Soccer Rules!

I’m becoming an expert on the English Premier League. For my American friends this is the ultimate soccer league. At least, so it seems. It never stops to amaze me how popular the Premier League is all over Asia. You turn on the TV in any Asian country and there is always a game on. You open the sports pages of any Asian (English written) newspaper and there are at least two pages on the Premier League and sometimes that is 75% or more of the sports news. I have only two sports channels on my TV: one is ESPN (Asian version I assume) that seems to always show soccer and sometimes baseball, the other one is Star Sports and shows local favorites such as ruby, ping pong, badminton and the eXtreme sports (skateboarding, MBX, motocross,..). As I write this review, I keep one eye on the tube where they are now showing a ruby game between South Africa and New Zealand. It makes me realize that I’m really at the other side of the world. I have not seen any American football game yet although the pre-season is in full swing (?). I’m planning at going to the Hardrock Café this weekend (just 10 min form my apartment) to get a healthy dose of “Americana”, including burgers and fries with a cold Budweiser. I need to stay connected with the motherland, don’t I? Oh, yes, for the Belgian contingency reading this blog, I got some Belgian chocolates while in Hong Kong. Just to make sure we keep the patriotic emotions in balance.