The World Cup Party...

On the night of the 22nd Hiyoung and I went Seoul City hall to watch the game on the giant screens there.  It was amazing.  We got there at 12:00 A.M. (the 23rd)  and got a place to sit in the road. 

We tried to get there a little early to get decent seats because the Game started at 3:30 A.M. local Korean time.  The giant screen looked pretty small.  In the picture it is hard to see because there were lights to illuminate the crowd because the gathering would recorded for TV.  We were out of the range of these lights.  At one in the morning the show started.  The had 4 or 5 musical groups that were of a variety.  They were all suporting the Korean soccer team in some way, from wearing a red uniform, to the shirts that the everyone was wearing.  And plugging the country name all the time.

  The first group (I am not sure of the name, Hiyoung did ot know and I have not found the the program from that night on the internet.) was a boy and girl singer with backup dancers and I have seen them on TV a few times since then.  Then they had a rock group whose singer sounded like the guy from AC/DC.  Then a strange rock/rap group that dressed somewhat like a clockwork orange.  Then came a rock group that I could get into.  They kinda rocked and the Woman singer sounded pretty good.  On the screen I could see that they were called "Cherry Filter"  Then  particular sang started a song that was really popular, especially with the girls.  This was "Romantic Cat" their hit from 2002, and I must say it rocks.

After that was After School which is the ROK's response to the Pussycat Dolls.  Enough said. 

  

Then the Game started and all the true insanity began. I am not a sports guy but I really can see the drama of "The Game".  There were cheers, ecstacy and despair.  Throughout the night the crowd was lead in chears of "dae-han-min-goog", clap-clap, clap-clap CLAP and singing "dae-han-min-goog" (the Korean name for the Republic of Korea) over and over to the melody of Ode to Joy.   It ended up with a tie of 2-2 but that was enough to put them into he next faze of the tournament and as the dawn broke onto the scene it was one of joy.