Cherry blossoms and beer

Two weekends ago, some of my coworkers and I went to an LG Twins game.  That is, we went to the stadium an hour early to buy tickets and they sold out right before we got to the front of the line.  I guess games usually don't sell out, but it was such a nice day out that everyone wanted to go to the game.  All of the baseball teams are named after American baseball teams, but are each owned by a different company over here.  So the game we tried to go to was the LG Twins against the KIA Tigers.  I was going to root for  both teams, since I don't really care and my students told me the LG Twins kinda suck.  Anyways, we walked around looking for scalpers but didn't have any luck.  It would probably also be difficult to find a scalper with 7 extra tickets.  So we sat on the pavement in front of the stadium and pretended to be inside.

Watching all the fans going inside while eating caramel popcorn

A guy selling dried squid.  No big deal.

Here's the same guy with butterfly nets.  I have no idea why.

 

The noisemakers that were still a lot of fun outside of the stadium

After the game started, we ventured to a nearby park to drink the beer we had bought for the game.  It ended up to be a really nice park with lots of cherry blossoms all around.  

Cherry blossoms!

We are at the game!

Chillin in the park, drinking beer

After we finished our beer, we went out for some Shabu shabu, which is very thin slices of meat that you cook at your table in a bubbling soup broth.  It was my first time having Shabu shabu and I definitely want to go again!  

Delicious!

Last weekend, I went to go see Titanic in 4D.  It was my first 4D experience, and it was a lot of fun.  I don't think I'll spend that much on a movie again, but it was worth it to get sprayed in the face with water, shot in the face with air from holes we didn't even notice in our seats, and move around with the boat.  I think it made the movie seem much more real!  There was also a beer festival in Seoul last weekend which included free cups of many different home brews. Since good beer is hard to find here, I jumped right on that (plus the word "free" was included, so I'm there).  There were about 10 different bars participating, with a different home brew at each one where you could fill a small cup for free.  We made it to about 5 places before the beer ran out.  It was a fun time, and we met a lot of really nice, fun people.  I think that beer tends to put everyone in a friendly, good mood.

As for more cherry blossoms, Suji is full of them.  I wanted to take pictures before all the petals fall off so I walked around Suji on my lunch hour one day.  While I was taking pictures, an older man came up to me and asked me where I was from.  When I said Minnesota, he replied, Minneapolis??  Then he went on to list off all the 50 states and some capitals with obvious pride in his knowledge.  I slowly stepped away from him, smiling, nodding my head, telling him to have a good day.  I was on my lunch break after all, and had to get back.  

My walk to school

A blossom

I can't believe I only have four months left here in Korea!  It feels like time has gone by so fast, like I've only been here a couple of months.  It's crazy how a place grows on you, with all the good things and the bad!