So this was a three day weekend in Korea in honour of Buddha's birthday. With my three work days off 2 weeks ago and a Wednesday off in 2 weeks due to elections, we are in the midst of a great holiday blitz. With our extra day off, Ali and I decided to see a Korean baseball game. Korea has a professional baseball organization similar to the MLB in North America - except with 8 teams instead of 30 - and everyone has always told us that baseball games are so much fun here and that people in the stands are treated more as particpants than spectators (whatever that means). Now I've always loved baseball and enjoy watching it on TV. Ali, on the other hand, would rather watch paint dry - or even watch already dry paint stay dry - than to watch baseball, but she's okay with a day out in the sun, having some good food. So we made our way to Seoul to see the LG Twins vs. Doosan Bears.
The teams here are not named after cities, but the companies that own them. Hence, the LG twins and not Seoul Twins. Back when we talked about seeing a baseball game at some point this year, I looked at the teams to pick a favourite, because it's more fun to see a game when you have a rooting interest. Seoul was the closest city, but they had 3 teams owned by LG, Doosan, and one more. Well, I've owned things by LG before and they didn't catch fire, so LG Twins became my team. And Ali's kids love the Doosan Bears so they became her team. So at the subway stop at the stadium, I bought an LG Twins jersey and Ali a Doosan Bears one and the rivalry was born.
Ali and I showing our team pride.
We arrived at the game an hour ahead of time and it was packed outside. I don't know if it's always like this or if it was only because it was a holiday - similar to our soccer experience - but nevertheless, the stadium with a capacity of around 30 000 was sold out. Never fear though, Korea has ticket scalpers who must've made a lot of money that day. We bought $12 tickets for $25. It was hard to be annoyed though because the seats were pretty good. Definitely would be in the $25 price range back at the Roger's Centre. In fact, the whole sports-watching experience is much cheaper in Korea. Seats are cheap, food and beers are inexpensive, and you're allowed to bring in all the food and drinks you want from the outside.
Once the game started we soon learned what people meant by the audience being participants. The LG Twins and Doosan Bears both play out of this stadium so both teams had plenty of fans who sit in their own sections. We ended up right in the middle of the Twins sections so Ali, sporting her new Doosan Bears jersey, was in enemy territory. And the fans were energetic to say the least; all the Twins fans had these things we call 'bangers', big inflatable bats, and they banged them together and waved them around in the air.
Here's everyone with their bangers.
Every time LG was up to bat, a kind of male cheerleader blew a whistle and led the crowd in the cheers. He screamed a lot in Korean and waved his arms around, and the crowd ate it up. They sang, they cheered, they screamed. A lot of their songs were to the tune of other songs. We heard the melodies of Dancing Queen, Singing in the Rain, and It's a Small World. There was also female cheerleaders for both teams, dancing between innings. When Doosan was up to bat, our section took a breather. But everytime, LG was at the plate, it was back to standing on our feet, banging those things together.
LG Twins won the game 2-0, and despite the low score, I thought it was a pretty exciting game. Ali thought the first 5 innings was good... Overall, it was a fun experience and I would be up for seeing another baseball game some time in the future.
The rest of the weekend we just lazed about and relaxed. We went to the theatre and saw Robin Hood, bought some groceries, and just cleaned the apartment. Tomorrow it's back to work and next weekend, we will be attending a wedding of a teacher at my school.
Right now all the politicians in Uijeongbu are hitting the campaign trail hard because it is election day in a week and a half. Campaigning is definitely very different here than back home. When I walk to work in the morning, each candidate has several representatives, dressed in their candidate's colour, essentially doing cheerleading for their candidate. They all take turns to do their cheer and then the next candidate's people have a turn. Also, every candidate has these little vans that have a podium on the back and a big picture of them and they drive around town, giving speeches on the back of their vans.
One of the speech-vans.
Anyway, that's all that happened this week.
All the best!
Ali and Jesse
