Many people in Korea seems to be walking around with DSLR cameras, even 18-year old looking girls who don't exactly strike me as the most obvious target consumer. Expensive photographic equipment is stuffed in handbags or carried casually around the neck with little protection. Occasionally, even the lens caps are alarmingly optional.

I'd never buy a DSLR back in England, where my home town was ranked as the second most dangerous city in the country the year I first left it for Korea, which is a little safer than that. And if everyone is carrying around expensive gadgets here - and they do - there's an element of safety in numbers. After arriving in Korea, it didn't take me long to establish the limits of my Canon IXUS 800 (aka Powershot SD700), and I thought about buying a DSLR but never reached the point where I believed it was worth it. I regarded myself as more of a point-and-shoot person, and that suited the rough and tumble of my Korean life. With a baby on the way things changed because my wife and I want to take higher quality shots than my old 6 megapixel IXUS allows. The videos will be higher quality as well, but whether it's an acceptable if compromised alternative to a proper camcorder remains to be seen.

It's that rough and tumble that minded me to buy a Canon DSLR. I don't write about all my experiences in Korea for various reasons including lack of time, privacy and apathy, but a couple of years ago my IXUS went on holiday to Jeju Island without me and got dropped on a concrete floor. The upshot of that was finding that Canon had an official repair centre above their store in the Nampodong district of Busan, which meant that I managed to get my shattered compact repaired. It meant that it got stuck in my mind that the after-sales service for a DSLR Canon was going to be a lot easier than for a Nikon.

I'd also read that one of the DSLR cameras I'd been looking at – I'm afraid I can't remember which one now but - didn't have an English language option if bought in Korea. They probably do this sort of thing to prevent grey imports into other countries. Unfortunately, it meant that this camera was quickly struck off my list. I happen to use a Korean version of Windows which to the surprise of the retailer I insisted on buying with my computer (sometimes I think it might be the only legal copy of Korean Windows in the entire country), but I drew the line on living with a Korean-menu-only DSLR I might not even understand in English.

So I went to the Canon store in Nampodong recently to look at the Canon EOS 550D (which is confusingly called the Rebel T2i in the US). While there a young couple walked in, weren't quite sure what they wanted, were shown a 550D, and decided to buy it – just like that. I was still doing a lot of research. But it seemed like a very familiar attitude here, where gadgets are so ubiquitous they are treated almost like commodities.

When it came time for me to buy, I didn't really want to pay Canon's official prices, so I humoured myself looking at the prices on Korean Internet sites. But whereas back in the UK there are online retailers - and then there is the Wild West of distrust that is eBay - in Korea it's common to buy from sellers you've never heard of via sites like Auction and Gmarket, which to put it into context would be like buying everything through eBay back home. I'm not really comfortable with buying expensive electrical equipment from auction sites, but on the whole people in Korea don't seem quite as reticent. We eventually bought from the large electrical chain Hi-Mart, where we got a free Canon bag but where further attempts to haggle would prove fruitless on the grounds that there was apparently huge demand for the 550D and nobody seemed to have any stock. They certainly didn't need to discount when stock came in. The price was about £680 ($986/1,200,000 won) with the EF-S 18-55mm lens kit, bag, extra SD card, predictably useless UV filter and a few other bits and pieces. And we'd still have to wait - two to three weeks.

When we'd done the deal the assistant didn't seem enthusiastic – my wife jokingly asked him why – shouldn't he be happy with the commission? He said he wasn't because he couldn't give us the product immediately – and I believe he really meant it.

It took three weeks in the end to come, and when they got it they still didn't have a bag, so – unprompted - they gave us a new 'Samsung VLUU' bag to use in the interim. I didn't use it but suspiciously held it hostage until the Canon one arrived.

Three CDs came in the box. The first contained the accompanying software, the second, which contained manuals for the accompanying software was entitled the 'Software Instruction Manual', and the third carried the Korean description '소프트웨어 사용설명서' which approximately translates as the 'Software usage instructions' – in other words, it contained manuals for the accompanying software and sure enough the contents were exactly the same as the second CD, with instructions for the software in English, French, Japanese, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Spanish. Which meant that neither CD had Korean instructions for the accompanying software, despite one of them being given a Korean title. It looks like Canon made a mistake somewhere there.

But for all my research, while the camera can be switched into one of 25 languages including English and Korean, to my surprise there was no PDF manual on the CDs in the box, but instead a 206 page printed Korean manual which was useless to me. Fortunately it wasn't an issue since I'd downloaded the English manual a few weeks beforehand in order to do some final research. It's just as well it's readily available.

After I'd got the camera I went back over to Nampodong to have a look at filters and lens hoods, and discovered three new large camera shops in close proximity to Canon's store. That's the odd thing about Korea - shops in the same line of business have a tendency to cluster. Perhaps Nampodong is turning into Busan's camera district.

 I spent most of Saturday in bed, missing out on some glorious weather in an attempt to sleep off the onslaught of chemicals onto my body and brain.  Pickled coma.  But eventually I creaked out of bed, fed my cats and myself (scrambled eggs and green peppers, mmm), and eventually headed to the Seomyeon area to meet Angry Steve and Sammy for some grilled meat and football.

Seomyeon is as close to a downtown that this snake-y city has.  It's packed with restaurants of all sorts, especially near the Migliore shopping center, where there's a rabbit warren of alleys containing Korean barbecue, chicken, and seafood joints.  This place is mobbed on the weekends by students and young folks, drawn by the pure street buzz and relative cheap prices.  You can get your feed and drunk on without blowing your stack.  It's rather nice, all and all,  and is one of my favorite things about living in this country.  I wish I had a similar area to go to when I was an obscenely broke college student.

We had headed to Seomyeon for one reason only.  The first match of the night was Korea vs. Greece, so the streets and restaurants would be jammed full of hyper-nationalistic young Korean soccer fans wanting to catch the game and whoop it up in the even of a victory, which I thought was reasonably unlikely, given the seasoned opponent.  But luckily, I was proven wrong.  The three of us - later joined by the boozy Nick Bibby and two of his English friends, managed to find a table at a samgyupsal restaurant that - like every place in town - was showing the game.  We ate mediocre cuts of pork and washed it down with beer and a couple bottles of soju, all the while watching Korea hammer the sluggish Greek side.  The match ended 2-0, in Korea's favor, and the locals immediately emptied into the streets, clapping and chanting and generally basking in the glory that is winning your first match of the World Cup.

This is why I like spending at least part of the World Cup outside of America.  The level of excitement is a hundred times more what you'll ever find at home.  You can taste it and see it, and even the most cynical of us can't help but get a little caught up.  It's also good to see the Koreans school a European power, because it brings out their pride and pure happiness.  As we wandered through the red-clad masses, we were high-fived and fussed over by everyone.  I clapped my hands in solidarity and told them "chukhahamnida!", which means "congratulations."  Any shyness that the Koreans usually have had disintegrated.  They felt fucking great about themselves and their country, and by extension, felt great about us being there.  This is only a fleeting thing, because this pride can easily slide into obnoxious uber-nationalism, but what we saw last Saturday night was their best side.

Afterwards we took a cab to the Kyungsung University district and headed to Ol'55, where my band, The Headaches, was playing a special World Cup show.  The always entertaining Hajimama opened up the gig, with us on afterwards, drowning in beer and hi-decibels.  The turnout was respectable if not massive, and we rocked until about two thirty am.  Soccer and rockers!  Football and foot pedals!!  This was my mantra for the show.

After a bit of Baccus D energy drink (and maybe a little Jagermeister) to pick me up, I headed to Eva's, just down the alley, for the England-vs.-USA match.  As I ascended the stairs, resplendent in red pants, white shirt, and blue tie, I was blasted with a wall of sound that is immediately recognizable as English men singing in unison.  As I approached the doorway to the bar I could see that the crowd was already spilling out.  The intensity of the singing put me on edge; I looked around for thick-necked shaved-headed Brits who may throw a punch my way or try to glass me in the face.  A lot of the Americans were watching the game across the way at the more Yankified HQ Bar, but I wanted to face the English myself and get right into the shit.

The place was a bursting, a wall of people scrunched into a smallish bar.  I plowed through the English section, trading handshakes, back slaps and abuse with a few of my trans-Atlantic friends, many of whom had St. George's crosses painted on their faces, until I made my way to the much smaller American group on the far side of the room.  I managed to find a spot at the corner of the bar, next a very drunk and jingoistic New York Jonathan, and I glued myself to the floor, ordered a beer, and held my breath as the ball was kicked off....

Liverpool's ace striker Steven Gerrard scored the first goal at about five minutes in.  We Yanks were immediately deflated, dreading this as an omen of things to come.  But our fears were overblown, for after a while, it became apparent that our boys were stepping up, that they could look England in the eye.  And our confidence was boosted by a messy goal scored just before the half, when the English keeper Green basically dropped a ball kicked right into him, which proceed to roll right into the net.  When the ball was kicked I saw Green stop it and turned to NY Jonathan with the intention of complaining about the shot.  It was then that I heard the other Americans erupt into the pure ecstacy that is the reaction to a goal.  I turned my head to the screen and saw that the screams were justified.  We had scored against England.  I jumped four feet off the ground and hugged Jonathan with all my strength....

The second half saw no more goals.  England pressed us well, but Howard, the US keeper, denied one shot after another.  The man was on fire.  In the end we drew, which for us was ALMOST as good as a win, and the English shook their heads, finished their beers, and shuffled home.

The sun was now up and Scott, Sam, Johnny the Greek and I headed to a 24 meat place for a breakfast of pork and beer.  Johnny - who is Canadian - but whose parents and family are properly Greek - was done up in his Hellenic blue and white, sporting a jersey from the national team.  He had been at Sajik soccer stadium early with 50,000 roaring Koreans, probably the only Greek fan in the whole place.  While unhappy with his team's performance, Johnny - a real football fan - took it in stride, knowing that they'll fight another day.  He smiled and laughed and told us that the Koreans had treated him with class, which is all we can ever ask.  With that, we finished the pork and downed our breakfast beers, staggering out into the glare of the late-morning sun.  It was time for bed.  I had to get some sleep before the next match.