Day 359 -- Final Dinner and World Cup

FINAL DINNER

This past weekend was the final dinner for all us F*bright ETAs. We got together in Seoul for some delicious American food and general discussion about our years/year to come, depending on if you were leaving for good or coming back for the 2010-2011 grant year.

One of the ETAs -- our sole 3rd year ETA -- gave a speech that I thought was particularly good. He talked about how, when he first came to Korea, he wrote pages and pages about every little thing because every day, something was new and different and changing. Over time, though, things got to be routine and even feel like "home". He compared it to writing versus proofreading -- when it's new and exciting, you just write and write and write because you want to record everything. Going back to "proofread" what you wrote, you think that you sound a little naive and foolish for thinking such common things were cool.

So true.

The whole point of me writing this was to show people at home what the other side of the world was like, so even if it's routine and common for me, it probably isn't. I'm just adapting.


WORLD CUP

As of this past Saturday, Korea had been all about the World Cup. Korea in general is pretty obsessed with numbers -- test scores, world rankings, competitions -- so there was a lot of excitement about the chance for their soccer team to continue their success from the last World Cup and get the country recognized.

Things were nuts here. Everyone was donned in red (the team's color), people bought devil horns (the team's name is the Red Devils), and bars filled up every night Korea had a game. Popular music groups made songs and chants. Commercials all featured the team and expressed (company's) hopes that they do well.

Big Bang (my favorite pop group) teamed up with YuNa (the figure-skater-turned-goddess-of-Korea) to produce the national soccer anthem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RhvVxqTbH4&feature=PlayList&p=83FAA7AC9081F217&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=53

And faithful Korean fans memorized the dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5cPaTPTpA&feature=related

...including Doyup, who recruited one of his soldier friends to stand on a table at a bar, do that dance together, and lead the crowd in cheering.

Saturday night after the Final Dinner, I went out to watch the games in HongDae (a youth club district). Unfortunately, Korea went down, much to the dismay of the decked-out-in-red fans. Later, after getting about an hour of sleep between games, America also lost. It was not a great night and I'm still sleep-hung-over from it all.


DELIVERY FOOD

So I still don't have pictures but omg guys, delivery food in Korea. Amazing. You can get anything delivered in under 10 minutes. Sure, there's the usual Chinese food and pizza, but you can also get things like ice cream and soups and stews and craziness. The other night, Doyup was hungry. He wasn't feeling Kimbab Nala (like a Korean fast-food joint) or Chinese, which are his usual go-to's. Instead, he decided on this beef-and-mushroom stew type thing. I figured this thing would get delivered in a big bowl or something.

WRONG

When I answered the door for the delivery guy, there was a giant tupperware storage box. Inside said box was a wok-style pot filled with all the ingredients -- beef, veggies, clear noodles. There was also silverware (not plastic or wooden), a pack of unflavored ramen, a water bottle filled with broth, a ladel, and A TABLE-TOP GAS-RANGE.

That's right, this delivery guy brought us all the necessary things to cook this stuff ourselves right at home.

I mean, I thought it was kind of neat that delivery food here comes on actual plates with real silverware. When you're done, you just put the plates and bowls and stuff outside your door and it magically disappears (when the delivery guy collects it). I'd never seen this though with a whole-freaking-stove.


So... "little things" still amaze me. haha