A Nice Evening

Did a couple of things of interest tonight, at least to me. I walked east of E-Mart for the first time, in the direction I knew the Hangang (Han River) had to be. After about ten minutes walking, I came to a long, skinny park with nice rubberized walking and bicycle trails. About every hundred meters was a small covered pavilion next to a group of exercise machines, and also tennis courts, soccer-volleyball courts and such. I walked south along the trail for some distance, and came to a set of ramps and stairs, which in turn led to a tunnel about thirty meters long. When I emerged on the other side, the Han was directly in front of me.

It is broad and calm, with a massive bridge about a mile north of the tunnel (the tunnel goes under the highway). No pics, as the cell cam is not up to the task, but it made a lovely scene. Eventually, I made my way west, though I'm sure Mr. Hwang would have a heart attack if he knew I took a different route back!

Later in the evening, I came down to my chicken hof for dinner and a soccer match. The North Koreans "hosted" the South at Shanghai due to a change of venue prompted by Pyongyang's exhorbitant ticket prices (they're really hurting for hard currency following the murder of a tourist in a DMZ resort by North Korean security).

Anyway, this was the first match in the final round of World Cup qualifying--the North and South are in the same group again(!)--and resulted in a 1 - 1 tie. This is the fourth straight draw between the two, including both matches in the last WC round and one in the Asian Championships earlier this year.

However, the South was the superior team in all but score. DPRK converted the PK from an iffy handball call, but ROK equalized about five minutes later (sound familiar, O my players?) on a very nice chest trap spin-and-volley which caught the inside corner from Ki Sung-yeung.