Saturday Afternoon: Trip to Suwon

So on the Saturday I was last blogging about, after taking the Blue House tour in the morning I went to Suwon in the early afternoon. Suwon is around 40 minutes by bus from Seoul and is one of its suburbs (quite large suburb I might add, with more than 1 million inhabitants). The last time I was in Korea I stayed in Suwon so going back there many memories came back to my mind. Many of the old shops are still there but a lot of things have changed of course. I met with Maria, an old friend from Sweden. We met around 4 years ago at Ajou University and she was staying in Korea for a long time, returned to Sweden and now has been back to Korea again for some time. It was really great to catch up. We first had sushi in my favorite sushi shop, which fortunately is still there (but unfortunately has nearly doubled its prices). Then we moved to a coffee place for more talking of course and afterwards went shopping. Later on we went to Janbeers, the bar where I used to hang out around 3-4 nights every week and had a couple of beers (with the small intermission of spaghetti in an Italian restaurant which is in the same building). Unfortunately I couldn't stay too long because I had to catch a bus back to Seoul in order to get the last subway back to Hanyang University (and I had to keep curfew of course ;)

Maria and me in Janbeers

Seoul vs Suwon

Today we went to a soccer game of K-League (equivalent to Bundesliga). It was the first game of the season and Seoul was playing against Suwon. We were quite a big group going to the World Cup Stadium (last time I went there to see the match South Korea vs North Korea).

Outside World Cup Stadium

In Korea many fathers go to the soccer stadium with their kids and because there were so many kids there they had a fun park just for children outside the stadium. I would have liked to do some stuff there as well, but...too old :(

It was quite busy and I found out that more than 50.000 people were in the stadium. Among them probably FC Seoul's biggest and craziest fan:

FC Seoul Fan #1

Inside the stadium it took us some time to find our seats. You could choose where to sit freely but the guys were never satisfied with the location of our seats so we had to move around quite some time (ugh typical guys). We didn't have lunch yet so we tried to find something edible afterwards. I had a very disgusting cold hotdog.
The stadium is really big, so even though a lot of people where there it looked a little bit empty at some places. The fan stands were nevertheless quite packed. Blue is the color of Suwon and red is one of the main colors of Seoul.

It was a little bit difficult for me to take the Seoul fans seriously...: their fighting song was to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands". I couldn't understand the Korean lyrics so I was just singing the children's song ;)
Actually I was cheering for Suwon anyways, because that's the place were I stayed last time when I was in Korea ;) And guess who won...Suwon shot Seoul to pieces and won 2:0.

The main colors of FC Seoul are apparently red, yellow and black which reminded me a lot of the German flag:

Suwon's color is a lot nicer though I think:

Suwon Blue Wings

Cute thing is, they had a designated Vuvuzela time which was announced on the big stadium screen:

Vuvuzela time

On the two huge screens appeared also the lyrics of the Seoul fan songs, so everyone (who can read Korean) can sing along:

Seoul Love Song

So let me first transcribe and then translate it for you.

Transcription:
o-o-o o~o!
o-o-o o~o!
o-o-o o~o! Seoul!
neoleul salanghe!

Translation:
o-o-o o~o!
o-o-o o~o!
o-o-o o~o! Seoul!
We love you!

nice that they that put that on the screen...just lots and lots of "o"s :)

By the way it was really really cold with an icy wind but we still had a great time and I'd go again anytime :)

Me and Sarah - cheering for the wrong club ;)