Ch ch ch ch Changes

It has been more than a month since my last post and what a month it has been. Jisan was one of the craziest weekends of my life (who knew that Suede were still so good?) and the bunch of us that went down did a lot of drinking, laughing, and shouting of random obscenities. What could be better? The week that followed was a lot of packing and tying up of loose ends. It was horrible leaving Korea. I loved it there and I have left a lot behind. I want to sit down and write about it properly someday, but I can say for sure that it'll be a long time before I'm 'over' Korea. Thankfully, I'm not too far away...

From Korea it was Barcelona for a major bout of reunions. Charlene and her boyfriend, Stephen, surprised me by showing up on the Friday night and we had a great few days with Rachel, who kindly put us up at her place! There was a bit of a Seoul reunion too, with Kevin, Jo, Jim, and Rhiannon all in town. Way too much to write now at the end of a long day, but it was epic. Barcelona is a must if you're looking for a quirky, laid-back and affordable European city to kill a bit of time in.

Home was great but there just wasn't enough time to fit everything in. Lisa was an angel helping me out with visa issues and the like in Dublin before I surprised Mum and Dad with an unannounced visit that I think my Ma might still be recovering from! Roisin's wedding in Sligo was absolutely brilliant. Definitely made me less cynical about the whole event and I got to catch up with a few old faces, most notably Kirsta who is headed back to Korea for a killer job this year herself. Roisin is one of those special people you meet once in a while and, on the evidence of that weekend, she likes to surround herself with more of the same. The only down side was that Annie didn't make it over. She was in Africa at some meeting. Come on Winterface, sort it out!

Other highlights from home were the long drives around Inishowen, beers with old friends, and an epic late-night jam with the one and only Sean Furey. You can't beat being home. Soon enough though, it was time to hit the road again and pack the bags for China. I haven't been here for two weeks yet but I simply don't know where to start in telling you all about the place, the job, the people, the quirks, the stories... Considering the fact that I've been up since 6am, it's 9:35pm now, and I have it all to do again tomorrow, perhaps it'd be better to leave it for another day. I just wanted to check in, say hi, and get the old blog back in action.

Move Along Now

Holy crap guys (and girls.... in Seoul.... and the surrounding areas)! Some nice weather we've been getting, eh? Always makes me think of how my students screw up their faces when I answer in reply to their query that the weather in Ireland is pretty rainy... a lot of the time... Oh my God! How awful! Yeah - it's never anything as bad as this nonsense, (mainly) ladies. I can barely believe I'm saying this, but I'd actually love to be getting drenched in one of those deceptively wetting drizzles on my way down to Moville. I can barely even leave the house here today - and my ceiling is leaking!! Scary times. Stay safe out there!

T minus nine days for me already. Throw in Jisan this weekend (if the weather let's up, WHICH IT WILL!!) and I'm running round like a headless chicken trying to do all those things you need to do when you're leaving a country PLUS arranging a Chinese work visa PLUS finishing off a dissertation. Fun times abound. Actually, they do. I've been getting a bit emotional with my 'last this' and 'last that' these days but it's much better to be mourning the end of a brilliant chapter of your life than willing away each agonising minute that remains. I actually need to run right now. Korea people: stay safe. Moville people: enjoy this new festival, whatever it is. Everyone else: I love you in my own special way UNLESS I don't really know you and you're just reading to judge, criticise, and make yourself feel better about your own shitty life. Only kidding! Kind of... To sum up, I hope you're all really well, or really shitty. Night!

Oh! Annie has started up her blog again. If you don't know who Annie is then take a look and prepare to be entertained and impressed by her self-assured bitchiness. If you do know who Annie is, then you probably know what to expect!

Is This It? This Is It!

I've been on the receiving end of some gentle chiding recently on the old 'last gig ever' front. My first 'last ever gig' in Korea was in.... December 2007, or thereabouts. Yep - that's more than three-and-a-half years ago... Then there was our 'last-ever' with John and Kev, 'last-ever' with Jim, 'last-ever' UR Seoul, 'last-ever' Dead End Friends, 'last-ever' random gig, 'last-ever' at this/that venue... you get the picture. Of course, an element of it is trying to twist people's arm to come out. The whole 'pushing' part of being in bands is often pretty annoying (for you and me both!), but most of the time people seem to have fun, so I feel good about it more often than I feel bad. The real crux of the matter, though, is that I honestly never know that this or that gig won't actually end up being my last gig! I didn't really have any intention of returning to live in Korea when I left for South America in 2007 (I had been planning China as my next step, just as I am now). We had no idea how we could cope with the departures of Kev, John and Jim, before we were lucky enough to link up with other musicians who enabled us to keep the whole experience going that little bit longer...

I think the same can be said for any of us, in anything we do. I doubt FC Seoul's Ou Gyoung Jun had much of an idea that he was more than likely playing his last-ever game of professional football, as he started in our 1-0 League Cup defeat away to Gyeongnam on June 29th - although he may have had an inkling... I'm not going to go down morbid alley on a Friday night but we never know when we wake up in the morning whether or not this could be the last day in which we take a walk in our favourite park, listen to or favourite song, hold our favourite person's hand, or sing some of the best songs ever written with awesome musicians and wiggle around in front of an unsuspecting public!

This gig at Club FF tomorrow night will almost certainly be my last in Korea. Yes, of course it's not impossible that I might link up with someone in a future weekend trip to Seoul from Nanjing. Yes, I might end up hating my life in China and be back in a few months with my tail between my legs. Who knows? Still, the way I see it, I'm going to go into anything I love doing, with the thought that it just might be my last chance, and try to squeeze every last ounce of enjoyment out of the experience. If I don't see you at my latest 'last-gig', I'll see you a the next one...

Edge Of Your Seat Stuff

I know that sweeping statements such as this always end up attracting the ire of at least someone but, I'll tell you what, if you're a football fan living in Korea and you don't go watch and support a local team, then you're not really a football fan. Following FC Seoul over the past few years has been one of the very best aspects of my life in this country and, judging by the members at www.rokfootball.com, and the dedication of the guys responsible for the ever-informative K-League podcast, I know for sure that I'm not alone in that. Over the years, our constantly-changing group of friends (including a few ever-presents), have had some good chats, rows, debates, beers, sessions, witnessed good goals, bad goals, crazy decisions, frustrating misjudgements, and enjoyed every minute of it. Well, most of them.

With my time in the country coming to an end, I've been determined to catch as many matches (home and away) as possible, and have been rewarded with some thrilling encounters and memorable experiences! Since the Gangwon match (I wrote about that previously) I've been to three matches (only missing our second string bow out 1-0 away to Gyeongnam in the League Cup), witnessing six goals for, five against, and a possible 5 league points (from a possible 9) to elevate us for the first time this season into the vital top six play-off spots. Mind you, considering the fact that only three points separate 6th from 13th, there's still a hell of a lot of football to be played this season.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of non-football-related talking points in the K-League these days too. The biggest by far is the current match-fixing scandal engulfing the country's top flight. At present, only two FC Seoul players have been indicted, and neither of them were with the club last season. One of them, Ou Kyoung Ju, was on-loan at Daejeon - one of the teams who have been hit hardest by the recent allegations. At only 23, and having spent his teens as a promising young man learning his trade with Metz in France, this looks a pretty idiotic way to end his career, if that's what it turns out to be. With each passing week the scandal seems to be growing in size and scope, further tarnishing the league's image at home and abroad. The spectacle of team captains reading a prepared speech promising not to cheat before each game is not something any of us want to see continuing indefinitely...

The other problem, although it is merely bubbling under the surface at present, is the growing tendency of some fans to get caught up in a bit of crowd trouble! Embarrassingly, this seems to be connected to FC Seoul more than most others - at least recently. I headed down to Jeonju with a friend the weekend before last for a thrilling and eventful 2-2 with high-flying Jeonbuk Motors. It was my first time to travel with one of the supporters' buses and it was a great experience. Everyone was so helpful and friendly; I got dragged down the back of the bus for soju with a bunch of ajoshis; everyone was keen to make sure we didn't get lost and always knew what was going on. It was Korean hospitality at it's finest. Incredibly, it all turned into a bit of a sour experience when we got trapped inside the stadium for an hour-and-a-half after the full-time whistle due to rioting Jeonbuk fans, baying for our blood outside! It had it all: pitch invasion; bottle-throwing (even a bit of shoe-throwing...); kids crying; attacking the bus; shouting abuse; they even tried to drive us off the road!! I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it; in Korea or anywhere else. Bizarrely, it has barely been spoken of since, and appears to have been brushed under the carpet. Let's hope it doesn't trip us up again any time soon.

Back to matters on the pitch, FC Seoul travel to second-placed Pohang Steelers on Sunday for a 7pm kick-off. I hope to travel with the supporters again, hopefully avoiding the threat of actual bodily harm this time around... Burndog has bravely predicted a 1-0 win for the Seoulites. As much as I'd love for him to be right (and he often is!), I'd say that a draw is probably the best we can hope for against Asamoah and co. No matter what happens, I'm certain there'll be more nail-biting and random expletives out of me before the 90 minutes are up. Seoul saranghae!

Time Flies

Wow I really hadn't realised it had been so long since I last blogged. Since the trips to Busan and Gangneung, what have I been up to? Let's see... not doing enough work on my dissertation... teaching an intensive summer course for a couple of weeks... plenty of FC Seoul matches... band practice and a couple of gigs... my kids' classes... 'other' classes... went to see Super8... river city... COEX for Jonathan's birthday... my first football riot... listening to Matt's K-League podcast... finally saw The King's Speech... got round to seeing The Fighter... broke AND fixed my camera... got shouted at by my lovely boss over something ridiculous in front of my co-workers... watched the British Grand Prix... started trying to get rid of my stuff and ready for China... had a birthday... aaaaaaand... lots of being rained upon. Well that's pretty much all I can think of right now! Isn't it all fascinating? This post is just to get me back into the habit. I'll fill in the blanks tomorrow - especially on the gigging and FC Seoul fronts! Hope you're well, don't be a stranger!

Oh! Final gig in Korea is this Saturday night. You can find the details here. Peace out!

Every Day Should Be A Holiday

Since I last posted, I have been taking advantage of a bit of a lull in our summer teaching schedule by taking trips to Busan (midweek) and Gangneung (weekend) to take in FC Seoul's victories over Busan Kyotong and Gangwon FC. The midweek trip was probably a bit nuts because I was teaching on Tuesday and Thursday so didn't really have a lot of time to take in what was only a FA Cup last-16 encounter with a little-known team from the N-League. Still, I'm really glad I decided to head down, even if I was a teeny tiny bit late for my first kids' class on Thursday... Bad Brian!

I stayed in a pretty nice motel in Chinatown, right near the KTX station, knowing that I'd need to be up and out pretty promptly the next morning. It was only a few subway stops away

from Jagalchi fish market, so I decided to go for a nosey. The place is immense and it's great being able to see the process of catch, sort, sell and eat all within a feet of each other! I felt a bit funny about doing the old point-to-my-dinner routine, but I forced myself and was pretty happy with the result!

Busan Sport's Complex was only a few more stations along the same line, and I was sure to get there in plenty of time to catch the build-up. I wound up talking to a guy who works for the PR Department of the club, and I had a great chat with him about the team. He's really keen to get more foreigners coming along because he thinks that if we're popular with foreigners, the general public at large will follow. I'm not quite sure where he's got that from, but I enjoyed telling him some of the things we find different from football back home, and I think he got what I was saying. I'm really happy to have a good contact at the club who I can get team news from because, as I was telling him, a lot of the time you're pretty much in the dark unless you understand Korean well.

The match was a big disappointment. We started with a strong team, but Busan were lively, and we just couldn't get it together. They were denied what turned out to be a stone-wall penalty and, later in the first half, Djeparov curled home a great free-kick, which turned out to be the winner. The problem was that it should never have been a free in the first place. I was hoping that we would go on to maul them in the second half but, if anything, we were lucky not to concede. The players were pretty disgruntled after the match and didn't appear to have as much time for the fans as usual. When you consider the trek those 40-50 fans made, that's pretty unacceptable.

On Saturday, I headed east to Gangneung. We got in kind of late on Friday night (express bus from Express Bus Terminal took around 3 hours and cost W20,000), and took a taxi to Gyeongpodae beach, where we shacked up at a motel right on the beach for W40,000. Next day we had a bit of quality beach time, rented bikes to cycle round Gyeongpodea Lake, and got a taxi to Gangneung Sport's Complex in plenty of time for the 'big match'. There was a much bigger turn out of Seoul fans (maybe 300?), and Gangwon had a decent crowd as well. Seoul started with what I consider to be their strongest eleven with Kim Yong Dae - Lee Gyo Ro - Park Yong Ho - Adi - Hyun Young Min - Ko Yo Han - Ko Myung Jin - Ha Dae Sung - Djeparov - Molina - Dejan. We started out well (Molina probably should have scored after about 20 seconds) and deservedly went ahead through a wondrous Ha Dae Sung volley following a cleared corner. It really is one of the best goals I've ever seen, certainly live. Somehow we started making Gangwon look like a decent side after that, but Molina finished well on the stroke of half-time to put us 2-0 up, and the second half was a procession. That puts us up to ninth, and a win at home against Incheon this weekend could elevate us into the play-off positions!

Having sampled Gangneung's night-life (Warehouse - token foreign bar full of pissed up waegooks) and watched the sun rise over Gyeongpodea, we took the bus 40 minutes out of town to Unification Park, on Sunday. This place is NOT designed for visitors who don't have their own transport! When we finally got there, it was pretty impressive. There's a huge South Korean decommissioned warship, which was used in World War Two and up to as recently as 1999. You could go on deck and wander around the rooms inside. They also had some military displays, including one of the recent North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. It's easy to forget how current the threat really is. They also had a simple wooden boat on display that was built and used by 11 North Korean defectors only last year. Last but not least was a captured North Korean submarine. Apparently, 26 North Korean spies tried to infiltrate the country just off the coast from where the park now stands. We were able to walk through, and how they managed to get 26 people in there, I'll never know. It's a well put together (although very one-sided) display, and worth a look if you find yourself on the beautiful east coast of Korea!

I'm going to stick around Seoul this weekend. Saturday will (or should) involve some dissertation writing, FC Seoul V Incheon United, and probably a night out with the boys. The rest of the week will be pretty busy because we are teaching an intensive DDE course, but I much prefer teaching during the day than at night, so you won't hear me complaining for once!

I was catching up with Gary Pot last night and realised it has been a while since I spoke to some of my best old buddy old pals. If that's you, drop me a line! I booked my flight to Barcelona on August 5th and to Dublin on the 10th. I'm hoping to catch a Derry match that weekend and will be in Sligo for Roisin's wedding on Saturday, 13th. I don't fly to Nanjing until the 19th, so fingers crossed I'll get to see most of you. Hope everyone is doing well!

Round Round Get Around

The summer is here! Light teaching schedule (aside from eight crazy days, but that's not now, so I'm not going to think about it), warm weather, events left, right and centre, and something like a puny seven weeks left of my life in Korea. I actually had my medical for my Chinese working visa yesterday and I wasn't nearly as much of a baby about giving blood (or having blood taken!) as I usually am. Perhaps I might even be considered a 'man' by my 29th birthday, although I wouldn't count on it. Anyway, the Chinese authorities are pretty nuts with the old health requirements. I had to be tested for AIDS, syphilis and something else I hadn't even heard of. Fair enough, I guess. However, there's also a questionnaire where I have to own up if I've had such extreme disorders as 'mental confusion' (who hasn't?), 'plague' or 'leprosy'. The doctor then has to sign off that I haven't shown any signs of 'yellow fever', 'cholera' or 'polio'. Ah no lads, you're safe enough on those fronts. I think I need to tell them that I'm going there to teach, not live out the final few weeks of my rapidly diminishing life! Results back on Friday. Fingers crossed I'm all clear and that I can get on with the rest of the laborious visa process.

I'm trying to make the most of my remaining time on the ROK. I wouldn't bet much money on getting another gig on the go. Jeff is out of the country for the rest of the month and that would only give us a few weeks to train up a new drummer and get the show back on the road, only for me to up sticks in early-August anyhow. More likely is that I'll front a couple of shows as a Muse cover with Cheon's Korean band. I'd love the buzz of a show at FF one more time, but with so many other things to fit in before I hit the road, I'm not going to push it or lose much sleep over the issue either way.

This weekend I'm going to go over to Gangneung to enjoy the weather (not TOO hot... yet...), get a bit of beach time in, and (you've guessed it), watch Gangwon FC entertain the not-so-mighty-these-days FC Seoul. We earned a valuable point at home last weekend against high-flying Pohang Steelers, but appear to have lost the head of steam that came with the arrival of caretaker boss, Choi Young Soo. It was a very entertaining match with a HUGE attendance (the sponsors put on some sort of feeble promotion and the families lapped it up), but we have lost the air of invincibility we once had at home. We're still just four-points off the play-off positions, but it's getting pretty congested in there and we need to get a bit of a run together soon. Thank the good-but-non-existent lord for Dejan and Adi, who really do look out of place at times, such is the performance gap between them on their good days, and some of their team-mates on their bad days.

Some have used the word 'obsessive' to describe my relationship with the 'Soul of Seoul - FC Seoul' of late, and I guess I'm not helping my cause by planning to travel the 330km to Busan tomorrow to watch a last-16 FA Cup encounter with Busan Kyotang of the Korean National League. The way I see it is that I only have kids' classes this week (Tuesday and Thursday), that the weather is lovely, that it's something completely different, and that Adi promised to give me his shirt!! I'm going to go down by KTX early in the morning, check out the fish markets, bring a book to the beach for a few hours, take in the match, celebrate a thumping victory (tempting fate there...), love motel it up like the classy gent I am, and catch an early train back for my Thursday kids' class. Hopefully it all goes smoothly and I'll have a nice blog to write up about it all on Friday.

Random snippet from the match last Saturday: my ex-girlfriend's best friend was there totally unexpectedly doing interviews for Reuters about the recent match-fixing scandal in Korean football. Obviously it was nice giving an interview, but it was a really weird feeling too. Personally, you never know what the friends of your ex now think of you, right? Way more importantly, it's an issue that at least one player has chosen to take his own life over, and who knows how big or far-reaching it'll turn out to be? As I said in the interview, it's sad that people around the world may now only associate the K-League with cheating, as opposed to the standard of football and the quality of players that it has exported. For example, Jung Jo Gook and Park Ju Young were both at Sangam last weekend, paying tribute to their former employers and admirers during the Ligue 1 closed-season. As a fan of Korea and Korean football, I hope the authorities deal with the issue thoroughly and professionally and put measures in place to prevent a repeat.

I hope you're getting on well, whoever you are, wherever you are, and in whatever it is that you're doing.

What's Going On?

Well it has been a while since I posted so here goes with a bit of a digest of the last few weeks. Jim has hit the road. His last gig at RMT got the turn-out he deserves (err, it was big, just to clarify...) and we had a Sunday down in Seongnam watching FC Seoul lose 2-0 before meeting Adi in Itaewon later in the night. Not a bad send-off! It might turn out to have been my last gig in Korea too, because finding a suitable drummer or getting the Muse cover band up and running is going to be tough to do before I leave at the start of August. Less than two months left in Korea... I can hardly get my head around that.

I was horribly ill Monday and Tuesday, which set me up nicely for my exam on Wednesday. I was so out of it that I sat the whole thing with my t-shirt inside-out, so I have no idea what kind of result to expect. It was a bit of a strange exam in that it really was about my overall progress with the dissertation. The question was about how my literature review had influenced my research questions, and how my methodology was going to go about addressing the research objectives. In a way, there's no tricking a question like that; either you know what you're talking about, or you don't. I guess I'll find out which category I fall under when the results come. It's nice to have it out of the way. I have to submit my 20,000 word dissertation at the end of August, and that could well spell the end of my formal schooling!

A few of us headed to Muuido last weekend because we had the Monday off for Memorial Day, so it seemed like a good idea to take advantage! Muuido was pleasantly surprising. It was much more beautiful than I had expected, it wasn't too busy, we got a nice simple little pension to sleep in, and it was generally a really good laugh. It was also a hell of a lot more sensible than previous weekends, which I REALLY needed. The tide there goes out by what must be a mile and you can walk right out in the clouds, which come rolling in towards evening. The ferry ride over is really, really short but it's something I always enjoy. Reminds me of childhood holidays in Co. Down way back in the day.

Talking of family holidays, it turns out that Dad can't get the time off work so we won't all be meeting in Barcelona in August, as had been hoped. I think I'm going to go over anyway because Rachel will be there and it's somewhere I've always wanted to visit. My summer schedule at work is pretty light (lots of four-day weekends), so I'm planning loads of trips, including to Jeju-do, which I have somehow never made it to in my time here. Mudfest? Maybe. Jisan? Yes! Looking forward to seeing The Music and The Arctic Monkeys especially. I think it was around this time last year that I popped my knee and saw all my summer plans fly out the window. I'm back playing football again (as badly as ever), so cross your fingers I don't experience a repeat!

My sister, Charlene, has had a bit of an epic time recently. She was out in Bucharest recently doing her first film role and she came back and straight into huge auditions with the National Theatre and The Abbey. Hopefully things are falling into place for her. Thomas and I did drama together as teenagers and we were talking about it a lot on Muuido, about those who chose to pursue it further in life and how they're all doing. You have to take your hat off to them because it's a life of uncertainty for most and a tough, tough job in so many ways. I think I'm glad I'm a teacher, but obviously it'd be nice to have those real rushes in life that performing brings from time to time. Ok, I'm rambling so going to sign of and go prep my kids' classes. Hope you're all doing well.

Lads On Tour

I'm writing this, as I should be finishing up the research methods section of the old dissertation. The power of procrastination has pushed me to clean my bathroom, download this and that on my computer (whoever heard of cloud files? What an idea...), upload photos, start getting stuff sorted for my Chinese 'foreign expert' visa, check flights for my epic Seoul > Barcelona > Ireland > Nanjing August foray, and write up set-lists for the couple of drummers who are interested in jumping into Jimbo's seat when he hits the road at the end of the month. In spite of the fact that I have only a week-and-a-half left until my final exam, there's no sign of the fear. I kind of need it at this stage.

Still, there's always time for a bit of 'lads on tour' action. Tomorrow, a half-dozen of us are heading down to Daejeon for a bit of craic before Jim's last weekend. The last time the six of us went out together... well... I can't really say what happened. It's not that I'm holding back, I just honestly can't really say. My personal rule for this trip is a self-imposed ban on soju (for me: the lads can do whatever they want!), so hopefully that'll keep things under control to some extent at least.

I'm not 100% happy about missing FC Seoul V Daejeon at Seoul World Cup Stadium tomorrow night, but I'll be watching it on the box. Wednesday past was another good night for the boys. Despite fielding an under-strength side, we hammered National League side, Yongin City, 4-0. Caretaker boss Choi Young Soo seems fairly adept at rotating the squad during a very busy May for the club. Dejan came off the bench to fire home a couple, Adi scored a bit of a jammy dodger, and the other was from a debutant, Choi something-or-other. A win against lowly Daegu could put us into the top-six (play-off positions). Surely they'll give Choi Young Soo the nod to carry on - at least until the end of the season... Since taking over from the shambolic Hwangbo Kwan, it has been six matches, five victories, and just the one draw (away from home in the Champion's League, falling victim to a last-minute equaliser). With Derry City defying the odds and pushing Shamrock Rovers at the top of the league, and Man Utd stuttering their way to a record 19th top flight league crown, my football supporter star is on the rise again.

There were a couple of other things I was going to mention but a few of the girls from the office at work just walked in to the coffee shop, so I should probably look busy and get back to my chapter. Have a good weekend!

Calm Down

It's been a bit busy recently with probably going out and doing too much, keeping up with work and my dissertation, but not really enough being sensible at all. We finished another DDE session on Tuesday night so I have a fairly quiet rest of the week - time to get plenty of that dissertation done before the research methods exam on June 1st. Confusingly, it's worth 60% of my final dissertation mark, so I'm sure 'the fear' will kick in soon.

Doing lots of reminiscing recently because Jim, another of my best friends in Korea (as well as our drummer), is leaving at the end of the month. We had our final FF gig together last Saturday, a venue that really means a lot to us (mainly as U R Seoul) over the years. I was there on my very first night out in Korea in December 2006 with Rob - yet another ROK hopper! I remember thinking how much I'd love to rock that stage, and we're really lucky in that we've been fortunate enough to have done so many times over the years. I hope I get another chance, but obviously it'll never be quite the same.

Other blasts from the past these days: great emails from Gallagher and Risky; a wedding invitation from Roisin (August 13th - Ill be there!); coming across loads of cards from Ji I had almost forgotten about; lunch with my old Korean teacher; and a Korean FA Cup match tonight against Yongin reminding me of being there this time last year (or longer?) scraping a win over 'a little town called Mokpo' with Rob. Will be in China before I know it. Better prepare myself!

Off to World Cup Stadium for Seoul V Yongin (FA Cup 3rd round), so this is short n' sweet today. Great win for the boys at the weekend over Gyeongnam (Dejan, Ko Yo Han(2)) putting us up to 7th in the K-League and continuing Choi Young Soo's undefeated reign as caretaker manager so far. Get in!