T-I-G-E-R-S spells Tigers!

Saturday night was absolutely amazing. With a little help from one of my co-teachers we were able to get tickets online for the Gwangju Kia Tigers game against the Seoul LG Twins. I felt like I was back at home watching baseball. I was so excited I can't even describe it. After a few webcam conversations with my family while they are watching the Jays play and just describing to me what was happening I sure was happy to be watching my own baseball! Of course, being me, I wanted the best seats in the house. Since tickets are general admission only we arrived three hours early to stake out our seats. They were awesome seats just down the first baseline, four up. Unfortunately the stadium has netting all around so it was difficult to get good pictures with the netting there. The Tigers are at the top of their division and this game was really important as one of my baseball crazy teachers lectured me on before the game. The LG Twins could catch them in the race if they won (at least, I think that's what she said... the language barrier thing made it confusing) so the Tigers HAD to win the game. They didn't disappoint and we left with a 9-6 win. The fans here are INSANE! It's nothing like being at a Jays game. They have this cheer man who yells the cheers and chants into the mircophone and they scream these the whole time their side it up to bat. Not like North America where everyone gets quiet and the music stops when plays start. Kristen and I were the crazy white people in the crowd and were quite frequently the only one's standing and screaming at the umpires or other players. We also sang our old childhood baseball songs... you know the ones: "there's a hole out there, (echo) there's an h-o-l-e hole out there, so hit the ball out there (echo), so hit the b-a-l-l ball out there..." and "there he goes just a walking down to first singing do a diddy diddy dum diddy do. Next batter up says walk me to singing do a diddy diddy dum diddy do... etc." I'm pretty sure they thought we were crazy, but it was well worth it. We even saw many other teachers from our company there as well who were also crowd favourites for writing Tigers across their chests and walking the entire stadium, even making the highlight reels the next day! I'm also positive my co-teacher will never look at me the same after witnessing our crazy Canadian ways at the game with us! All in all, it was a great game even though by the end our legs were cramped from the tiny seats and I'm sure the guy in front of me went home with bruises on his back and head from me. All an accident. They don't make those seats for Dutch people that's for sure. They also have actual cheerleaders who don't really cheer, just dance. And they gave us balloons half way through and you blow them up and let them go at the same time. oh, and these paper airplanes all rained down at one point and streamers. No idea what they were all for either. It was awesome!