June 14th - Holland v. Denmark and our first visit to Sandton

the impressive Soccer City, the premier venue of the 2010 World Cup

On June 14th, we made our way into downtown Johannesburg as we had to return our rental car and make our way over to the sparkling new Soccer City Stadium just outside Johannesburg. Downtown Johannesburg seemed a bit grim and dark compared to what we experienced in Cape Town, but I would like to go back soon as it looked like a big, bustling city, and that's my kind of place.

Finding ourselves without a car, we needed to get to Soccer City somehow. We found a cab in downtown Johannesburg. The driver spoke very little English, but he somehow got us to one of the Park and Ride locations near the stadium.

One of the most remarkable experiences of this World Cup for me has been the enormous hassle of getting to and from the games. Today, for instance, we got to downtown Johannesburg two and a half hours before our match started. We were only in our seats about a half hour before the match. Getting back would be worse.

Our seats were very good for the match. They were in the second deck, so high enough to get a good view, and close enough to midfield to get a balanced viewpoint of all the action. We were seated behind a real-life Viking.

the view from our seats for Holland/Denmark at Soccer City

The match itself was like many so far in this World Cup. Not very exciting. Holland went ahead via an own goal and neither side had much spark until the Dutch introduced Eljero Elia, who did a couple of street footbal style moves and was the best thing to happen to the game. In the end, Holland won, much to the delight of their bizarrely costumed fans.

the "Flying Dutchmen (and women)" with a foreign journalist

After the match, we set out for Sandton, an affluent suburb of Johannesburg. This journey was to take about 3 hours, as we walked for what must have been literally miles looking for a bus to take us to proper transit. I don't want to criticize too heavily the authorities who have set up transport here, but signage and information was not on a par with many other places I have been in my life. Finally, we grabbed a bus that took us to Wits College in Johannesburg, where we started walking aimlessly again until we hopped in a cab bound for Sandton.

When we arrived in Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton, we found a bustling mall with upscale shops and restaurants. We soon found a Thai restaurant called Wangthai (I could eat Thai everyday), and stopped for some food and drink. While we were eating, we ran into a work colleague of ours from the Bay Area, Jason, and we chatted about our experiences so far here in South Africa. After moving to the bar, we watched the Italy/Paraguay game, which, in my humble opinion, was more crap football. I'm desperately hoping that this World Cup can start to offer more spectacle, as it has been a fairly drab one football-wise so far. OK, until next time...







Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton