The calm before the storm - Oli Newbery in Japan
With the World cup nearly upon us it's time he heard enough of the World cup nostalgia shows and very very tacky '101 of the Best Football Songs...Ever!!' CD's, and heard what the real World Cup is all about,
Our man in Japan...and Korea has swapped his halftime meat pie & bovril for sushi and rice wine to give us the lowdown:
World Cup fever is kicking off - this place is crazy! One of the refreshing thing is that there aren't too many English here (If there are, they're only in Korea for the opening ceremony before heading to Japan)
Speaking of which: Today, we went up to the World Cup stadium in Seoul where I blagged us tickets into the VIP Opening Ceremony celebrations! You'll have to catch it on TV on the 31st - it was pretty cool - great costumes, dance routines etc etc. Didn't see the France game of course though. Tickets for which are still available - US$200 though. Bit out of my price range, that.
We've been doing a bunch of other stuff. Yesterday we went South to another city to try and catch a warm-up match - France versus Korea. The game had sold out, but this friendly Korean guy wanted to help us out. (He felt it was his duty to me, as when he'd been in England he'd been treated so well by the locals, he told us it was his duty to repay the kindness shown to him!!) So, he ditches his date with his girlfriend (!) to take us to a traditional Korean seafood restaurant and buy us dinner and watch the match on TV.
Well, it was all very bizzare! Korea is full of strange surprises. I went to take photos of the main stadium, and I end up having Korean melon with eight old ladies!! Then I'm pleading with security to let me in to the VIP area!! Trouble is that they're all too polite and hospitable, so they feel its their duty to help me out! Works wonders. I should try the same on the women...
Am looking forward to the football proper now. The whole country is well geared up for it, so it should be quite an event. Managed to get quite a crew together at the hostel. And because there are still plenty of tickets available, theres a multinational army of us going down for the Brazil versus Turkey game!!
This well funny local guy got on at the Seoul Metro system. He had a Walkman plugged into a giant amp and speaker system strapped to his back. The crazy old codger then proceeded to play some awful crap and dance around the carriage. naturally we just encouraged him by clapping and jigging away, and everybody just looked on in bewilderment. Got to shake it up sometimes!
The England game is going to be large! At least I'll be in the same time zone! There's this screen downtown which has a capacity of 10,000 - so we'll grab some 'Hite' beer and head down there for the games we're not actually going to...
Right, got to dash - going out for some weird Korean food (which is actually very good - and cheap) RESULT!