Tae Ha Min Guk!!

WE have entered serious World Cup fever here, people.
Korea loves its soccer.
Oooh, and they lurve Hiddink, their former coach which took them to the quarter finals in the 2002 World Cup, which means Australia is second best because of course he's our coach now.

Every second person on the street is wearing a Red Devil shirt, or one that says "Go Corea," or "Corea Wonderful" or "Fighting Corea," with Korea spelled with a C. And yes, it's a tad strange that nobody has bothered telling the printer that the rest of the world spells Korea with a "K". Oh well.
Reds memorabilia is so cheap here - shirts sell for as little as $5 so it's no wonder everyone gets into the spirit. Whereas in Australia, football jerseys and shirts are so damn expensive.

Anyhoo. Everybody was mildly excited when Australia won against Japan on Monday night - especially since we beat Korea's arch-rival, Japan. (Nobody bothers hiding the fact they hate Japan here). Wes and I were channel surfing when Australia scored its first goal (since we can't benefit from the commentary - it was getting a bit tiresome hearing "blah blah blah Hoju (Australia) blah blah blah Hiddink yada yada yada Ilbun (Japan)". But we knew what the go was when some people next door started whooping and cheering. That gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, that did.
And then the following day, when we were buying bananas, the man asked us, in Korean, if we were from the UK. When Wes replied "Hoju" he was very excited and gave us a big thumbs up. Oh yeah!

So of course The Gu went off last night in preparation for Korea's game against Togo. People were apparently buying up snacks at Lotte like it was the turn of the millenium, there were shrieks of "Tae Ha Min Guk!" (South Korea) and the theme song was blaring in every shop. Yes, they even have a theme song!
It's very catchy, something about winning and champions (champion is the same word in English and Korean).