This post marks the one month mark before my study abroad experience is complete. There's just a couple of things that I wanted to highlight here including classes, and the baseball game that I actually went to!
Classes
With there only being a month left in the semester it's really come down to crunch time. Unfortunately, my business classes, in particular, are a bit backloaded in terms of work. As a gist, within the upcoming two weeks there are multiple group presentations and papers on top of the finals for all 4 of my classes. On the bright side, it's kind of cool that compared to my peers back in Hawaii, I'll be done with my semester that much earlier and left to do anything that I haven't done yet before leaving. Another interesting note is that there is a 2 week period for final exams and studying, and luckily/unluckily for me, they're all on the first day possible. I'm excited for the last stretch of the semester and update any closing remarks on my classes again once it's all over.
Baseball Game
So one of the cool things about sports is that a lot of times it can be international and it can break language barriers through the game itself. For me personally, I've grown up playing baseball from the age of 5 so this game is special to me for all the relationships and knowledge that I've picked up since then. Therefore, it was a must to try and attend one here. The game that I attended was a part of the opening round for group C in the Premier 12 WBSC. (Background: I didn't know what the Premier 12 was, but basically it's the 12 best countries competing. It isn't the same as the World Baseball Classic.) Group C consisted of teams from South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Cuba and the games were held at the Gocheok SkyDome. The game I attended was between Cuba and South Korea. It wasn't a close game as Korea kept stringing together lots of good at-bats and eventually the onslaught of runs came in. However, I think the experience was well worth it and I have no regrets. For a primetime game (7:00pm) and a pretty good seat (kind of the 3rd base foul pole) paying around $40 for the seat felt pretty good. There were other options for seats including non-reserved seats (basically anywhere in the outfield) which were significantly cheaper at around $15. I have a lot of thoughts about the experience so I'm going to attempt to break it down into smaller topics as follows:
Cheering:
Since the Korea team is playing on home soil, I did expect there to be a lot cheering for them. What I didn't expect was the level of intensity that a lot of fans brought to cheer for their team. One really cool thing was if you happened to be sitting on the first base side near the foul pole, there's basically a whole section dedicated to cheering for the home team. There were dancers, speakers and basically pep leaders amongst the crowd of people of basically copying everything they say and do. The most amazing part about this is that for different outcomes and who created the outcome there are different cheers that they do. Practically every player (and there were a lot because it was a blowout game) had their own unique chant for them. Of course, they also had their basic cheers equivalent to getting a strikeout or base-hit as well. Despite the majority of the cheering coming from the first-base side, it wasn't uncommon to see many fans in the outfield or even 3rd base side participating in all the routines and cheers too. (Fun tidbit: There were a bunch of people who were wearing Chicago Cubs jerseys sitting near me, and started up the old, "Take me out to the Ballgame," during the 7th inning stretch. After finishing the people were all clapping for them. I will admit I was tempted to join in but didn't know how it would fare so I refrained from doing it.)
Atmosphere: I enjoyed the overall atmosphere that the dome creates. For comparison, I've been to one of the few dome stadiums in Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. While it wasn't the same as walking into Chase Field for the first time I still felt the amazement of being at a pro baseball field. It definitely did feel a bit smaller, and there are no visible bullpens but other than that the field looked great in person. Also because it was indoors, it wasn't even cold despite the weather that was outside. (On a side note: the weather here varies quite a bit right now as it can be near freezing one day and near 50 degrees Fahrenheit the next.) One interesting for me to note was that mid-way through the game (presumably because it's a dirt infield) the grounds crew came out to drag (rake) the field to make it nice again. If they hadn't done this I probably wouldn't have realized that it was dirt and not fully turf as I've come to expect.
Food: There was a not small, but also not a large variety of food to choose from at the stadium itself. Some of the notable items included chicken, deep-fried items, pizza, and of course beer. No matter which side of the field you were on there were symmetrical in terms of options so you didn't have to circle back to get something you wanted. While not cheap, the food prices didn't seem completely unreasonable either. Something that I didn't realize was that a lot of people actually brought in outside food to enjoy during the game. Whether it was fast food or brought from home I probably saw just as much outside food as stadium food. Of course, there are probably some restrictions, but I'm not fully aware of them.
Ticket:
The Premier 12 baseball event only happens once every 4 years and isn't guaranteed to be back in Korea either. However, that doesn't mean that you can't attend pro grames from the various teams in Korea during their regular season. The only issue is to get tickets you most likely will need to go to the stadium/field on the day of, as there are very limited ways for foreigners to get tickets by phone or online. Luckily for this event, you could buy the tickets from the Global Interpark website. This website is friendly for foreigners and if you're looking for tickets to various events such as concerts or other sporting events (including League of Legends) this will be one of if not your best bets.
Closing Thoughts:
Ever wanted both chicken and pizza but just couldn't decide which to get? Well, you can always try a Chizza. It's basically a breaded chicken breast with cheese and other pizza toppings. It was an interesting creation (and tasted better than it looks) that I would maybe want to try at home someday. Other than that as time winds down, I'll be focusing on ending the semester on an academically good note so until the next post, thanks!
