Arrival

At 3:40am this morning Asiana Flight 221 landed in Incheon International airport outside of Seoul, bringing several hundred Asians. And me.

This is a strange country. I knew it as soon as the airline offered me the following breakfast foods: croissant, yogurt, melon, and lasagna. I knew it when I saw dried octopus sold in every convenience store in downtown Seoul (for a very reasonable price... only about 75 cents for dried octopus jerky! Only it's not cut up like beef jerky is... it's just an octopus. Dried and seasoned. All of the little tentacles, mutely arranged in vaccuum packaging, signaling some unknown portent... perhaps it's Korean sign language for World Cut Victory? Apparently Octopi have the powers of supernatural prescience: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10420131.stm )

After that long parenthetical remark on cephalopods, let me treat the World Cup. Seoul is World Cup Crazy. Infected with World Cup Fever. (Its cephalopods have World Cup encephalitis.) Tonight is the semi-final game, between S. Korea and Uruguay. If South Korea wins, I fully expect to be awake all night with drunken rioting in the streets. If South Korea loses.... well, I fully expect to be awake all night with drunken rioting in the streets. Or maybe the streets will be dead silent, as every good Korean searches for an Uruguayan to beat up? Either way, I have obtained a jersey for Korea, and will wear it tonight as a I try to participate in the revelry the only way a complete cultural outsider can... with cheers and boos at the appropriate moments (i.e. do what everyone else seems to be doing).

More to come! Much more! I'll be in Seoul for the next week for my training with the company, and then (provided everything goes well), I will be off to Busan!