We're almost half-way through the group stage of the planet's greatest sporting spectacle so I thought I would offer these thoughts on World Cup 2006 to date: * First off, just how good are Argentina? Serbia and Montenegro have (had?) one of Europe's best defences, but Crespo and co battered them yesterday 6-0. Tevez and Messi can't even get in the starting eleven which tells its own story. The second goal yesterday, consisting of no fewer than 24 pases, must go straight in to the top five...
As some of you know, I've recently moved country for the second time in a matter of months. After several years trying to teach bemused Asian children the difference between "these" and "those", I decided that a career in education was not for me. Following a pleasant summer in Belfast doing nothing in particular, I am now ensonced in the English city of Nottingham studying to be a newspaper journalist. I've no idea whether the ambition of writng for a living will ever be realised. My inc...
I arrive in Heathrow from Seoul, my home for the last fifteen months, on my way to Belfast, my home for the next two. It's my first time in Europe for over a year. Even in the artificial atmosphere of an international airport, the culture shock hits me. No more signs in Hangeul, no-one speaking Korean. Most people around me as I dash between terminals are the same colour as me. Most of them speak English, or at least Cockney, a close relative of my native tongue. I pass through securi...
This is my first blog upon returning to the decadent west and my last blog about life in Korea. I thought it would be appropriate to conclude by thanking some people who I met on the peninsula. So a respectful gamsa hamnida and a solemn nod of the head to the following: To Soupy, first and foremost. As the recipient of an entire gushing blog in his honour already, I feel that there's nothing else to be said. "'What's that smell' Spot said." To Pieter, who, in his love of Korean lif...
On my way home from work yesterday, a smartly-dressed young man came bounding up to me, his floppy fringe bobbing up and down as he ran. " Hello, I'm Brendan ", he said enthusiastically, offering his hand in an untypical Korean gesture. As a foreigner in Seoul, I'm often accosted in this manner by complete strangers. But there was something about this man; his uncommonly good English, his use of a Western-style greeting, which tipped me off that he was after more than a brief chat. Within...
One of the aspects to life in Seoul which took a little getting used to was the sheer size of this behemoth of a metropolis. Travelling around the Korean capital can be a very time-consuming experience. Weekends often involve inordinate amounts of time spent waiting for buses, standing on the subway, or watching the taxi meter tick over. But, as time has passed, I've grown used to these long journeys and have even started to take pleasure in the little idiosyncracies of Korean travel. The...
One of the great things about Asia, as opposed to Europe, is the different attitude toward food here in the Orient. Back home on the western side of our immense landmass, eating out is a very occasional pleasure for all but the wealthy. To go to a restaurant one must have a reason: a date, a birthday, a celebration of some kind. Eating out is expensive, so it's expected that you dress up for the occasion (which, for some of us means putting on clothes which do not have holes). Each d...
I've read a few of Michael Moore's books and have managed to take a position on the Rotund Ranter which few other Joeusers seem to share - that of ambivalence. I don't detest the man but neither do I love him. Sometimes, I find his ideas thought-provoking. I remember once reading his anecdotal observation that it seems that there are more girls than boys being born these days. Perhaps, he speculates, Mother Nature is trying to protect her creation by reducing the proportion of the population ...
"Mi guk in" The child's index finger points toward the pointy-nosed, pale-skinned oddity strolling past. "Mi guk in" ("American"), he exclaims excitedly to his parents as if he's just seen some exotic beast, like a rhino or a unicorn. The "American" stops in his tracks, bends down and smiles at the little one "a ni yo, a il lean deu in" ("no, I'm Irish.") I've lost count of the number of times I've been mistaken for a US citizen. Sometimes the person making the assumption is old e...
My time in Korea is coming to an end, so this is the first in a series of articles reflecting on life on the peninsula: The till opens to reveal a huge wad of ten thousand won notes (about a fiver each). Altogether, the checkout operator must have several hundred pounds in her till. I could reach out and grab them, simple as can be. Even after a year here, this to me is amazing. I did a similar job for many years back home in Belfast. If my boss there had caught me with several dozen no...
I've been lucky enough to travel and to live in different countries. Along the way, I've met people from various nations and cultures. But regardless of background, I find there are three characteristics which I look for in a new acquaintance: self-deprecation, intellectual curiosity and joie de vivre . I'm not a fundamentalist about this, it's great if you have all three (the grand slam), but I won't write you off if you only possess one or two. I myself lack joie de vivre , which...
Last year a family friend spent a week here in Seoul on business. The second time we met, just before he was due to leave, he looked at me in a pleasantly bewildered manner and sighed: " This city has beaten me. It's a beast ." For those unaccustomed to epically large Asian cities, this is a common sentiment. The traffic, the noise, the over-crowding, the energy, the sheer size of a city which has twice the population of Ireland, can be a bit much for a newcomer from the west. I live on...
I haven't been looking forward to writing this blog. I've known for some time that my best friend Soupy, known to Joeusers as johnsoup, will be leaving Korea. Knowing his dislike of presents, I promised to write a blog about him in lieu of a going away gift. There is the possibility, as I'm sure John will welcome, that this will lead me to write about my emotions; a very un-Barry thing to do. We first met in September 2000 in my native Belfast. We were in the same Masters class, two of t...
Last weekend I was, as ever, sitting in a bar with Soupy, my erstwhile friend in both the online and offline worlds. At one stage, as we sat there putting the world to rights, an English woman came up to us and started chatting. The woman in question was determined to tell us, over and over and over, just how sexy she found our Ulster brogues to be. Well, who am I to argue with such an assessment? It seeems that for the English these days, the Ulster accent is in. Large English companies ...
At Easter I was drinking in the famous Crown Bar, a popular tourist spot in Belfast city centre. Waiting for my drinks, I got chatting to the guy next to me, who like most of the people in the bar, was not a local. He was from Tralee, in the south-west of Ireland. Despite being the wrong side of forty, it was his first visit to our country's second city. He commented, as most first-timers do, on the freindliness of the people and on how much he was enjoying his visit. I've always been su...