Hockey, dog soup and raspberry jam!

Well the past few weeks have been full of a few firsts. Three weeks ago I went to my first hockey game in Korea. Hyun-Ju ( Jason's girlfriend) sent me a message on Friday night asking me if I wanted to do something really cool on Saturday. I was ecstatic when she revealed that she wanted us to go to a hockey game.

I never thought I would get to see hockey here so I jumped at the chance. So Saturday afternoon five of us, Jason, Hyun-Ju, Jake, Bruce, and I all jumped in to a cab and headed towards the rink about 10 kms outside of Chuncheon. Life size banners of the hockey players greeted us before we walked through the doors. As soon as we walked through the door I noticed the first major difference between a Korean hockey game and a Canadian; you don't have to pay. I couldn't believe it. Once we walked into the rink I realized why. There were no fans! The team’s owners had to do all they could to encourage people to come, since hockey isn’t a popular sport here.

The home team "KangwonLand" was playing Japan's "Cranes." Apparently there are only two professional Korean hockey teams in the entire country and somehow Chuncheon managed to have one. This is actually the first year for the team and they are apparently owned by a casino somewhere near here. Anyway, we settled in to watch the game. The pace was slow at first but picked up gradually during the course of the three periods. There wasn't much hitting, but the home team did manage to make it a little exciting. In the end they lost 3-2. The whole experience was quite entertaining since Jason and I ( the Canadians) were the only ones who had seen hockey before. Hyun-Ju squealed many times with excitement and couldn't believe that so much contact was allowed. Jake and Bruce clamly watched, although I did hear a bit of cheering from both of them.

Without a doubt the highlight of the game for me was watching the ajumma (old married ladies) cheerleaders. They all had red KangwonLand jackets and cheering balloons that they banged together throughout the game There was about 50 of them sitting together cheering during the entire game. Their enthusiasm was priceless and at times more entertaining than the actual game. "Kangwon Land- Eh, Kangwon Land -Eh," they repeated religiously throughout the game. Surprisingly the women's energy and dedication to their team never diminished. They were true fans. Although I doubt many of them actually cared all that much about hockey. I'm pretty sure it was just the thrill of cheering against Japan that kept them motivated. So that was the beginning of my list of firsts.

The second contribution to my list was eating dog soup. When I first found out that Koreans ate dog soup, I crinkled my nose like most other foreigners and thought of my two loyal canine friends, Penny and Chico, back home. I figured I could never bring myself to eat a dog. Well ... I was wrong. Rei, an American teacher I work with, Bobbie, one of our secretaries, and Mandy, our Chinese teacher, decided they were going out to indulge in some bosin-tang (aka dog soup) one night after work. They invited me to come along. I was going to decline, but then I realized I was quite curious about what it looked like and since no one I regularly hung out with ate it, I figured I should probably take them up on their offer. I had no intention of eating it. I figured I would just observe. I heard from others that it smelled bad and I knew I couldn't eat it if it smelled disgusting. To my surprise, when we arrived at the restaurant, I smelled nothing out of the ordinary. When the soup arrived, it looked a lot like beef. The smell was fine, so after a little coaxing by my peers I picked up the chopsticks and dug in. It tasted all right, but it’s not something I can say I loved. At least now I can say I've tried it.

Now the last thing on my lovely list of firsts is something I have missed dearly since I came here; it’s raspberry jam. This may sound silly, but I LOVE raspberry jam and they don't have any in this country. I saw a few raspberries here in the summer and Ben and Lisa bought some from a street vendor in July. Do you want to know how much they paid? For one cup, they forked out a hefty $2.50 CAD. That's highway robbery! I couldn't believe it. Knowing that I could pick one hundred times that amount back home for free, made me almost want to cry. To make matters worse, the raspberries they bought had barely any taste. Anyway, I haven't had raspberry jam since I left. That is, until my thoughtful mother smuggled a homemade jar of her jam into the country with the last care package she sent me. She informed me there was a surprise in the package, but I never imagined it could be such a rare commodity. So, during my last trip to Costco in Seoul, I bought myself a package of bagels and when I got home I toasted one and slathered it in strawberry cream cheese and raspberry jam. My goodness, who knew something so simple could taste so darn good. Ooohh.. my mother knows me all too well. She made my month!

So that concludes my recent additions to my list of firsts in Korea. The list is long and growing and one of these days I will get around to publishing a post about the rest of the list.

My raspberry jam bagels!



The Ajumma Cheerleaders



A shot of the game.