Pandering to stereotpye

Flying into Dublin on Thursday will not be like this:



And here's the infamous clip from a few seasons ago, featuring "A day in the life" and "Ireland before alcohol". Wrong, yet funny:

China in your hand

That little piece of 80's pop from English band T'Pau is an artsy-fartsy way of introducing Alexis' 18-day solo trip to the orient. On Saturday afternoon, she sailed off from Inchon on a proverbial slow boat to China; a ship that, according to her on-deck texts, looked quite like the Titanic - spiral staircases, golden escalators et all. Lucky then, I replied, that the Yellow Sea is devoid of icebergs.

By now she should be enjoying the sights and sounds of her first big stop along the way, Beijing. Over the next 2 1/2 weeks, she'll also be taking in Xian, Shanghai, and some rather nifty places in between that I can't quite pronounce. I'm green with envy...or red, in this post-communist case.

It never Rains but it pours

Stephen Colbert responds to Korean press criticism:



"Stop with all the bull-gogi". Heh-heh-heh.

And for anyone who speaks Korean and/or wants to practice their Colbert Karaoke, here is some of the KBS reaction to the first video complete with Hangeul subtitles for the offending kimchi/Hyundai sections :

Going Dutch

We popped along to the World Cup Stadium on Saturday night for the Korea-Netherlands friendly. The game was decent enough, even if the eventual result was an all too predictable 2-nil to the mighty Dutchmen. As usual, the offer of sorting out match tickets was heartily taken up by all and sundry. I picked up 24 tickets from Hana Bank but in the intervening week, natural selection and the Darwinian environment that is Muuido beach struck again, reducing our numbers to 22 - one for each player on the field.

Most of the entertainment came from Chris and Jared's buddy Shane, who added their own brand of color commentary (mostly blue) to the proceedings and left me with some mild tinnitus in my left ear. The Koreans around us had a good old chuckle at the sight of foreigners making impassioned outbursts and pleas to the players and management. To be fair, they probably needed a bit of light relief, given the drubbing being inflicted on their fellow countrymen down on the pitch.

During the second half, a couple of other waegukin valiantly tried to start a flag relay around the pitch. They were defeated by a lack of enthusiasm from the folks in the neighbouring stand until one of the runners, in a textbook definition of Dutch courage - though somewhat in breach of relay competition etiquette, not to mention FIFA crowd safety guidelines - hopped over the fencing and continued the serial sprint around the stadium's top deck.

Cold War kids

Russia threatening to point its missiles at Europe? The cold war's a-comin'...duck and cover, be-atches