A few months back I had a chance to go to a soccer game. That certainly was a different experience with all the chanting and singing, etc., but America doesn't really have a good soccer comparison for any foreign league.
But Sunday I went to a basketball game. Well, let's just say we invented the game. I didn't really know what to expect when I entered the arena for the first-place showdown between the home team and league-leader Incheon ET Land Elephants and the Wonju Dongbu Promy.
In some respects it was much like an NBA game with the piped in music, fan giveaways and such. But the cheerleaders in Korea are much more intense about getting the fans involved.
The man pictured in the two pictures above was seemingly the head cheerleader and he stood on a platform that jutted out of the second deck and led most of the cheers.
It was a pretty entertaining game, with the Elephants pulling out a narrow, come-from-behind victory to remain in their perch atop the KBL (Korean Basketball League) standings.
Final thoughts of the game:
• It was pretty strange to see former Marquette center Amal McCaskill suited up for the Elephants. I didn't expect that he would still be playing anywhere, seeing that his MU teams of the early 90s are among the first teams I remember watching seriously. And after all, he's 37 years old.
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| McCaskill is second from left if you couldn't tell. |
• Elephants is such an awesome mascot choice.
After the game my host Kwong Min, a teacher from school who has gone out of his way to be friends with me, and his friend, strangely enough the son of my school's vice principal, moved on to a new activity - ping pong. OK, you can stop laughing now. And yes, all those stereotypes about Asians and their ping pong skills are completely true. I got smoked even when they took it easy on me and/or spotted me points. Seeing some of the things some of the players could do with a ping pong ball was pretty crazy.
Then it was off to dinner. We picked up Kwong Min's wife and young daughter and headed off for some samgyeopsal. At first his daughter, who had met met me one other time, was quite shy and/or scared of me, but by the end of the night she warmed up to me. Dinner was fantastic. The samgyeopsal was amazingly porky and delicious, but there was one catch that made my night all the more interesting.
Shortly after our food came out Kwong Min uttered a collection of words that would change the night. Among them were soju and juseyo (please). In Korean culture it's impolite to turn down drinks, especially from your elders. And considering that my meal and the basketball game were a treat on Kwong Min, I wasn't about to step on any feelings, real or imagined.
Luckily, the guys drank rather slowly, but we still polished off 3-4 bottles of soju. And that left me with a sufficient buzz as we excited Pork Heaven.
Considering it was a Sunday and all, I was looking forward to getting back home fairly early, but Kwong Min was determined to have us stop by his home. Next up was a series of stops at different stores to pick up different things, including my assigned task of finding ice cream.
Finally we made it back to his family's very nice, quite spacious apartment, watched some home videos, ate fried chicken (for some odd reason they thought we needed more food), sampled some pretty solid cookies and cream ice cream and Kwong Min broke out some Korean wine. All the while his daughter was offering to feed us ice cream or other snacks. It was pretty funny and cute, especially considering her initial reactions to me.
When it was time to leave I set off with the vice principal's son not really knowing where the heck we were going, although assuming it was toward the subway. Well, he pulls into a building presumably to go to the bathroom or something, I didn't hear what he said, other than he would be right back. Fast forward 10 minutes later - he's still not back. So not knowing how to get to the subway I just flagged down a taxi, since I just wanted to get home.
I found out this morning he did take the subway back. But I'm still not sure what the detour was about!
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