Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Busan

On Conspicuous Consumption

Sajik Baseball Stadium
Sajik Baseball Stadium, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Hanwha Eagles vs. Lotte Giants
Sajik Baseball Stadium
Korea Professional Baseball
Busan, South Korea
6:30 PM


Outside of the Game:
I had lost my senses and booked a train later than 8 AM, so I had some time to myself in the morning, which I used to leisurely wash and pack up, and then head off to Dondaegu station, where I had a leisurely breakfast before the leisurely train. It was just a quick ride to Busan, and the track I arrived on even dropped me off right next to the tourist office, where I confirmed my directions and got my obligatory map of the city.

Breakfast
Most important meal of the day

Busan's the second-largest city in Korea, so it's subway system was more extensive than the one- and two-line operations in most of the other smaller cities. Getting to my hotel by the convention center involved making a transfer, but I traversed half the city in less than a half hour. The business and convention area of my hotel was built up, but it was nearly impossible to miss the hotel, which had its name written in huge letters on the imposing structure, and it was just slightly smaller than the Trump building behind it. I had to leave my bag for the official check-in, so I headed out for some sight-seeing.

Busan Station
Symbolism

The weather wasn't great. It was constantly misting and windy, and after nearly dying of heat stroke for the majority of the trip, I began to wonder if I was going to slowly freeze to death here. Not having any agenda as per usual, I was just wandering around, when I ran across Shinsegae Centumcity, which proudly proclaims itself to be the largest department store in the world, thus establishing another running theme for these trips. Now, it said the largest department store and not mall, and the Mall of America had been overtaken by that place in Canada by the time I got there, but they had an official Guinness World Records seal and everything, so they can't be lying.

Proof
Proof

I took a stroll through the place, eventually having lunch at the food court in one of the countless sub-floors. It actually took a bit of orienteering to get me outside of the building again, into the increasing damp of the day, with the misting officially being upgraded to a drizzle. Since I was in Busan, I figured I might as well head down to the coast, and a short subway ride dumped me in the general location I wanted.

I walked towards the coast, and decided to stop at Dongbaek Park. There's a huge hotel right at the entrance, which at least made it easy to find. Despite the inclement weather, the park was filled with older Koreans, presumably having their constitutionals. The park had a large hill in the center, which led to a pavilion and statue of the philosopher Choi Chi Won, and all around the edges of the park were various walkways and boardwalks out by the ocean, emphasizing that there was no further south to be had here. The APEC House was at the end of the walkways, which was important for some reason I never discovered. Because it eventually got to be time to go to the game, and I headed back to the hotel to check in and grab a hot shower to get the damp out of me and hang up all the drippy clothes.

Dongbaek Park
The edge of things

The subway ride to the stadium was uncontroversial, if damp. Finding the ballpark in the huge complex of stadiums it shared was a bit of poking around, but nothing serious. Getting back to the subway after the game was a bit of a muck-up, as signage was a little scarce and retracing complicated paths in the dark is not as easy as it sounds. Since the stadium was equidistant to two subway stations and there were a number of parking lots scattered all around, it was not just as easy as following the crowd to the obvious destination. I boldly set out in what I thought was the correct direction and ended up following a group of fans to a car park, until a kind soul in one of the groups set me back in the correct direction. Outside of being packed in, once I got to the subway, it was smooth sailing back to the hotel.


The Stadium and Fans:
Center to home, Sajik Baseball Stadium
Center field to home plate, Sajik Baseball Stadium

After what had been a string of little bandbox parks in the smaller cities in Korea, the second largest city in the country also delivered a larger type of stadium. Sajik Baseball Stadium would have fit in perfectly in Japan, and might not even seem too out of place in the MLB. After a run of mostly single-tiered parks wedged tightly into their surroundings, a big concrete stadium with some room to breathe was quite different.

Although there wasn't much in the way of "official" concessions outside the stadium (the standard array of food carts huddled on the periphery, along with actual restaurants on the streets surrounding the stadium), it did feature an actual stadium facade, and in the front of the stadium was a full-sized stadium store, the team offices, and, unique to my experiences in Korea, a team museum.

The Giants Museum was about what I'd come to expect from similar items in the US and Japan. There's the history of the team, the hall of fame, and areas talking about great achievements by teams or players in the history of the franchise. There was also a rather extensive section on the development of the mascot and team fonts and typography, which was certainly a little different, as well as interactive exhibits that let visitors pitch and bat and sit in the stands, which one expects they'd be doing anyway.

Giants Museum
I always wanted to be an announcer...

While I was in the museum, one of the staff quickly came up to me and asked if I was American. When you travel a lot, you learn to treat that question with a bit of skepticism, because you never know what was going to come next. However, he was just really enthusiastic about seeing an American come visit the museum, and we ended up talking about baseball for a while. He gave me some extra brochures and sent me on my way.

As I mentioned, Sajik Stadium was one of the bigger parks I had been to in the course of the trip this far. It had an interesting "flowing" layout, with four levels of seats above the field behind home plate, tapering out to three rows of seats above the field along the baselines, and then only two rows of seats above the field in the bleachers. Along the baselines, there was also a row of seats on field level, and, as per Japanese fashion, a row of seats on the field itself in foul territory. There were the home and away stages by the dugouts, but they were located above the row of seats on field level on both sides. You could walk all around the park, with the exception of the area behind home plate, which had tickets-only admittance for all the levels of seating.

Mascots
Awards

There was one interior walkway circling the entire building, with various concession stands build into the passage. There were more familiar Western fare like KFC, as well as Korean standards such as Loteria. (I had a "Bulgogi Burger" for dinner.) There was even a full-scale kids area located along one of the baselines.

Lotte fans are well-known for being passionate, and wherever they play in Korea, there always seems to be a large contingent of Giants fans in attendance. In their home park, they were out in force, mostly filling up the place, although there were a small troop of Eagles fans in attendance as well. The Giants fans dominated the proceedings, however, and while it was heartening to see such support for a team, it did lead to some unmentionable horrors, such as the wave being instigated by the Giants MC that swept around the oddly-shaped stadium. To be fair, they did some interesting things with it, at least. They started with a regular wave, and then they did a super slow-motion wave, and then a super-fast wave. Everyone was pretty lit up anyway, so the fact that they were able to coordinate something that complicated is worthy of some appreciation if only for that.

Bag head
Yeah, about this...

Another late-inning tradition that I did not quite understand was the bags on the heads. Towards the end of the game, the fans all blew up Giants' plastic bags and then tied them to their head, anchored on their ears. They left them there was most of the remainder of the game, cheering along like it was all perfectly normal. Who am I to judge, really?


At the Game with Oogie:
Bulgogi Burger
Bulgogi Burger

The wait on line to get tickets was extremely long for some reason. They didn't open the ticket windows until about an hour and a half before game time, and by then I was in the middle of line extending back out of sight, and I was at just one of the ticket windows for the facility. To their credit, once the windows did open, the line cleared out within minutes, so points for efficiency.

Being a single, I had managed to score a seat down in the home cheering section on the first base line, right in back of the on-field seating. On three sides, I had groups of twenty-somethings out for a good time, and to my left I had two older businessmen out for a good time.

As was becoming common, one of the men started watching me doing the scorecard, and then the curiosity got the better of him as he tried to ask what I was doing. Between some rudimentary Korean, gestures, and examples, I managed to convey the purpose of the thing. He nodded and offered me a beer. If that wasn't Korea in a nutshell, I don't know what is.


The Game:
First pitch, Eagles vs. Giants
First pitch, Eagles vs. Giants

This one wasn't even as close as it seemed, especially given how it started. The visiting Eagles walked the bases loaded with one out in the top of the first, and then managed to get nothing of it, going down meekly back-to-back to end the inning. The Giants were not so accommodating. A leadoff double was sacrificed to third and then driven in with a single. A walk, an out, and two singles followed, driving in two more before a pop-out to second ended the inning, 3-0 Giants.

The Eagles only managed a walk in their half of the second, and the Giants only had a single in their part, erased on a steal attempt. The Eagles did get on the board in the third. A one-out single and hit-by-pitch got driven in with a two-out double, making the score 3-2 Giants, marking as close as this one would get. Two singles and a sacrifice fly got one back for the Giants in the bottom of the third, leaving it 4-2 Giants.

A leadoff double and a walk went for naught for the Eagles in the fourth, but the Giants were not done. A leadoff single was sacrificed to second and then went to third on a long fly out to center, but a liner home run out to right made the base movement irrelevant, notching the score at 6-2 Giants before the end of the inning.

Things settled down for the fifth, with the Eagles scattering a single and the Giants getting nothing out of a one-out double. The Eagles then did nil with back-to-back walks with one out in the top of the sixth, but the Giants tacked on another one in their half with a one-out hit batmsman stealing second and being driven in on a two-out double, leaving it 7-2 Giants.

The Eagles only managed an infield hit in the seventh, while the Giants kept the train rolling. A leadoff single and walk were both sacrificed over to second and third with one out and were promptly driven in by a single to right, making it a laugher at 9-2 Giants. A single hit sacrificed over to second were all the Eagles had in the eighth, and the Giants went in order.

Another leadoff single made it to second on a fielder's choice, but the Eagles could do nothing else in the ninth, leaving it 9-2 Giants as the final, in a somewhat lengthy three-and-a-half hour game.


The Scorecard:
Eagles vs. Giants, 06/27/12. Giants win, 9-2.

Another fairly straightforward game, and outside of a lot of assists from the left side of the Giant infield and a metric ton of walks, there wasn't anything really out of the ordinary. One variation I went with this game was changing from alphanumeric notation for hits (1B-9) to linear (_/). Given the limited amount of real estate in the boxes on the BBWAA scorebook, I decided to see if it would increase the clarity of the cards. I think the experiment was a success and continued to use it for the remainder of the trip.


The Accommodations:
Centum City Hotel
Centum City Hotel

I don't remember ordering this room, but I do have to wonder what I was thinking. The Centum City Hotel was right next door to Busan's largest convention center, and it was one of the poshest places I've ever stayed. There was a Lions International convention in town, so it was full of Westerners, which was the largest concentration thereof I had seen since I arrived up to that point.

The hotel itself is part of a larger mall complex, and it is somewhat built in to that structure. They were strict about their check-in time, so I had to leave my back with the concierge while I did my wanderings around before check-in. Once I came back at check-in time, there were lines twelve deep to check in, a process that took a good twenty minutes, but eventually ended.

When I got up to my room on the executive suites level, I really started wondering what I was thinking when I booked this place. My room was a huge suite, with a separate living room, bedroom, bath, and kitchen. Kitchen. This place had a damned kitchen. At this point, I went to check my book to see how much I paid for this luxury apartment, and I remembered why I probably did this: because the room just wasn't that expensive at all, especially for a room that had a direct view of the convention center plaza next door.

The bathroom was a little problematic because there did not seem to be any way to use the shower that did not immediately flood the bathroom. Now, there were signs warning to be careful of slippery floors, but I'm not sure this was what they had in mind. I'm a reasonably smart person. There weren't any hidden doors or the like I could find. I was utterly baffled by this arrangement since the room was so well thought-out and opulent.

For all its relative benefits and demerits, I spent a grand total of two hours in it awake.



2012 Korea

No comments:

Post a Comment