SOCCER Sunday

I had a relaxing morning at home. Then it was off to meet up with my soccer guys. Some of us met at Hapjeong to go to Ichon Station together. While I was waiting for John, Jacob and Sammie I actually saw Johan, one of our other players. He sat and talked but then took the next train because he was meeting up with another friend. John, Jacob and Sammie arrived and we headed to Ichon. We met up with other guys there and waited for the rest to arrive. Some of us went ahead to get signed on to the base and start warming up. John, our "captain" wouldn't tell us who we were playing, so we finally discovered it was a team of 15, 16 and 17 year old International (American mostly I believe) high school students. Their team was started so they could prepare/get scholarships for colleges back in the States.

We had 13 people playing on our team. John had 2 Japanese friends from another team he plays with join us and Johan had his friend Carlos join as well. We did pretty well-at half time it was 1-2. But then the second half we put Johan, our strongest midfielder in goal and the final score was 1-6. He wasn't the best in goal, because he's a midfielder. And, we lost our playmaker. We kind of just fell apart. And got tired. It was probably the first time I really felt "old", haha. It was a lot of fun though, and we will probably play them again in the future.

After soccer, I went to...soccer. Jacob and I headed over to World Cup Stadium for our 6-8 session. Some of the guys had agreed they'd go to play in the evening as well. Jacob and I watched the kids playing before us and I saw one of my students. I don't think he saw me though. When it was time to start there were only 5 of us. Then 2 more came about 10 minutes later and a final one straggled in. So we played 4 on 4 but 6 of us had already played a game earlier. I left for church and they all groaned and complained and hassled me for leaving. Later I found out they only played for about another 20-30 minutes after I left because they were too tired and cold.

Church was good-Father Bernard had mass this week. Afterwards they had some little cakes, but I couldn't stay because I was meeting Jacob for dinner. We went for dalk kalbi which is like a spicy chicken stirfry and at the end you add rice and it's delicious.