Semi-final: Spain vs Russia

With the finals coming today, everyone is speculating which country will win this year's Euro cup.

You could see soccer T-shirts, jerseys, flags, souvenirs etc being sold everywhere. Some shops are already selling the items at 5o% off. I wonder how low the prices will go after the game :) Some of Uncle Tan's colleagues would actually wear the soccer jerseys of the soccer teams they have bought and go out to watch the matches at the outdoor screens.

The huge soccer player figurines at Zurich HB.

Standing beside the Captain of Deutschland (Germany) where they will be playing the finals on Sunday, which is today.






















As it was the semi-final between Germany and Turkey, we decided to go to the Fan Zone at Bellevue just to experience how it's like to view it live with the rest of people. It was still bright even thou it was already 9.30pm, so we decided to stroll there.

As we took the short cut, passing by the 20 Minuten (aka like our Singapore Press Holdings) building, we saw some lights still on. In the day time when I pass by this office, I hardly see anyone around. So I suppose journalists are usually late workers...it'd be nice to work in such a building, less claustrophobic. In SG, even if we have windows, we can't see daylight somehow cos most of the time the blinds are drawn to prevent the sunlight from shining in. Uncle Tan told me the settlement staff working in the bank were given an extra 7 days leave as their office is located at the basement where there is no sunlight in the office.

Trust me, sunlight does make one more cheerful, am speaking from personal experience :) Also, during winter time, more people are likely to suffer from depression due to the lack of sunlight in winter.

Business is brisk here with most shops selling food like sausages, kebabs, sandwiches and of course, wine and beer can't be missing.

The huge outdoor screen at Bellevue.

Securities guarding the entrance. The male security officers will search the bodies of the men before they go in and likewise for the female security officers. What we found interesting was that no canned beers are allowed, but you could pour the beer into the plastic cups provided.

Ms Wong, we passed by a few macho, hunky policemen leh...both of us went 'Aiya, if Ms Wong is here' again... ;p

Here's another big screen for the fans. In fact we saw a couple of big screens at this area and even some of the store holders here have their plasma/ LCD screen TVs placed at their mobile pubs for their patrons as you can see below.

It was crowded and we couldn't stand still to watch the match for long cos we couldn't stand the smoke! Too many people were smoking away and we had to keep walking.

They gave the iconic 'twin towers' of Zurich a different facade with lazer lights that changed the designs every couple of minutes. For a moment, we thought this was a British flag ;p

Besides food, souvenirs are sold here as well. And the display somehow reminded us of the stores we saw in Thailand :)

We walked through the place till the match was over. Not a very exciting match I'd say cos Spain had scored a clean 3 goals as opposed to Russia. Ok, we didn't miss much hehe ;p

After the match it was like a mini party with some pubs playing loud music and some people dancing away. Cars went beeping in the streets and as we walked, someone from a car shouted
"你好" as it passed by us. You can hear people cheering, shouting out victory for the winning team.
We are not sure if we wana go down again tonight cos with the smoke around, we thought it's better to watch it from home where it's more comfy and we can watch it without anyone blocking our view.

So who will be the winner tonight? Spain or Germany? I must say I like Germany's soccer jersey thou hehe ;p