Three times today, Koreans have been shocked upon seeing me.
  One ran up and said "Hi" and ran away. Two of them actually yelled in English. One yelled "Oh my God!" The other one actually ran away and called "Mama!"
  And I think it was one of my students.

-Dave

Tiebreaker

  It was a beautiful Sunday morning.
  No it wasn't.
  It was cold as hell, and I hadn't gotten a chance to get more than three hours of sleep before waking up at 5:50 a.m.
  To catch a cab at six. To get to the bar (don't judge) at 6:30. To catch a ride to be at the baseball field (hope you didn't judge) by eight at the absolute latest. And by baseball I mean some sort of free-flowing derivation where some of the important rules are retracted and other, less sensical ones, are added in.
And by field I mean a patch of dirt and rocks that would be in the running for the Korean Salt Flats.
  The elk were awake as early as elk are, and had already begun a high-pitched squealing noise that would haunt us for most of the game. Why elk? Who knows.
  Long story short, we began our second round tournament game at 8 p.m. with a one-hour-and-forty-minute timeline. Quite a game it was. For five solid innings, our teams kept it to a measly four runs apiece (that's not a lot for the Korean Adult Leagues). Then came the call: Time was up. This was the last inning.
  In the top half of the inning, we missed our chance to break the tie. But in the bottom part, two things were playing on our solid, yet unawakened nerves.
  The first was we couldn't let anyone score.
  The second? We had no idea what was going to happen if this game turned into a tie.
  Why not extra innings? Maybe it's because Koreans are so damn efficient. And even though they aren't on time for most social events, they're never late to work. At least I am guessing (they are always there before me). Maybe it's because we are the foreigner (weh-gook) team, and they just don't care. Like the time they retracted the time limit (see above) because we were winning from the second inning on.
  No, not extra innings. Something different. So as we lined up at the end of the game, as we always do, we were annoyed at the fact the outcome of this game (and probably the tournament) would be settled by something other than the game itself. It was just the tip of the iceberg, and the decency of baseball was the Titanic. Glug. Glug.
  Glug.
  So as was common Korean practice (as we later found out), the carefully crafted tie which it took 100 minutes to build would be settled by none other than (one game of!) Rock-paper-scissors. Needless to say, our rock was shamelessly defeated by their paper.
  Why Rock-paper-scissors? Because Koreans are crazy about it. They do it back-to-back. They do it two-handed. They do it in eight-person groups (yes, possible).
  It's how they settle things.
  But baseball?
Oi.

The Hanwha Eagles

Ahh... Fall, the time when mother nature gives us relief from the soggy steam-bath that Koreans call summer. This wonderful season, as everyone knows, is the best time to see a baseball game, or ya-gu as its called in  Korea.
After getting on the wrong train and sitting through nauseating bumper-to-bumper traffic, we finally made it to the stadium in Daejeon. We arrived with the intention to support the team that we were newly allied with, the Hanwha Eagles, who were facing off against the Lotte Giants of Busan.

From the American perspective, cheerleaders are reserved only for the NFL and NBA, but not in Korea!! No, the Koreans love to watch girls dance to their most beloved K-pop songs.

Here, we see a good example of the enthusiasm that Koreans have for baseball. If  you could hear this picture, you would be overwhelmed with fighting songs and the thudding of cheer sticks.

And now, we have come to the best picture of all, the one of me :) As you can see, I am drinking one of Korea's special brew, Max. The other refreshments sold at the stadium were hotdogs, fried chicken and yes, fried squid. Koreans can't go anywhere without some delicious fried squid at hand.

Enough said

The "Jumbotron"

Down the right field line

Because we arrived at the game a bit late, we were forced to stand during the whole game. I think we underestimated the Eagle-Giants rivalry.
Even though we lost 7-1, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Music, games, beer and good food... Koreans know how to have a good time, wherever they may be.

~Jess

Life we know is best of all worlds

It's a funny double-eged sword, living in this culture.

It really is very English friendly. Whether spoken or written, people are glad to accomodate to us westerners. Glad to get their chance to speak with us, they are. Help us order in restaurants. And they real even try to advertise to and for us.

On billboards and posters, there's advertisements for clothes, cars and products. Many times in English. Enter the humorous aspect of it.

I can only sum it up with a link to this new website I found. Our life in Korea is just this:

http://www.engrish.com/

And I think our English is getting worse.

Food!

Cucumber Kimchi

So Jess has learned how to make one Korean dish. And of course, it involves her favorite vegetable. Instead of the usual fermented cabbage Kimchi, she has learned to make Cucumber Kimchi. (Or O-ee Kim-chi, to put it phonetically)

It's as delicious as it looks.

Ddeok Soup

On the Lunar New Year, we got to eat the traditional Korean meal. For those of you who don't know, many (if not all) of the Eastern cultures celebrate a different New Year than January 1. The Korean version is Seolnal, and this year it fell in early February. 

A local restaurant owner decided that he would cook the traditional meal for any foreigners who wanted to come enjoy it. Seeing it as a great opportunity for culture, Jessica and I went with some of our co-workers. As a perk, the meal was free. While we are reasonably steady patrons of the place (best burger on earth), we still felt bad, and ordered a burger on the side. Regardless...

The traditional Seolnal meal is Ddeok, or rice-cake, Soup. It was a wonderful meal in and of itself, and I doubt we could have gotten a better rendition of it had we paid for it. Certainly a great experience to share with friends, and to have great chefs to boot.

Ddeok Soup

Sides (Kimchi of course)

Our new apartment

Not really.

But we have made some changes.

Baseball Season

For the first time in nearly seven years, I donned a baseball uniform. Wearing ManRam's number on a temporary basis, I went 2 for 2 and scored the winning run in my first game with the Banana Club.

It might still be winter, but it feels great to get out there.