What Did You Do During Chuseok?

… is the question I will ask every class this week as we return to school from the "Korean Thanksgiving" holiday.

What's that you say, Dear Reader? What did I do during Chuseok? Well, I'll tell you:

On Thursday I went to Gocheok Stadium with pal Adam to watch the Heroes Vs LG Twins.


It was a relatively even game, and the Heroes won 3 - 2 when the Twins pitcher walked the bases loaded, then walked in the winning run on the last pitch, described by Adam as (if you listen carefully to the video)"... in the dirt!"


Below the team is lining up to bow to the fans; afterwards, we sat outside a convenience store in the shadow of the skeleton baseball and shot the bull for a while.


Next, I met up with The Stumbler for some sidewalk beers before having lamb skewers (galbi this time, a new addition to the menu) at Sinjeongnaegeori. Bottle U, our occasional sam-cha, has been renamed "Oh-la-la".


On Sunday, I met up with the usual suspects for an FC Seoul game at Seoul World Cup Stadium in Sangam-dong.


The opponents were Incheon United, and though FCS outplayed them, they managed little penetration until the second half. Here's the PK to give our side the win at 2 - 1, though the team scored a third goal about two minutes into added time.


Finally, the scene while exiting the stadium is quite dramatic, even more so with flashing colors:


So, what did you do during Chuseok?

Heroes vs Tigers, Baseball in Seoul

I've been to a half-dozen FC Seoul games this spring, and finally made it a baseball game on Friday night, along with friend Adam and new friend Ian. This is the Heroes third season in Gocheok Sky Dome and their first season under the corporate sponsorship of Kiwoom, a financial services company. Most Korean baseball teams are outright owned by a company, such as Hanhwa Eagles or Samsung Lions, but the Heroes are owned by a syndicate which sells the naming rights (though they remain Heroes). This game was against the KIA Tigers, from Gwangju, who are the most successful franchise with 11 titles.


The closest subway stop is Guil station on line 1, exit 2, but the pre- and post-game action is on the other side of the stadium, which in the last year has started to lay claim to the baseball fans:


This is where you'll find the hofs and restaurants.


The game was a barn-burner, with a final score putting the Heroes up 8 to 4, with an epic fifth inning of five runs capped by that most exciting of things in baseball, a slider at home called safe!

But not all the action is on the field at a Korean baseball game! The fans truly deserve the moniker "fanatics" and they are led by actual cheerleaders.


The Heroes mascot is 턱돌이, Mr. Stone Jaw, who is by turns funny and formidable. Here is a picture from last night, and below it one from around 2015 when they were still in Mok-dong stadium. I am wearing a rare Heroes "h" cap, only available back when they were between sponsors and known as the "Seoul Heroes". The only other head you ever see one on is 턱돌이's.


Heroes win!

Signs of Spring

1) Blossoms - if you've come to the Seoul Patch with any regularity, you have seen hundreds of flower photos. You're about to see a few more, these from my school, and the hillside directly across the street.


2) Baseball - went to a preseason game a little while ago in Incheon with an old buddy and a pair of diminutive tagalongs. On the promenade from the station to the stadium (or vice versa) there is a series of engineered photo-ops. I think this is the best one.


3) Soccer - though FC Seoul is off to a really terrible start (they finally won a game last week against Pohang, on their seventh try!) going to soccer games here is easy and fun!


4) Student elections - many schools seem to elect a new student government every semester, and while they enjoin their friends to cheer for them at the school gate in the days leading up to the poll, they put a lot of effort into a poster which identifies their main platform planks:

Chuseok Baseball Game

Ventured forth to Gocheok Skydome today with pal The Stumbler to watch the Heroes meet the KT Wiz. The start was inauspicious, and I'm not only referring to the Wiz taking a 6 - nil lead in the top of the first. It was our understanding that the ticket prices were 50% off--this was true, but as it turned out, only in the nose-bleed seats.

First, a little context as this is the first time I've arrived from the new exit (#2) at Guil Station on line 1. I blogged one of my previous trips here. The exit there was more scenic, but they've done some interesting things at the new exit, including a series of stellae that display a timeline of the history of baseball in Korea.


Even though the little pizza/soju kiosk in the second pic above was closed (and as The Stumbler pointed out, if one is going to grant a concession, a minimum requirement should be that it is open on game days ...) the food available was pretty good. New York Hot Dog and Coffee still has the closest thing to a legitimate chili cheese dog in Korea. There was also a chicken skewer shop good enough that we went back for more. And they are now selling the 1 liter "saeng maekchu" for 6000 W like they did back in Mokdong Stadium.

And if you could wait, there was a "maekchu-nim" who came by with fresh Cass on his back:


Sadly, he was the only such dude for the whole stadium! The other traditional constant one must love about baseball in Korea is the cheerleaders. Here are the KT Wiz boosters:


Anyway, the game. The Heroes' opening pitcher, Park Ju-hyeon (sorry, no hangeul on this computer), quickly dug a deep, deep hole, giving up five runs without a single out in the first. The Nexen squad gradually fought their way back into the game, with a big 4th inning and finally taking a 8 - 6 lead in the seventh. Here I am posing as the tenth run scores in the eighth:


There's no "pocha" scene after the games--at least not yet--so we wandered across the street to a promising-looking "eating street" and settled into a "Beer Caps" for a while with a nice view:

고척스카이돔, aka Gocheok Sky Dome

Nexen Heroes Professional Baseball Team of the KBO has moved from their home at Mok-dong to the new domed stadium in nearby Guro, and I met up with good ol' Andy and his two older kiddies to check it out for a pre-season match versus Samsung Lions (although the less said about the game, perhaps the better).

Curiously, while I thought I left the subway at Gaebong station, I guess I lost track of things, and later learned I actually got off at Guil (these are sequential stops on Line 1 heading toward Incheon). Still, signage and walkways make it easy.


Since it was preseason, all seating was general admission (and while previously pre-season Heroes games were free, this year they are 10,000 W). The seating chart is below, too--and the home team side is now along the first base side.


Here are a couple of shots from inside. Sadly, I failed utterly to take pictures of the cute kids. OTOH, they're so cute they probably would have broken my camera!


Anyway, the seats are super-wide and comfortable, with a cup holder on every arm, plenty of legroom,too. On the downside, there are some sections where you may have to cross fifteen people to get to your seats. As of yet, not an impressive selection of food providers, and not much in the way of pocha outside, either.

Still, never a rain delay from here on out!

Opening Day 2015

The 2015 KBO baseball season got underway yesterday, and I was there. In fact, I have attended Opening Day every year since I have been in Korea, so this was my seventh. I went to Mok-dong Stadium to support my team, the Nexen Heroes. The Heroes mascot is the best in the league, in my opinion, Mr. Stone Jaw, 턱돌이:


There are 10 teams in the league this year, which has sparked some changes in the rules, as well as an increase in the schedule to 144 games. You can read a pretty decent pre-season round-up at the JoongAng Daily.

One "new thing" I noticed was a concern about "safety" in the stadium, which seemed mainly to be expressed by these stickers put up all over everywhere:


However, at Mok-dong, at least, they still have the Smoking Area:


Baseball is, of course, an American invention, and food favorites at the ballpark include such traditional American fare as hot dogs and fried chicken. This is the case in Korea, too. But other favorites include dried squid, mandu (Korean filled dumplings), kimbap, and new to the stadium this year, "Ciao Chips". "From Italy!"


No visit to the ballpark is complete, at least for the adults, without a beer or two. And Koreans do enjoy themselves some beer. Within a few steps of my gate to the seats were three places to get beer:


There are two new rules this year regarding alcohol, at least theoretically. First, no bottles or cans allowed in the stadium, so the lines are substantially longer as the clerks have to pour the beer into plastic cups (a FIFA rule for ages):


Second is a rule prohibiting its sale after the seventh inning. This was certainly not the case at Mok-dong on Opening Day.as i bought a beer in the tenth inning.

Okay, fans, we have our food, we have our beer. Just one more stop before we go to our seats: we need to fill up our noisemaker things with air. There are several air pumps on the mezzanine with free air:


Time to find our seats. Well, actually, I had general admission tickets, 13,000 W (an Opening Day discount of 4,000 W) so I staked my claim with plastic bags slid over the back of the seats before I went out and took the photos above. Andy van Hekken throws the first pitch at 2:01, a swing and a miss, for the first strike of the season:


The game itself was very exciting. The Heroes, second place last year in both the regular season and in the post-seasonm fell behind the Eagles (perennial bottom-dwellers) 2 - 1 by the bottom of the third, and gave up two more runs by the sixth. But through it all, the fans kept up their high level of cheering, led by cheerleaders and cheer-dudes.


In addition to general team cheers, each batter has his own cheer or song, which the fans know off by heart. Some of them are chants, but others are tunes from pop culture sources, including this year, ABBA--"Waterloo" for, if I remember, 이택근, Ee Taek-geun. But Waterloo has three syllables, so you could use it for virtually any Korean.

Anyway, the Heroes fought their way back into the game with two in the bottom of No. 7, and the leveler in the eighth. They have always had strong offense, but quality defense was a long time coming. They still slip back into those patterns, as, for example, what would have been a nice sliding catch by the left fielder popped out of his glove. A couple innings later, SS and 3B performed a textbook Alphonse and Gaston, wherein they collided over a pop fly, the short stop knocking the ball from the third baseman's glove. Both were costly errors, though typically, neither was counted as such by the official scorer.

The game went to extra innings, and the supporters kept up their constant singing/chanting/cheering.


This was the first extra-inning game of the season, ad it went the distance, as twelve innings is the max in KBO rules. Finally, with one out in the bottom, Seo Geon-chang 서건창 soloed a walk-off homer. He is Nexen's lead-off hitter and was last year's KBO MVP, the first player to break the 200-hit barrier, with 201.

Here is my hero, 턱돌이, cheating on me with some other fans in celebrating the 5 - 4 win!


And finally, a shot of the scoreboard: