Friday night was the Rokon farewell party, an event that wed resolved to make a celebration of something good as opposed to commiserating its end. If ever theres an excuse to smoke oddly flavoured cigars and strike ludicrous poses throughout one of Itaewons most upmarket bars, this was it. So we did. Never mind Saturdays early start, there was no way I was going to chill out for a night like this, I considered myself to be being sensible calling it a night just before 3am before stumbling into work for 9am on Saturday morning. Rokon is gone, but the spirit of the team certainly isnt, well be strong for a long time to come.
Having worked a normal 9 till five on Saturday – and made myself a little overly familiar with the best place to buy a Dictaphone in Gangnam – I headed straight for World Cup Stadium in Western Seoul. It really wasnt worth heading home before the festival. Or so I thought: for everyone else coming early to an all day festival apparently means coming at nearly 10pm. Oh well, I enjoyed the opening half an hour of FC Seouls K league game against the frankly diabolical Busan IPark, and hung around reading and listening to the Tokyo Jazz Massive perform from outside. Busan somehow managed to be leading Seoul when I left (Seoul eventually nicked the game 2-1 in second half injury time), and the festival is, as they say, a whole different blog entry.
Unsurprisingly, Sunday was a bit of a write off. Though I did manage to eat a damn good Steak and Mushroom pie. And observe a team of kids wearing darts t-shirts with the imaginative script darts whore: Ill take on for the team. Classy.
Watching the European Championship Final as essential as such an activity obviously is is clearly not the best way to start the working week. At least not if you live in Seoul, anyway, as said European Championship Final kicks off at 3.45am on a Monday morning. At least we have the advantage of having pubs that are open suitably long hours, and a couple of hours in the pub drinking tea serenely before work doesnt feel quite so bad when the Spanish admirably decide they feel like playing at a level that could not be legitimately described as pathetically underperforming. From the point of view of an English football fan, the German team winning is never a good thing. Especially when we didnt even get to play. Lehmann and Ballack made themselves look about as sportsmanlike as Manchester United when somebody has the cheek to win a freekick at Old Trafford. The Germans looked like moaning fools. The Spanish finally got a well-deserved trophy. If its not going to be England, I can live with that.
So this week after a 5am bedtime on Saturday and 3.30 am alarm call on Monday morning Ill no doubt be suffering from the kind of jet lag thats induced by travelling precisely nowhere, if such a thing exists. Which Im sure will be great fun when coupled with the mildly stress inducing monthly change of classes and a heavy workload. At least I can say that this weekend especially after Pendulum – was worth it in every possible way. Ill suffer, but Ill suffer with a smile on my face.
Hang on a minute, did I just miss Glastonbury?? I guess it was only Jay Z
J x