Baseball

I made it to a Korean baseball game!  I have liked baseball from a young age (and played probably 5-6 years of little league).  I'm usually not that vocal about it.  Korean baseball games are much noisier, with everybody making chants for each player that comes up to bat.  They strike together noise makers and sing songs.  I think they have a fervor about the sport that Americans have lost a little bit over time.  It was fun to be reminded.  It was also interesting to see dried squid as a staple of Korean tradition at sporting events (also movie theaters).

They have cheerleaders dance about once or twice an inning, but it was always really confusing to me.  They weren't really baseball themed.  It was more like, "Hey, let's dress them up in high heels and let them dance to K-pop music."   They wore high heels while dancing also, which I imagine takes some skill.

I went with a friend named Kim Jun Il (but he goes by Joe when around Americans).  We met at my church, though he isn't actually a member of my church, and the LG Twins were his favorite team from childhood.  He used to call into hotlines to find out the baseball scores...until he ran up a large phone bill and his mother forbade him.  I told him I was looking to see a baseball game while I was in Korea and didn't mind ditching some work deadlines to see it either (which I did).  He hadn't been to one in a while and was happy to help me find tickets and go with me.

In about the third inning, the opposing team (Hanwha Eagles) scored 3 runs thanks to this guy who was a really good hitter.  He got at least a single each at bat and seemed to be carrying the team.

In the eighth inning, the LG Twins (all teams have a corporate sponsor, Samsung Lions, etc.) Scored five runs and it was pretty impressive to see.  They won the game, and hopefully seeing baseball in South Korea will prepare me to see the Gamecocks back home.

Jazzy Jazz and all that Jazz

I went to a jazz festival at the Olympic Park in Seoul.  The headlining artists both nights weren't really jazz, so I was glad to also make it during the day.  There was a band called Tape Five that went on first and had more Latin influenced jazz.  Then the Roy Hargrove Quintet came on, and they were amazing.  They had great call and response sections with the saxophone and either trumpet or flugelhorn.  The rhythm section was great and featured really interesting improv and solos to give the brass time to rest.  They also brought a local guy in to play trombone with them.  

I got pushed further and further toward the front and ended up about 1 meter away from the front guard rail.  A Norwegian band called Kings of Convenience played next, and while not jazz, they were very good and gave an incredibly fun performance.  I took photos and video.

Last, a singer that I remember from high school named Damian Rice came on.  He is Irish and played nearly all of his songs while we got drenched in the rain.  The festival staff passed out mini ponchos, but it was still pretty miserable.  It was great being that close though and really fun.

He played piano and guitar and would occasionally loop in some other instruments and effects.  One song he sang without amplification, and I was able to hear it clearly due to my intense proximity.  The festival was way fun...if slightly wet and miserable.

Last of all, I had to rush to catch a subway train back home and was packed pretty tight.

Ansan Mountain Trails (Backyard Hiking)

I ended up with no real plans for the Buddha's Birthday holiday, so I decided to go back to the nice park I found near my apartment.  I wanted to explore it more thoroughly and found out that it was a lot more extensive than I had previously thought.  It had hillside gardens and then led to several mountain trails.

The top of the trail had a smoke tower used to convey message throughout all of Seoul in the old days.  I could also see a good bit of the Seoul skyline from the highest point and even the Seodaemun-gu Prison I had been too previously in my stay.

This is where I would probably go in the event of a real zombie uprising.  Makeshift helicopter landing zone? Yes please.  I got lost coming back down and took a random trail down figuring I would just hop on a bus wherever I ended up to get home.  Actually, I ended up coming out right by my apartment.  It was great.

 Later, I met up with some friends to eat Korean-style fried chicken and then ice flakes (patbingsu, 팥빙수).  It's a really good summertime treat.  They give you a bowl of flaky shaved ice for a base and then put fruit, ice cream, sweet red beans, and other interesting toppings on.  You mix the bowl around and then eat.  Every restaurant seems to have a version of it (even places like McDonald's and random coffee shops), and it's delicious.

Akaraka

There was a week of festivus type celebration on campus at Yonsei for something called Akaraka (which I believed is derived from the sound that eagles make).  It was the week leading up to a big holiday in Korea (Buddha's Birthday).  There were booths all along the main strip of campus, as well as live local bands all along the walk to work/campus, street vendors, and special activities throughout the week.  It ended with a big concert from real Korean bands.  I think the band Girls Generation came (K-pop girl group).

I signed up for a random 5k race toward the end of the festival.  It was a zombie run where we were given three flags and chased throughout the run by people dressed as zombies.  

It had different sections, and ended up actually being more like 0.5k.  It was more about having fun.  Sections included chasing, obstacles, dancing, and romance.  The dancing section had thriller playing and while the music played you could move...but if the music went off, you had to stop. Red light, green light.

The romance section was the most confusing section to me (as romance has always been a confusing affair for me).  I ran up to a crowd of about 25 girls all asking for my hand in whatever English they could manage.  Apparently you had to make it through the running segment while holding a member of the opposite sex's hand. (I did run into a gay pride parade later, but I don't feel like South Korea has much of a concept of same gender hand holding at this stage in history).  I was happy to oblige and ran with a girl through a swarm of zombies.  It got confusing in a maze that we had to go through and not knowing Korean was a slight disadvantage.

I made it through with one flag left and a temporary Korean girlfriend.  I really couldn't ask for much more in life?

Kim Jong Eel

This last Friday I went on a field trip for work.  I love field trips!  Unless they are lame or otherwise terrible.  We went to a coastal/port city called Gochang (about 5 hours from Seoul) to tour a power systems research facility.  They had test centers for ultra high voltage power lines (up to about 800kV).  We got this really expensive delicacy of marinated eel (장어) by the coast.  They brought the eel out to the grill and then cooked it over coals and added random eel parts to the mix.  There were eel spines and livers and internals in the mix.  I thought the eel liver was actually squid, which granted to some would seem out of the typical, but here is pretty normal. Anyway, it wasn't squid and tasted okay.  The eel just tasted like a fish fillet to me which is fine and well by me.  Eel spine was shockingly similar to bacon (but less savory and flavorful).  Texture-wise it was spot on.  Bacon is a delightful meat.

    

This is a picture by the coast.  It wasn't the best looking coastline because it's a port town, but it was still fun to see!  I hope to make it to a Korean beach sometime soon.

This is a model overview of the lab facilities with testing for photovoltaics (solar power), high temperature superconducting cables, underground cable testing facilities, UHV transmission towers, and other interesting upcoming technologies.

This is some high temperature superconducting cable which we may or may not test with KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Company) in the future.  High temperature means cooled by liquid nitrogen (or around minus 196 C) instead of liquid helium (much colder).  They pump liquid nitrogen through the entire length of the cable and regulate a really low temperature that maintains superconducting properties (very low losses of energy).  The picture on the left shows the actual cable (which is pretty massive) and the right shows the line feeding to an underground tunnel.

 The trip was a little bit boring because nothing was in English, but I did at least manage to play it safe around electricity!

Exteriors

I found this while I was doing research for my presidential themed newsletter and thought it was worth mentioning. I am a big fan of annexed territories.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/department-of-the-exterior-opens-us-national-park,2550/

Everybody Wants to Rule the World...

This is by no means a comprehensive list of people I would trust with certain things in the event that I was ever made leader of the free world.  Also, I'll be home in SC a little bit in June.