I'll Admit It, I'm Addicted!

I have been sick for six days now. The worst is behind me, but for most of this week I have been annoyed by the fact that I have been having to rely on an arsenal of orange juice, cold medicine, copious amounts of green tea, and bed rest. Being sick is the worst, and I have the recent unpredictable weather to thank for that. Thanks weather!

Saturday seemed innocuous enough. Clear, hopeful skies, and a warm breeze blowing on the soccer pitch before our inaugural game of the season against Mr. Kim's Posco team. The weather; unlike our final match result actually showed favorable conditions. The warm air mixed with running around on the soccer pitch made me quite sweaty. After our actual match, me and some of the teammates decided to chance upon seeing a local K-league match. The Gwanyang Chunnam Dragons play in the same city next to Suncheon where we had our own SIFC match, so it was quite convenient to check out the match. If you don't know this, Korean soccer is actually quite good. If you compare it to the MLS in the states I think that the level of play is quite similar-I would probably even put my money on the K-League teams in taking down the MLS teams(minus Beckham and Landon Donovan).

Since the weather was spring-like, It in fact so nice, I didn't' even realise it would be possible to get sick after cooling down in my post match condition. Therefore I happily jumped in a cab with four other teammates and made the crosstown jaunt to the stadium. Upon arriving, we were greeted by numerous food stands offering up Chinese dumplings, squid, BBQ chicken, beer, and other snacks. Since we had time to kill before the match we found a picnic table outside and sampled a little of everything. Some of us even made it to the souvenir stand and procured some scarves and bandannas to show our dragon 'San Diego Charger colored' gold and yellow.

What is interesting was how cheap everything happened to be. For example our tickets were only 7000 won! To compare; if you want to see the San Jose Earthquakes next week, you will pay a MINIMUM of 35.00$! It's true people in San Jose make about twice as much, but you can still say that the relative difference is double. Yet, thirty-five dollars is the CHEAPEST seat in San Jose. If you go to a Dragons game, you can sit anywhere on the pitch and catch the action as up close as you want.

Once inside, as soon as the match started I started to feel like there was a change in the weather. The morning sun, was soon replaced by a grey cover that was becoming darker as the first half wore on. Regardless, the energy of the small crowd kept us all going till the end of the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw against the Incheon team. Once the match ended, the rain immediately started to pound the seats in the stadium, and we were forced to exit. What was nice however, is the free shuttle buses to Suncheon right outside the gates.

The mix of playing soccer on Saturday and sweating, and cooling down all afternoon, while the rain began pelting my under dressed body is what gave me the wonderfully annoying cold I now have. Regardless, I left that afternoon with the feeling that I have been missing something since I've been in Korea. I really enjoyed the soccer match, and I was so gratified to find out that there was a match going on Wednesday as well. So after one match I had become addicted, so I had to satisfy my addiction last night. So yesterday I saw my second K-league soccer match in six days.

There were no chance of clouds, or rain. That's because there was a cold, crisp, bitter wind cracking like a whip. Luckily, I procured a scarf at the souvenir stand and had some cheap coffee to warm my hands as I shouted on the Brazilian striker as he scored 2 goals and led the Dragons to their miraculous extra time win over the Taegu team last night 3-2 for their first win of the season. It didn't make me any healthier, but it didn't matter. I'm looking forward to the next match on April 18Th!