Lotte Giants and Sashimi

Last week, along with Patrick and Jung, I was able to head to Busan's Sajik Stadium to visit their beloved Lotte Giants host a baseball game against the Doosan Bears. Although our (Lotte Giants) team lost 3-2, it was a pretty crazy game to attend. The stadium was packed the fans were nuts at all times. Every player has their own song/chant that the whole stadium gets into. In fact, everything has a chant. When someone catches a foul ball, the whole stadium chants for the guy/girl to hand it over to a child. When the opposing team tries to pick off a runner on first, the chant has a designated chant for that as well. Lots of similarities to the game back home but lots of subtle differences as well. $7 gets you a ticket anywhere in the stadium... you decide where you sit. Rather than eating hot dogs, everyones snacking on gimbap (rice wrapped in seaweed... kinda like sushi) or fried chicken... and just like back home, there's tons of obnoxious, drunk guys acting like goofballs. Some former MLB players also play for these teams, but like you can imagine, that obviously means they're not MLB-leveled players anymore. One thing I found hilarious is that all the teams are named after big-name Korean companies. You have the Hyundai, Doosan, Kia, Lotte and other teams. All the teams are based out of a city... so Busan has the Lotte Giants. Rather than cheering for the name of their city (i.e. "BUSAN! BUSAN!") everyone cheers the name of the company... so you have tons of "LOTTE!" "LOTTE!" changs going on. Great marketing strategy!

Good times.


Sajik Stadium in Busan.


The scoreboard. That American flag you see represents their lone American player and same goes for the Mexican flag next to it.


Near the 8th inning, they handed out orange garbage bags for everyone to pump air into and put on their heads. I guess it serves three purposes. The first, you can support the home team by wearing their colours. Secondly, you can pick up all the trash around you after the game is over. And third, you can look like a giant douchebag.


The orange bags.


A stadium full of orange bag heads.


Cute little girl struggling with her bag.


Patrick, the douchebag.


One of the thousands of Lotte chants.


Another Lotte chant.


After the game was over, we headed over to the beach for some sashimi (raw fish). This experience never gets old. We head to a fish market where we scan over tons of tanks housing different kinds of live fish. We pick what we want, it gets slaughtered and gutted in front of us, and it's all ready to eat. One second it's alive, and the next it's being dipped into various hot sauces and being eaten raw. Delicious!


Assorted fish... and that dish in the top left corner is the live octopus that is still moving around after it's been killed.


Not really sure what this fish was called but it was delicious.


San Nakji... or live octopus.


mmm... sashimi!


- Gilad