Back on Sunday I attended the K-League match between FC Seoul and Jeonbuk Motors in the nation's capital. For those not familiar with it, the K-League is at the top of the Korean footballing hierarchy and is the nation's only fully professional league. After two rounds of matches Seoul were in first place while Jeonbuk, the reigning champions, ( Read more... )

Last week the Pohang Steelers soccer team traveled to Tashkent to play FC Bunyodkor of Uzbekistan. After a bit of extremely poor refereeing in the first leg - a Korean player gets elbowed by an Uzbek and it's the Korean who gets kicked out of the game, wtf - the two sides met once more, this time at The Steelyard in Pohang city. The match took ( Read more... )

Tomorrow marks the second leg of the AFC Champion's League quarterfinal matches. The competition currently features two clubs from Japan (Nagoya Grampus 8, Kawasaki Frontale), two from Korea (Pohang Steelers, FC Seoul), two from Uzbekistan (FC Bunyodkor, Pakhtakor Tashkent), one from Saudi Arabia (Al Ittihad), and one from Qatar (Umm Salal). I ( Read more... )

Uijeongbu used to have a soccer team - Uijeongbu Hummel FC - that was based in the city from 1999-2006. The following year the side moved to Icheon (2006-2007) before relocating north once more -- this time to Nowon-gu in Seoul. Playing in Korea's National League, the second tier of Korean football, the current team consists of 33 South Korean ( Read more... )

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Most of the news articles and events I reference in connection to my home city of Uijeongbu can hardly be considered uplifting material. Murder, gas explosions, a fighter plane almost crashing in the city. Last month saw an event that gives me something much more positive to write about in the field of local news ( Read more... )

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I took the level test for my Korean class yesterday and received my scores this morning. The two-hour test was broken into listening, reading & writing, and speaking sections -- the first two groups consisted of 27 questions each while the last part involved an oral exam of 11 questions, for a grand total of 65 questions. Our scores were enclosed ( Read more... )

One of my main-level students, Edwin, surprised me earlier in the week by striking up a conversation before class discussing the African Cup of Nations (CAN 2008) and his opinion on the competition. It's a mildly surreal experience to go from an environment where very few people have any idea there is such a tournament to one where I can debate ( Read more... )