A More "American" Adventure

First, did you see the new blog title?  I'm sure you figured it translates to Pound Family Adventures in Korean.  I had my good Korean friend even check it out for me and she said it was correct.

Second, I'm going to start a few posts that I will do in parts when I get some good pictures.  One post will be "Funny Signs in Korea", another will be "Things You Would Only Find In Korea", another will be "Korean Things We Love" and maybe there will be some more.

Today I will do "Funny Signs In Korea Part 1":
I was recently in an amusement park bathroom and when I looked up I saw this sign:

Now, we can all tell without being able to read a word of it what the sign's meaning is.  It is telling you the proper way to use the toilet.   I can understand the first x...they want you to sit down.  Being that it was in an amusement park I can also understand the second x...no barfing in the toilet (of course, I have no idea where they would rather you barf).  Korean bathrooms will often have a squat potty instead of a sit down toilet in their bathrooms, and so knowing this I can somewhat understand the third x...no squatting over the toilet.  But it was the fourth and fifth x's that really threw me for a loop.  Who in the world would ever fish in a toilet?  And what in the world is that person in the fifth x doing?  I'm sure it freaked people out that I was taking pictures in the bathroom, but I didn't care that sign was way to funny to pass up.
Oh, and just in case you see anyone fishing in the toilet there is a phone number to call at the bottom.
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Ok, now on to my real post.  After my Bau House post I got a lot of comments along the lines of "That place looks crazy and I don't want to go there when I visit".  So I thought that for my adventure this week I would post about something a little more "American".  What is more American than baseball and roller coasters?  We did both of those things this past weekend.  I will save the roller coaster adventure for another post and tell you about the baseball today.

Right after we first got here a bunch of people told us how fun the baseball games in Korea were.  Koreans and Americans both told us to be sure and not miss the chance to go see a game.  Russ and I were a bit skeptical.  We aren't baseball fans at all and both of us tend to get bored when we have attended games in the past.  But after being told by numerous different people we decided to give in to the peer pressure and go see a game.

While it is possible to buy tickets ahead of time, most people just buy their tickets at the window before the game.  Not being able to speak very much Korean often lends to some difficult situations where we use "pointy talky" to help us get by.  Russ used a lot of "pointy talky" when he was buying the tickets.

The tickets are really cheap to games.  We bought the second best level of seats and the tickets were only about 11.00 each.  There are two different teams that based out of Seoul and they happened to be playing each other that night.  We decided to cheer for the LG Twins instead of the Doosan Bears.

There were a lot of restaurants to eat dinner at but we decided to stick to the old faithful Burger King.

EVERYONE in the stadium buys these inflatable thunder sticks to use to cheer on their team during the game.  Not wanting to be left out of the fun we bought some for the girls.  (Russ and I decided to pass on the thunder sticks)

We quickly realized why baseball games are so much fun in Korea.  They put on a mini show the entire game.  They have mascots, cheerleaders, music and a man that wears a microphone and leads everyone in Korean songs and dances.

The cheerleaders are in the pink skirts. 

They had at least 4 of these mascots running around the stadium the entire game getting people excited and cheering.

Here the cheerleaders changed outfits for the second half of the game.

They would blow this up at different times during the game.

 The game was almost secondary to the entertainment.

This was during the SIXTH inning stretch.

Just like at American games they had vendors that walked around selling food and drinks.  Instead of carrying a whole tray of beer cups on their head they carry a keg on their back, like a backpack, and fill the cups. 

 The food isn't outrageously expensive like it is in America, but it is just as unhealthy (and delicious).

We decided that next time we go to a baseball game we will sit in cheaper seats in order to be closer to the entertainment.  Who needs good seats when the entertainment is so much fun?

Taylor wanted to photo bomb me in a picture.

We all had a great time.  We left at the end of the 7th inning because it was getting so late, but when we left our Twins were beating the Bears 9-2.
We will definitely take any visitors we have during baseball season to see a game.
 (Dad, since I know you read this, make sure you come during baseball season.  You would love this.)