August 15, 2005

Today is Korea's independence day. Sixty years ago South and North Korea (before they were separated were liberated from Japanese rule. Yesterday I was lucky enough to get to a soccer game between North and South Korea commemorating this day and supporting the idea of a unified Korea. I don't know how far off a unified Korea is, but everyone at the game seemed to be favour of it.

We were lucky to get to go to the game because tickets were only being given to Korean NGOs (Non-Government Organizations). Since the school at which I teach is connected to an NGO, all the teachers were lucky enough to get to go to the game.

The game itself wasn't much to speak of. South Korea won 3-0. The score doesn't really reflect the effort that North Korea put in to the game. North Korea simply wasn't ablem to get anything into the net. They did have a few good chances and it would have been really nice to see them score.

The stadium was packed. I would imagine it was almost sold out. Apparently the stadium holds approximately 60,000 people. It is huge. Inside on the bottom floors it has a shopping mall and a movie theatre. Crazy.

My saturday consisted of going to the river with everyone from school and playing frisbee for 2 hours. Really a lot of fun.