Dane and I, two chemical engineering students at UF, were sent to South Korea for two months.
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Korea plays

And I was ready to watch them; I had my Korean Team items, along with Won Chul's gift (a red devil shirt) on. The pilgrimage began at six pm.

We took the free shuttle from the university soon after meeting up at the science library. Traffic was extremely bad, so the usual fifteen-minute ride took forty long ones. We ran to the closest Walt mart, because just like in America, Walt mart is the cheapest when it comes to beer; so we bought some Hite.

We also got some chicken and pizza, and we walked to Sawol station to get to downtown, where four big TV screens would be showing Korea's debut to thousands of Koreans and a Guatemalan fan. The subway was crowded and it took about ten minutes to get my metro coin. Once on the metro, some Korean women kindly asked me for a picture, and you know, despite the effort needed on my behalf, I conceded, and I asked Won Chul to take one for my personal documentation:

We kept on taking pictures and getting anxious about the upcoming game.

Once in dowtown, we walked on one of the main roads towards the interception with another major road, where the four TV screens would soon project the fate of the Korean Team. As we kept on getting closer to the interception, the road kept on getting more condensed with red devils, and when we were on it, red was the dominating color, and a sea of red stretched approximately half a kilometer on all four directions from the interception, where there was a stage and some Korean cheerleaders doing their thing:



The game and drinking began, and we also got the food out to start stuffing ourselves with good old American food!


The game wasn't going so good, as Togo scored first; however, the Korean fans did not falter. Their cry kept on resonating throughout downtown as they screamed "Taehan-min'guk," the name Koreans call their country. But despite the yelling and the wishful thinking, the first half of the game ended in a tragic 1-0 in Togo's favor.

However, the second half began with Korea proceeding to kick some mayor, African ass! The first score was from a free shot and the multitude went wild! It had been a long time since I had been bathed in beer, so seeing the elixir rain from the skies as all the drunk Korean men threw it in the air, also incited me to go wild myself!

Soon after, a second goal arrived, and with only twelve minutes left on the clock, Korea's victory was so certain that people got off their asses and started dancing, and stopped paying too much attention to the game and began enjoying each other as major hugging sessions spread across the asphalt. Sure enough, the game ended victoriously, with a 2-1 in Korea's favor! And the excitement, well, it just emanates from the video:


Everything good, however, must come with its prize, and I sure enough had to pay for the good time we spent in downtown. Won Chul and I had to walk for over an hour at one am towards his studio. There were no buses at that time, and we were too cheap to pay for a cab, but the walk was good as watching the pictures made us reminisce on the Korean victory.



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