A Sunday that I'd pay to have again...

...Kyle and I made plans to go to world cup stadium that they have here to see the city's soccer team play. I had read in a magazine they had a game there at 3PM, as well as reading it online in english and in korean. Now...Daegu FC sucks really back, but they were playing an even shittier team...and it's just exciting to go see a match, so we were very excited about seeing this game.

Anyway...2PM rolls around and we're at a mart stocking our bags with beer and snacks...stuff to take to the game with us. We hop in a cab with a very silly cab driver who is very proud to tell me that the place I told him to go to...the place I said in Korean...was the "world cup stadium." And he kept on saying it to me as if it was the only word in English that he knew. ...Then he proceeded to cart us around in his taxi as if we were diplomats until we got to the stadium where he graciously presented it to us in a glorious upbeat tone "World Cup Stadium!" There should have been trumpets in the background.

So we get out and start walking around. There's plenty of people around...enjoying food outside the stadium, laying under a tree, kids playing games, and just alot of people being very social. It was nice to be in that kind of atmosphere again -- reminds of being on Yawkey Way the day of a Red Sox game. Anyway...we get to the ticket counters and notice that there's absolutely nobody working the ticket counter. I don't know why this seemed normal to me...probably because the team sucks and the last game I went to was sponsored by the bank and the game was free -- so we took it at that and just walked through the gates in the stadium.

At this point we're laughing our sober asses off with glee...feeling like we've done something criminal or sinister. Here we are, in a stadium, and we've paid for nothing except for the beer in our bags and the cab fare to get there. It seemed so wrong...yet everyone was so welcome. People were handing us pieces of paper that we didn't keep for more than 20 seconds...and one guy even came up to both of us, handed us water and paper, and just said to us very happily "Jesus! Jesus!" We thanked Jesus for the water and kept going to where we thought we should sit.

Now, at this point, it's 10 minutes until game time...there's a decent amount of people in the stadium, and we park ourselves in the upper bleachers right in the middle. Nobody had asked us for tickets...in fact it seemed that nobody was even working there that day. We also heard a lot of organ music but thought nothing of it.

So...we sit down and start drinking, and before we know it we had downed 6 beers, smoked a pack of cigarettes, eaten 2 bags of peanuts, and figured out that fuck...no soccer had started in the past hour. Mildly buzzed at this point, I work up the courage to go ask some middle school students in the next row down what's going on with this game in my rudimentary Korean. Long story short, I start talking to them, and it takes me less than 20 seconds to realize that there was no game, but instead a church ceremony to celebrate the second coming of Jesus. Easter sucks.

That was a memorable day though. We went downtown...drank a bit more...ate a bit more...one of my students saw me mildly intoxicated at 6PM in downtown. We went uptown, ordered a pizza for delivery (at a place where somehow they remembered who I was and my building name even though I had only been there once before)...and as we were walking along the street back to my apartment, we got invited into our favorite restaurant where the owner loves us to eat strawberries and hangout for a bit...free of charge, of course.

After 20 minutes, we said we had to go because we had a promise to meet friends -- we'd feel terrible if we told a restaurant owner that we had to be back at my place to be there when the pizza guy came...that just wouldn't be right in any culture. ...So as we're walking home, the pizza guy in his little scooter comes zooming down the street. 50 feet away he sees us, stands up on the scooter waving his hand in the air saying "Oh! Hey! Handsome guys!" He stops on the street and gives us our pizza...and we spend the rest of the night watching Once Upon a Time in America, wondering if the day was actually real.

Alright...let's write something

I need to tell a story that's currently on my mind...something that happened ages ago that I want to remember.

Months ago, I went to a wedding for 경창 (Gyung Chang), a Korean friend of mine...a Korean friend that I had met through 운재 (Oon Jae), a friend from work. We've spent countless nights getting drunk off 소주, singing at the 노래방 and eating all kinds of foods: 생고기, 과메기, 족발, etc....so our relationship grew quite strong, as most relationships based off those things usually do.

Anyway...the night before the wedding was quite awesome. We spent it sitting around his office (he runs his own interior design place), quietly drinking beer, eating snacks, and listening to whatever songs in English they knew. It was amazing how I could contribute very little to the conversation in Korean, yet how welcome I was when I was there -- as there was only him, 2 of his best friends, and myself.

That was a fun night...but that's not why I'm writing here. I'm writing here because that night I stayed at Oon Jae's house, as it was quite close to the wedding hall and I wouldn't have to worry about getting a cab halfway across town really early in the morning. The morning after...waking up, getting myself ready and done up in my tux, Oon Jae and I are leaving to go to the place.

"Let's say goodbye to my grandmother," he says.

I've met his grandmother. She's extremely sweet. This tiny little lady with a sweet voice always welcomes me with the utmost enthusiasm even though she can't speak a word of English...and she always offers me food. The first time I was over at his house, she had asked Oon Jae "is he single?"

So, he peeks into her room and notices that she's sleeping. He calls her name a couple of times but she doesn't wake up. "Oh well," he says and we make our way for the door.

As we get to the door and get our shoes on, she comes out to say a quick hello and goodbye. Oon Jae, not excited by the standard hello and goodbye, says what he needs to say and starts opening the door...while I, doing my best in Korean, say the most polite hello and goodbye that I can before I make my way out.

As I'm walking out into the hallway, the little old woman makes her way back to her room mumbling some words that were undecipherable to me.

"Do you know what she said?" Oon Jae asks in the hallway.

"No, I couldn't hear her...she said it rather quietly."

"She said...'Well...at least I got to say goodbye.'"


-- Well...at least I thought it was important.