More Baseball

I realize this is turning into a blog about baseball, not about South Korea. However, baseball is one of our favorite things to do here. This year we have Wednesdays off, and our first free Wednesday we used to take an out of town baseball trip.

We headed west to Busan. It's a coastal city, the second largest in Korea. It is also known as the heart of the KBO (Korean Baseball Organization). The stadium was the best we've been to here thus far, sporting some behind home plate seating, a proper dirt diamond, and actual grass. Most of the fields use turf, and the small area around the bases is the only place you see any dirt. Inside, there were lots of vendors, selling anything from typical Korean food to Turkish kebabs. This is a nice change from our hometown stadium, which has two meals: fried chicken and a kind of hot spagetti-o's called dok bo ki.

The place filled up pretty quick. There aren't any assigned seats, so we've learned that it's best to get to the park a full hour early to get a good seat. We did, and we did. You can read in the outfield seats "Lotte Giants," which have the same colors as the San Francisco Giants. Most of the teams here steal MLB names.

I noticed they were selling newspapers on the way into the stadium, and I thought it was strange. Who would read a newspaper during a game? I saw immediately that they serve a different purpose here, a makeshift pom-pom. Everybody tore their newspaper up and used it to root for their team. The songs are mostly familiar, but have "Lotte Giants" inserted in the chorus (Lotte is pronounced Low Tey). "Glory, Glory Hallelujah" (Lotte, Lotte Lotte Lotte Lotte), "Life Goes On" (Lo-0-tte, Lo-o-tte, Lo-o-tteeyyyye, hey...), "What's Up" (by Four Non-Blondes), and "Cum on Feel the Noise" (this one I'm not sure what the Korean lyrics are, it's been adopted by multiple KBO clubs).

Plenty of vendors walk past, selling beer and squid. You can also go to the convenient store inside the stadium and get a...beer.

Near the end of the game, we started to see this sea of orange below us. We finally realized that everyone was putting a blown up orange plastic bag on their head. Seriously. The bags made their way up to us, and some Koreans helped us get them situated. The girl sitting next to us made a bow for Beth. Sometimes Koreans seem to do a better job at having fun than a lot of Westerners, they can do silly stuff like this and not be self conscious about it. It's really refreshing.

The Giants won, hitting 5 homeruns in the game. It was a great time.

Stop...Drop...Shut Em Down Open Up Shop

You'd think a DMZ post would have appeared on this blog long ago, but Beth and I didn't make it until just a week ago. This was a long overdue tour. We went up early to Seoul to catch the all morning/afternoon tour, one day before our trip back to the States.

The DMZ is 1.5 hours from Seoul by bus. Once we arrived we were shown a brief history of the war between the North and the South, and escorted by US Military to the area where the North and South have talks. South Korean soldiers stand facing North Korea half exposed to be smaller targets. Their stance is a Tae Kwon Do stance, also known as ROK Hard.

Inside the blue buildings is where talks and conferences with dignitaries are held. The gray building behind the blue buildings is North Korea. Technically, I was standing in communist North Korea in this picture.

North Korea doesn't play fair. Their have been 5 tunnels discovered since 1990, tunnels the North has built to try and infiltrate the South. We were able to enter the 3rd tunnel. The North put charcoal dust on the walls of the tunnel so they could explain that the tunnel was a coal mine. The only problem is there's no coal. All of these tunnels have led directly to Seoul.

During the Bush presidency, the Korean president made a lot of headway in unification between the North and the South. The government built a train station that was to be a hub when the two countries unified again. They were shipping humanitarian food and supplies from this train station, and some South Koreans were allowed to tour the North via the train station until the North killed an old woman that was visiting. Now this train station isn't used, and is an eerie reminder of what could be but continues not to be.

Japaneesee Baseball

We had a few extra vacation days to kill in our contract, so we took a quick 3 day trip over to Fukuoka, Japan. I'd been wanting to catch a baseball game in the land of the rising sun, and this was our opportunity.

The stadium was North American size, and had a strong resemblance to the dome in Toronto, complete with a retractable roof and corporate sponsorship (this was the Yahoo! Dome). The place was packed. We sat in the bleachers, which were situated in center field. The seats had no backs, which was a bit of a letdown. We realized that we'd be doing as much standing as sitting though...every time the home team was up to bat everyone stood up, chanting and cheering. There was a brass band behind us, playing trumpets and trombones while waving giant flags in the air. Beth and I were the ONLY people who did not have small plastic bats to tap together. This is because these cost about $20. They are serious over there.

Beers are $10, but the vendors aren't carrying cans around, they've got small kegs strapped to their backs. Asahi, Kirin, and others served up on draft to you right where you sit. That's service.

There's no 7th inning stretch, but in the 6th inning there's the ceremonial releasing of balloons. Yes, for $5 you can get 3 balloons that you release with the other 30,000 fans in attendance. It was quite a sight.

The game was a full 4 hours. I chalk this up to slow delivery by the pitchers. There weren't any games or activities happening between innings, and the change happened pretty quickly. I couldn't believe how long it took. After the game, which the home team won, they held everyone there for fireworks. This was a big disappointment. The three measly fireworks were fired as the dome opened (why it was closed all night I have no idea), a lackluster finish to a great game.

The Love Hotel

Young adults live with their parents until they get married here. Koreans get married at around 30 years old, but it's common to date for 5 or 6 years before that. So where does one go to find a little privacy? The Love Hotel. This country is littered with these cheesy hotels, and they are the best place to stay when you are out of town. Even though the idea of them might seem a little seedy they are very clean, furnished, and affordable. Beth and I have stayed in many of them, and I took some pictures while we were out of town in Busan. We've seen some that varied in quality and cheese factor, and this one excelled in both categories. Unless you find a real dump the room will have a flat panel TV, all the toiletries you'd ever need (and then some), complimentary tea, water, and juice, a jacuzzi, and a queen sized bed.

Sometimes they even have adult vending machines in the halls. I have no idea why it's called "Green Love."

Work Trip

We had to take a trip for work this Wednesday with all of the teacher at the academy. This meant:

No class on Wednesday

Free food and beer for two days

A small "pension" on Geoje, an island off the south coast of Korea

It was one of the best "work" trips I've been on. We had a private bus transport us down south, stopping along the way for coffees and snacks. We stayed at a hotel right on the water, did some sightseeing, and came back for a bbq and drinks.

The typical bbq spread doesn't look very different from back home, but a lot of the food is. We had sushi, kimchi, hotdogs, and samgeopsal, which is thick cut bacon. There isn't any bread, we put the bacon on lettuce leaves.

They cook hotdogs here by cutting them on each side, I'm not sure why. They are all on sticks because they don't use buns typically.

This is the bacon I was telling you about.

A little rock skipping after dinner with Chang Ha's son.

Once the sun started setting, more drinks and food came out. Korean's love to eat while drinking, so there was a smorgasbord of chips and snacks, and before it was over we'd ordered fried chicken. During all this we did some acapella singing. I chose "My Girl" because I knew the lyrics but most of the teachers whipped out their cell phones and found the lyrics to their favorite songs so they could sing them properly. An empty can of beer with scissors was our microphone.

A Different Part of Asia

Indonesia was great. If I had to use one word to describe Bali it would be "lush." I don't think I've ever seen a green so rich. These beautiful rice fields were around every turn on our way to Ahmed.

We had a nice little bungalow on the ocean in Ahmed, a small town on the east coast of the island.

The view from our bungalow.

The sunrise from our bungalow.

In Ahmed we hired a driver to take us around. It was $40 a day, and he took us anywhere and everywhere we wanted to go. Three temples, wonderful food, and beautiful landscapes were around us all day. The driving there is a bit hectic, I was glad that someone else was doing all the work.

Mother Temple, the largest Hindu temple in Bali

Two different water temples; Pura Tirta is the second picture but I've forgotten the name of the other one.

More photos from our trip around the island. The bat was almost 2 feet long, and waited outside of a restaurant as patrons fed him fruit.

There aren't a lot of big gas stations, and the roads are so small that it's difficult to send big tankers around to service them so most people fill there scooters up at a place like this. They just use empty bottles.

Kites are really popular, we'd see them up in the sky all the time. This guy was playing outside of a store that Beth was shopping for jewelry in.

A typical Balinese alley. If you look close you can see they guy carrying two chickens in cages.

After we left Ahmed we went to Ubud, Bali's largest city. With 60,000 people it didn't feel very big compared to Korean cities. We did a lot there in just two days though, shopping in the market, enjoying traditional Balinese dance, and visiting a monkey forest. I even saw a cock fight.

Cockfighting is illegal in Bali, but that word is used very loosely. The police were at this one, betting and getting paid off. It was an interesting vibe, it felt seedy having all these people essentially calling for blood.

This guy sold the blades they tie to the cock's feet. They were deadly.