Cass: Lost In Translation: Baseball in Korea

Last weekend I attended my first baseball game in Korea. It was not as crazy as I anticipated but it was a great time. I have heard that Koreans are pretty into baseball and that games are a total blast full of cheering and drinking and good times. Although there was cheering and such and it was a great time, I was a little let down.

We got $8 dollar tickets (a steal right) but the only catch was that these were first come, first served seats. So you have to arrive early if you want to sit together with your friends or family. We were 6 gals and arrived right when the game started so we had to split up into 3 groups of 2. We were luckily pretty close to each other at least. OH, and everyone LOVES "saving seats" aka putting their clothes, bags, boxes of pizza or fried chicken on the seats so you have to ask them to move their stuff. Pretty annoying if they know that people will need to sit there, right?!

One of the greatest things about baseball in Korea is that you can bring WHATEVER you want into the game. All you hear is "chicken, hot chicken" as you walk to your gate. They bring in whole pizzas, KFC or Burger King meals, fried squid, beer, kimbap or whatever you feel like enjoying at the game. The snack of choice is definitely dried squid...it is everywhere and it is stinky! There are convenience stores around and in the stadium for everyone to buy beer. There weren't even concession stands in the stadium (where we were) so you had to bring in whatever you needed.

The stadium is separated into fans for both teams. We were in the Doosan Bears section (white) and we were playing against the Hanwha Eagles (orange). The Eagles side looked like they were having the time that I had expected to have. They were loud and started the wave a couple times and were awesome! Our team was loud but not as fun as the other side looked.

Some other fun facts about Korean baseball games:
-they have cheerleaders dancing when their team is up to bat
-they have chants for each player, which is amazing!
-Their stadiums don't have a roof (I am pretty sure)
-we did a slow motion wave! A first for me!!

All in all I had a blast with my girlfriends, but I am hoping next time we go, we get a rowdy side!!