it up. in the end, the better team won, but the eagles could have won. the opportunities were there, but they simply made too many key mistakes and let those chances slip through their fingers.

well, i suppose there's always next year. just getting to the super bowl is a great accomplishment, but in some ways it's more disappointing to get there and come up short. i'd like to say sorry to everyone back home who was disappointed with the result.

now it's time to start look forward to next season, and i can get back to rooting for the cowboys!

hyejin invited me to check out an art exhibition with her and two of her coworkers on sunday evening. i woke up with a headache from the previous night's festivities around 3:00p and had to meet her at 5:00p, but by then i was feeling better.

her coworkers are both animators, it sounds like they've been working in the animation field for a very long time. the guy's name was mark, he's originally from new zealand, and his wife's name was경남 (kyeong-nam).

the art exhibit was called 400 years of art history, or something like that. i couldn't really tell because everything was either in korean or french. you can check out the official website here.

there were lots of nice paintings, a few of which i recognized. a lot went through my mind looking at paintings that were made as long as 400 years ago. on the one hand, it boggles my mind with how long ago that was, but on the other hand it made me aware of how in some respects humanity hasn't changed much in that period. it also made me aware and ashamed of how little i know about art history, especially considering the fact that i graduated from art school with a bachelor of fine art degree.

the exhibition wasn't too large, we were able to see everything in about an hour and a half. after leaving there we went and had a nice dinner at a restaurant across the street. we ate pork with kimchi and spicy noodles, it was really good.

after that we went for coffee at a really nice place nearby. we talked a lot about animation and are different experiences in the industry over the years. it was really interesting hear their perspective from having worked in the overseas studios.

jinny invited me to join her and some of her friends she works with at the animation festival for drinking at the bar her brother runs on saturday night. i met hyejin for dinner in gangnam first, and then brought her along with me. we had some delicious japanese food, which seems to be very popular here these days.

the bar was called투다리 (two dali, which means two legs), it's apparently a well-known franchise here, and he just owns one of them. it was really small, only about fourteen feet wide and thirty feet deep, with enough room for maybe eight tables that would seat four to six people each.

jinny didn't mention that it was a girls night out type of get-together, so i was a little surprised, but as you can imagine that was just fine with me. most of them couldn't speak english too well, but we managed to communicate anyways, mostly with the help of jinny and hyejin doing some translating.

right away one of jinny's friends, named 희정 (hee-jung), hit it off with hyejin, and before too long they looked like best friends. we were having fun, just drinking draft beers and eating some yummy side dishes like spicy chicken shish kabobs. here's some pictures:

unfortunately i forgot the names of the two on the left. the one with the glasses was an english major, so we could communicate with no problems. the one next to her didn't speak much english, but she really liked asking me a lot of questions. we talked about what animation we liked since everyone there had either studied animation or was working for the animation festival.

eventually, however, it was hee-jung who seemed to really take an interest in me, she was asking me a lot of questions and trying her hardest to remember her english. at one point she got up to use the bathroom, and after coming back decided to sit next to me. everyone started commenting on how cute we looked together, it was pretty funny.

of course by now everyone was getting a bit tipsy, and hee-jung began trying to tell me all sorts of things, but unfortunately she had completely abandoned english and was speaking to me strictly in korean. i'm proud of what little korean i know, but i really couldn't understand any more than one percent of what she was saying. despite that, i just pretended that i understood, mostly i guess just to be polite since she seemed to really want me to understand. she tried speaking slowly and going one word at a time, but of course that wasn't any help since i simply didn't know the meaning of the words.

then of course everyone thought that it was amazing how well we were communicating even though we couldn't speak the same language. i guess it looked pretty funny to see her speaking korean to me and me sitting there nodding like i knew what was going on.

soon after that some of jinny's brother's friends showed up, and they ended up hanging out with us for the rest of the night. unfortunately, they also instigated an increase in the consumption of beverages, and before too long everyone was gone. hee-jung retreated to the corner to rest, as she had definitely drank her fill. one of jinny's brother's friends took a liking to hyejin, but she later told me she wasn't in to him, and spent the rest of the night trying to stay away from him.

by this time it was probably after 2:00a, and before i knew it i was sleeping sitting up with my head on the table. i guess i just rested there for quite a while, because the next thing i knew it was like 5:00a and everyone was wanting to get going. we had to take it slow since one of jinny's friends needed some time to puke on the table before composing herself to go.

by the time hyejin and i got out of there it was 6:00a, which was actually a good thing since the trains start running at 5:30a and we could get home that way. the subway was filled with old people who were up at the crack of dawn, i don't know where they were going. i was still a bit tipsy, so it was very surreal riding the subway with a bunch of old koreans.

it was after 7:00a when i finally made it back to my apartment. i drank lots of water and hopped into bed, i didn't wake up until 3:00p sunday afternoon. it was a wild night, but definitely one of the most fun times i've had so far here. thanks, jinny!

the lunar new year is coming soon, so we decided to take our boss out for dinner on thursday night. we went to a local restaurant in 압구정 (apgujeong) for 삼겁살 (sam gyeop sal, thinly sliced pork). we also drank 오십세주 (oh-ship saeju, a mixture of soju and baeksaeju), which was the same thing we drank the last time we went out to eat. it was a thursday night and we had to work the next day, so needless to say, i didn't drink too much.

mrs. kim is the owner of the school, gemma is our supervisor, and fred is the academic coordinator, which basically means he's a teacher, but he's also involved in planning the curriculum, etc.

after dinner, mrs. kim suggested that we go to 노래방 (nodaebang, karaoke). it was fun seeing everyone from work more laid back and singing their favorite songs. they didn't have the power of love by huey lewis and the news, which is my usual song i like to sing, so i just ended up pitching in on all the english songs. during the korean songs i had fun trying to see if i could keep up with reading the words as the song went by. on slower songs i could keep up a little, but that was it.

after that natalie, adam, and i walked home. i was very thankful that i had drank sensibly and didn't have to worry about the next day at work.

a got a picture of lion class since my earlier description didn't include one.

aren't they cute? jane and soy are total sweethearts, while candy can be a bit of a handful at times. june doesn't look too happy in this picture, but generally he's a really happy kid. he like's being tossed in the air more than anyone, so consequently his english is coming along great. he knows all the letters and vocab words backwards and forwards.

over the years before coming here i've had lots of delicious korean food, but now i'm paying the price for never having found out the names of some of m favorite things. usually i'd always eaten korean food with a korean friend, so they would handle ordering, and i would just enjoy whatever showed up. one of my favorite things is a spicy pork dish that i've had at various restaurants. the problem is, i don't know exactly what it's called.

the other problem is that korean food has so many varieties that even if i tell a korean that i want that spicy pork, they aren't even sure what i'm talking about. so ever since i've been here, i've been trying to track down that spicy pork and find out exactly what it's called.

i asked sunny at work and she said that it was called 제육볶음 (jaeyook bokeum, literally broiled pork). that got me thinking about it all day, so by the time i got home i decided i had to have it. unfortunately, when i looked on all the take-out menus i have, it usually wasn't there, or if it was it was under the more expensive sections that included larger portions for a few people. luckily, i found a couple that had it for ₩7,000.

wow, it was a lot of food, it could have easily served two people. you know you've got a lot when the delivery guy just gives you the entire box he's carried over. of course the fact that it could have served two people didn't stop me from eating it all.

while it was delicious, and it was almost what i'm searching for, it wasn't exactly right. the one i'm looking for has been marinated and cooked in a spicy red sauce, but it isn't served in a sauce like this one. there were vegetables mixed in with it, while the one i like is just the meat, sometimes served on top of onions.

so, the search continues…