Post-6: Soccerless Saturday

I tried to play soccer on Saturday. I failed. Only two players showed up. We had lunch, instead, and went home.

I played soccer almost every Saturday between September 2011 and July 2012. We haven’t played since then.I don’t know why people stopped showing up, but I can say it was one of my favorite things to do. The players were mostly foreigners (mostly English teachers), largely British, with a few Korean regulars, too. Most of us were not very good (a few were), but no one minded. It was all in good fun, and spirits were always high: Whoever showed up would play. Sometimes it was more than 20 people, sometimes fewer than 10. Always enjoyable, to me. I have good memories of these games.

We played in the easternmost neighborhood or Incheon, called Bupyeong, at a middle school maybe halfway between the recently-opened (as of November 2012) “Samsan Gymnasium” and “Gulpo Stream” subway stations (삼산체육관역 and 굴포천역) [Map]. I walked there from my home in central Bucheon, 40 minutes away on foot, across Lake Park. Here is a map:

The red-arrow in the map is anchored on a crossroad north of where we played. Due to varying “availability” (the ancient principle of “forgiveness not permission” was followed), four or five of the schools south of this intersection were used for games at various times.

If you click on the “Satellite” version of the map and you can see a big lake to the east. That is “Sang-Dong Lake Park”. I walked through it every time I went to play soccer. My home is off to the east, not far. Seoul is off further to the east, if you zoom out.