I took my chance and visited a baseball game in Korea. I've never been to one. As a German I mainly know about football. But Korea is a baseball loving country, so why not feel the atmosphere in a stadium?
When I was a supporter at my university, I took my buddy to a football game in Munich and he loved it ^_^
Two German major students asked me if I wanted to go with them; I said yes right away. My friends were really nice and organized the whole thing for me and 11 other exchange students.
One tradition about watching sports games in Korea is buying Chimaek (치멕, abbr. for chicken + maekju), which is fried chicken with beer. In front of the stadium you can find a lot of Chimaek-stalls. After getting fried chicken and drinks we went to the merchandise shop. I bought a baseball of the local team Hanwha Eagles and cheer sticks. These are two balloon like sticks that make noise once you hit them against each other.
Ready to watch the game!!!
On this day Hanwha Eagles played against the Samsung Lions, the team from Daegu. I didn't really expect much from the game, because Daejeon's baseball team is the worst in the league and the Samsung Lions are on first place. In the end the Eagles lost, but we had a lot of fun anyway!
Why? I don't know if this is normal in other countries, but at the stadium in Daejeon they did a lot to keep the crowed hyped. There was music, cheerleaders, songs, games, where they searched for candidates in the crowed with a camera and then the person had to dance, before he could play the game; an animator, drums, mascots in the crowd, etc... It was loud and fun.
The cheering took place during the baseball game, so sometimes I didn't watch the game but just the animator ^^;;;
Sometimes, a pitcher of Hanwha Eagles made a big entry. They were brought to the field with a VW car
(⌒▽⌒)☆
What is similar to German football games? We did the wave and shouted the players' names. The wave was great; first it was normal, than a slow motion wave and the at high speed ^^
Oh, and a girl in the crowd got one baseball right on her nose and she started bleeding... This doesn't happen that easily with a football ^^;;
