최강삼겅! V4!

CHWAY-KAANG-SAAM-SUNG! (Most strong, Samsung!)
V4! (Fourth Championship!)


Beefcakes, Saturday was game 5 of the Korea Series (i.e. the World Series, but they aren't that preposterous). Eight teams in the league, all sponsored by the chaebols (think LG, Daewoo, Hyundai, etc)....and who made it to the series? Samsung Lions, clearly. (and Hanhwa Eagles).

The Chairman's office gave us tickets (awesome), which by the way are first come, first sit - so you want pick your team's side and partake in the cheering festivities.

Here's a video of Hanhwa's fans.....see if you can pick up the "(some) (guy's) (name) HOME RUN!" cheer about 11 seconds in (you'll need sound, knuckleheads)....


Anyway, here's five things I learned about Korea's national pastime:

1. The count is reversed. Instead of a 3-2 count (3 balls, 2 strikes), it's 2-3 here. And the announcers say "two and three" not the Korean "DULL-HAAGO-SAAM". Goofy.

Here's a pic of Samsung's fans from the game Saturday - note the blown up Lions.


2. Two foreigners are allowed per team. The rest, obviously, are Korean. This makes cheering very convienient since all Koreans have three syllable names (Chan-Ho Park, Hee-Sop Choi, Kim Jong Il).

Samsung has two white dudes who are pitchers. Hanhwa has a black dude, named Davis - pronounced in Korean "DEH-EE-BEE-SA". The Samsung guys pull in US$300k per year - not too shabby.

I took this photo of the Samsung stand an hour before the game. Note the cheerleaders platform in the middle of the stands and sign for KFC which reads "OO-REE-JEE-NAWL CHEE-KEEN" - yes, "Koreanizing" English words is common here. What you can't see is that Samsung has it's own cheering speaker system, random fireworks, dried squid stands - and of course the half dozen beers yours truly put down. Ahhh, Cass - The Sound of Vitality!

(click on the pic for a blown up version - you can do that with any Blogger posted pic, by the way)


3. Normally after 12 innings the game is a tie. In the playoffs, it extends to 15 innings. And because they play small-ball style (bunting, tactical, rather than home runs), this happen more often than you think. Our game Saturday....a 15 inning 1-1 tie. Nuts. Samsung would have won the best of 7 series 4 games to 1 that day. (They did it the next day.)

Here's a video I shot from our stands. The song is the Pet Shop Boys "Go West" - a very common soccer cheer in Korea. Don't worry, later in the game, they busted out the Backstreet Boys "Backstreet's Back". Money.


4. "Double play" in Korean translates to “parallel killing”. Umm, yeah.

Here's an aerial shot of the stadium on the scoreboard (in the old Olympic grounds). It held about 30,000 folks, but is meant as a "neutral" site for the final three games of the series.


5. And the best of all....CHEERLEADERS! On a platform in the middle of the stands. Dallas Cowboys eat your heart out.

But seriously, they do add a lot to the game (the organized cheers are good times) other than rediculous eye candy. Generally you cheer after every out, when your team is batting, and between innings - in short, all the time! And no, there is no 7th inning stretch, but an end of 6th inning 15 minute break - who knew?


MLB has got a lot to learn, my friends.

So This is Where Turbo's Been!

Yeah. So, I'm still unpackin'. Easy, nut smack - I'm workin' on it.

Anywho, been another busy week with dinners, Korean classes, and a little bit of prep for my upcoming month in Africa - awwww yeah, Lagos, here I come!

In between, I learned Jay Z knows less Korean than me, DJ Sasha brings out the entire expat community, and radioactive material was discovered in Seoul today. Awesome.

Heading to game 5 of the Korea Series (the baseball championship) Saturday with the Hanhwa Eagles versus, who else, the Samsung Lions. Should be money, Samsung is up 3 games to 1, so it could be the clincher. I'll be flippin' over the cars on the streets of Apgujeong afterwards cause lord knows that the KFC and a little Oriental Brewery at the game is gonna lead to a beautiful sight. SAMSUNG FIGHTING!

In the meantime, enjoy this video (an ad for an apartment building here). Korea may not have invented breakdancin' but they sure have perfected it - it's pretty huge here, kinda like this white bread's mad Korean skillz....



And then....

amazing stuff....

Quickie

Yo monkies. Unfortunately, with my recent move in (yes, I finally moved in) I have little to no free time to create a quality post. Instead, I offer up this cinematic gem to tide you over until I get a chance to talk about my new diggs, Vietnam, and a number of other lil' nuggets. Ok, off to Jay Z tonight (yes, he's playing Seoul) before I hit DJ Sasha tomorrow night - all with a baby shower and mad unpackin' between. I'm audi, peeps....



FYI, this is from "For Y'ur Height Only", a 1979 Filipino film, starring the ever cuddly Weng Weng as Agent OO. Awwww, yeah! Pure genius.

You be IL-in'

That's hot.

In light of the "Dear Leader's" actions this week up north, this installment is 90% videos - 4 North Korea propaganda videos plus a little love at the end (my apologies to those who are having problems accessing these videos, but they're too good to pass up). Life is pretty much normal here - a few smaller protests, but definitely the US media is far more interested in this that the South Koreans are - seems to be a bit of a sense of denial here, but it was a bit eerie on Monday when the news broke during lunch. First check out these nuggets taken from the Wikipedia entry for Senor Kim:

"Kim Jong-il's official biography also holds that his birth at Mount Paektu was foretold by a swallow, and that his birth was heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow over the mountain and a new star in the heavens."

"It has been reported that Kim is an avid fan of the Friday The 13th series and Rambo among others. In 1978, on the orders of Kim, South Korean film director Shin Sang-ok and his actress wife Choe Eun-hui were kidnapped in order to build a North Korean film industry. In 2006 he was involved in the production of the Juche based movie Diary of a Girl Student – depicting the life of a girl whose parents are scientists – with a KCNA news report stating that Kim "improved its script and guided its production". Still, Kim himself has said he rarely watches movies. He reportedly enjoys following National Basketball Association games. Madeleine Albright ended her summit with Kim by presenting him with a basketball signed by Michael Jordan."

Love the horse....


Put out by pro-North Koreans living in South Korea - damn catchy....
The "Olympic Medal" is the 2002 spreadskating scandal (Apolo Anton Ohno ain't so popular here).

The world's most disciplined fans...


"Grapes of Love"


And finally, a response....