Annyung hasseo. This
post is long overdue, so I’ll just get right to it.
Two weekends ago I went to the Jinju Latern Festival. Jinju is about an hour from Busan by bus, and
the pictures online were breathtaking. I
had to work at an English festival in the morning running a
Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey stand, so after a quick lunch and shower I met up
with Nick and Max and we left Busan around 2pm.
The ride took a bit longer than usual, as the festival is quite popular
and, thus, we hit some traffic. But it
was worth the wait.
We got off the bus and headed straight to the festival area,
which all takes place in and around a small river running through downtown
Jinju. The walkways on either side of
the river had food stands tons of lantern-figures (a terrible way to describe
it but the best term I can think of right now.
Basically they looked like statues made of colorful translucent cloth,
lit from the inside), and the river was packed with larger, more impressive
lantern figures. There were also
floating walkways constructed for the festival, which made for a fun walk as
they rocked constantly. As you can
imagine, the scene was particularly impressive at night, as all of the lantern-figurers
in and along the river glowed. The
bridge crossing the river was also lit up, and was probably the highlight of
the whole festival. To top it off, we
were treated to a brief fireworks show before we left. I promise to get pictures up soon, I know I’m
behind. Sorry.
The next weekend, Nick, Max, Doug, and I went to Daegu for
the Asia Song Festival. Getting there by
train was quite easy and surprisingly cheap.
We also stayed in a really nice hotel for a reasonable $28 per
person. We were only in a hotel since,
apparently, we learned nothing from our Seoul housing disaster and failed to
book a hostel far enough in advance. But
the hotel was so nice and fairly priced that we were all quite happy to pay the
extra $6 to have a bigger, more comfortable bed and a private room and
bathroom.
My feelings about the concert itself are more mixed. The music was pretty awful. That much I do know. Aside from an electronic band from Japan
called Perfume, the music was just atrocious (incidentally, when Perfume was
playing we were next to a rabid Korean fan, who was insanely pumped to see them
as they had previously never performed in Korea. Not a particularly interesting comment, but I
hope it brings back the memory of him when I read this years later). However, the concert was pretty fun because
the crowd was just going insane. Also,
all of the KPop girl groups were absurdly hot.
So there’s that.
After the concert, we met up with this dude named
Danny. Danny is a good friend of Aram’s,
and Aram is my close friend from Occidental who spent the last year teaching in
Daegu at a hogwan. Danny was
exceptionally nice and generous, inviting us up to his place for drinks and
then buying us a dumpling dinner. He was
a sneaky bastard about paying the bill, too.
He went up to order us more food and then gave the lady his credit
card. It goes without saying that I
bought his drinks for the rest of the night (but I’ll say it anyway).
The next morning, we woke up at an all-too-early hour
(8:15am, which feels a lot earlier when you go to bed at 3:00) to train back to
Busan and go to the Lotte Giants playoff game against SK. Tickets were virtually impossible to get, but
we lucked out as Nick’s co-teacher got tickets and then had to attend a
wedding. He seemed so dejected about it;
I felt really bad. For maybe 10 seconds.
The game was crazy.
I’d been to two Lotte Giants games previously, but they did not
compare. The stadium was buzzing. The visiting team, SK, had a raucous cheering
section. We were sitting right by them,
which I knew would either result in awesomeness or an unrelenting urge to
cry. Only time would tell.
The game started great.
Right when we walked in, the Lotte pitcher picked off the SK runner on 2nd
base to end the top of the inning. Then
Kim Ju Chon, the leadoff hitter and OK Guy’s brother, homered in the bottom of
the first. By the 2nd, we
(yes, I’m on the team now) were leading 3-0.
A guy sitting near us had gotten his hands on a few SK towels, and after
I gave him the thumbs up for jeering the SK section, he gave me one, too. By the 3rd inning, an old lady SK
fan came up and snatched our towels, and proceeded to yell at both of us in
Korean. It was a pretty hysterical scene.
In the 4th inning though, SK clawed its way back
into it. They scored 3 in the top half,
but Lotte responded with a run in the bottom of the inning. This left the score at 4-3 after 4
innings. By the 8th, however,
SK had taken a 6-5 lead. I was starting
to hate sitting by the SK section, though I had to admit that sitting a few
rows in front of their cheerleaders was a sweet consolation prize. In the bottom of the 8th, though,
Lotte’s star I Dae Ho hit a game-tying RBI single. Then, after a quick top half of the 9th,
Lotte came back up with a chance to win it.
The leadoff hitter hit a double. The next guy singled to left, putting runners
on 1st and 3rd with no outs. The next batter grounded out weakly to the
pitcher, putting runners on 2nd and 3rd with one
out. After an intentional walk, the bases
were loaded. A hit or flyball wins the
game. Of course, the batter instead opts
for double play. God. Damnit.
In the top of the 10th, SK’s number 8 hitter
leads off the inning with a home run. It
got out by about a foot. Lotte goes 1,
2, 3 in the bottom of the 10th and we lose. Great game, but a maddening ending.
As it stands now (4 days later, the aforementioned game was
Game 1) series is 2-1 SK, best of 5.
Lotte has to win tonight in Seoul to bring the series back home for Game
5. I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Well that’s all I’ve got.
And, quite frankly, I’ve gotta go watch Kung Fu Panda with
children. So I’ll be talking to ya. So long.
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