Korean Baseball

I'm a fan of Korean Baseball. They're really great - winning the Gold medal in the 2008 Olympics, and barely losing the Gold medal to Japan in the 2009 World Baseball Championship series.

So, in April, a student of mine suggested that I go see a Korean Baseball game. Admission is really cheap - only about 5-6$ (according to the current exchange rate). He told me that there would be an exciting game the next day, the final game in a series between two rivals: SK versus Bears! SK is an Incheon team and the Bears are a Seoul team. He told me it's a great experience and that I needed to buy some beer and spicy chicken.

Well, unfortunately he had to cancel at the last minute because something important came up. BUT - thankfully, after looking had for other people who would be willing to take me - I found two students! So we went, and we had a blast!

What's funny is that, before the game, they wanted to buy those long plastic balloon things. During the game, the idea is that you bang them together and it makes a 'PANG' noise. It might not be too impressive at first, but when you have a stadium of fans doing it - well, it works out pretty well. Okay - back to the story. So they tried to buy me the RED ones, which means I'd be cheering for the SK team. But I'm a Bears fan!!! And I'm from Chicago, and our American football team is also called the Bears... that and the fact that the Doosan Bears are the BEST! :)

Well, anyway, we sat near the SK fan base - but the Doosan fan base that night was about... well, at least 5x bigger than the SK. But actually, sadly, my team lost... ㅠ.ㅠ

But the fake contention between us during the game was fun and funny. I would make sure to be loud and obnoxious whenever my team did something good :) But it was hard because my team lost 8 to 2. Suck!

Thanks Jesse and Vivi!

Here's a bunch of pictures from the baseball game! Jessie is wearing the skirt and Vivi i wearing the jeans.

Korean Christian Evangelists

Korean extreme Christian evangelists are taking advantage of technology. Some of them attach huge megaphones to he top of their car/truck/vehicle and drive around playing a pre-recorded message spreading the gospel... or rather, a "believe in Jesus or go to hell" message.

Other extreme evangelists take another approach, similarly. The Korean people tend not to like this way of spreading their message. I agree with them. It's inconsiderate, not personal, not loving... and not effective. But I snapped some pictures to show you!



You can see the megaphone on top of his little outfit. At the time took the pictures, though, he wasn't playing his message.

<3 I'm in love with Park Soo Ae (팍수애)

사랑해요 팍수애!


I love you Park Soo Ae! (Her stage name is "Soo Aeh")



She's an actress in Korea. She plays in a movie as a girl named "Sunny" who goes to Vietnam in search of her husband. The only way she can get there is to become a traveling singer. The picture of her in the red dress above is from the movie. The movie is called "Somewhere Far Away" (or 님은만곳에), which is also the name of a classic Korean song which helps for the theme of the movie. The movie was pretty good - but the soundtrack was REALLY good, so I went out and bought it.

I always tell my students that I'm in love with her and I ask them if they can introduce me. :) Heck, South Korea is small. It should be pretty easy to meet famous people, RIGHT??? Especially since I'm in the capital!

In any case, Soo Ae is two years older than me (she was born in 1980) - she's beautiful - she's a good actress - she can sing - and from talking to people... I think she has a cool personality, so I'd like to meet her! (^.^)



In any case, although I'm not REALLY a fanatic (but sometimes I pretend to be because it's fun), this post is my tribute to Soo Ae:



To finish off my tribute, here are two videos from Youtube that have Soo Ae in them. The first one is of her being interviewed. I have no idea what they're saying in the interview, but it's related to that movie I mentioned.



The second video is one of the songs from the movie being sung by some famous Korean singer, and Soo Ae is in a lot of the video clips from the movie, so you can check it out.

Korean Roll-Away Restaurants

Want to start a restaurant in Korea, but think rent is too expensive? Or perhaps the location you always wanted is taken? Or maybe it's too far from home? Well YOU'RE IN LUCK!!!

It so happens that in Korea - you can take your restaurant with you! OFFICIALLY, these restaurants are called, "To-Go Carts", just translate that phrase into Korean.

They have this rolling counter-top, probably about 4x6ft - and it has a little roof over it. That's where the large tent-like canopy comes from. And this cart has little plastic stools that sit on the counter and EVERYTHING you need tucks into it. It takes quite a while to set up everything or take everything down, but you can roll this little restaurant to the best locations in Seoul (although, I don't know how the system REALLY works, here. Once you have a location, they always seem to go back to that location).

Anyway - it's interesting... in the middle of downtown Seoul, among the skyscrapers - it's interesting to see little tent restaurants. It's like, Korea has two cultures mixed - old and new. I'll talk about that in another post. But these little restaurants are pretty cool (although, to my dismay, they most often sell SEAFOOD. YUCK.) And it's Korean tradition to eat here. It's pretty cool. I'll snap some better pictures > but for now, here's what you get!

The Biggest Church... in the world?

OH MY GOSH - I have SO MANY new posts to make. I'm so sorry about this... keep reading!

This one's about the biggest church in the world - membership-wise. Korea is home of Yoido's Full Gospel Church. They boast about 1,000,000 members. Now, the church can't FIT that many people, as you'll see in the pictures, but adding together all of the smaller group cells and other parts... that's what you get. They own a Christian newspaper in Seoul and a University, as well as a small mountain near North Korea that they use for praying. They have a building and a bunch of other stuff at the top where people are constantly praying, all the time, and they provide free transortation there to and from the church multiple times a day.




Anyway - if you want to learn more about it, you can check them out on wikipedia or you can visit there website. There's so much information about this church elsewhere on the internet... I don't think I need to type it all out. It's not my church - I just visited once to see what it was like!



After the service, Ellie and I went in the Welcome Room for a long lecture from the only foreign elder of the church. I snuck a picture during his presentation.

Bob Sticks! (밥 스티크)

I know what you're thinking! WHO IS BOB??? Well... Bob is great. He makes delicious snacks in Korea. But actually Bob isn't a man. "Bob" is a word you get when you take the Korean word for rice and translate it into English and then misspell it. If you want to pronounce the Korean word for rice, you need to say "Bop".

So, near my church in Dobong (도봉) there is a little snack stand, shown in the picture.




Anyway, a man and his wife work there, and they sell rice sticks. I Think in the picture you can see that they have hot iron molders. They start by putting in some kind of batter, and then they pack it with steamed rice. The batter is ONLY to allow the rice to stick together when it's all cooked. Then, they take toppings of your choice and spread them across the top. When it's all finished, they put it on a foil wrapper that conveniently slides away from a thin piece of cardboard as you eat it. It's SO delicious and cheap! About $1 each!

They have a pizza bop stick... a fried chicken cutlet bop stick with Japanese Tonkatsu sauce on top... and many many other kinds!

April Basic Plus Class

Here's one of the smaller classes I taught in April. It was fun :)
The level is Basic English - which is almost the lowest level of English we teach at YBM Premier. Of 10 levels, it's level 2. In level 1, minimal English is actually spoken. It's mostly Korean.




The pictures look like antiques because they were ACTUAL photos taken, not digital - and I had to scan them and improve the color. :) I bet you think this class looks young. Actually, two of them have finished University, and the other two are almost finished.