My first race

On Saturday, I ran the Nike Women's Race Seoul 7K with one of my friends here. It was a tough race complete with hills and balmy weather, but I had a great time running it. I am a newbie when it comes to running, only having trained seriously for the last few months, so it was really satisfying to see all my hard work pay off. I made my target time and came in 681st out of 6,000 -- not too shabby for my first race.

Say what you will about Nike, they know how to throw a party. The race kicked off at 6:30 pm with fireworks and a pep talk from a popular TV show host. During the race, DJs blasted music at the water stations and a group of young male cheerleaders high-fived the runners and shouted "Fighting!" (the Korean version of "You can do it!") when the course started going uphill.

As I ran through the finish line, I met my own cheerleader, Mike, who had bag-holding and photo-taking duty during the race. I caught my breath and then headed toward the reception line where men in white tracksuits and bow ties clapped demurely while the ladies picked up their complementary necklace designed by none other than the queen of Korean female athletes, Kim Yu-na.

But the race was just the beginning of the evening's events. Most of the 6,000 women who participated in the race stuck around for the After Party featuring unlimited glasses of (cheap) white wine and performances by some of Korea's biggest musicians. I was excited to see Drunken Tiger and Kim Tae-woo since I actually knew some of their songs, but I have to say the best performance by far came from the pop orchestra that kicked off the show. Only in Korea will you see thousands of people sing at the top of their lungs and dance along to an orchestra.

Korea's favorite sport

The stadium at Jamsil in Seoul.

On Friday, we went to Doosan Bears vs. Kia Tigers game in south-eastern Seoul's Jamsil stadium. As I reported early in our trip to Korea, baseball is Korea's most popular sport and the fans really put Americans to shame. Like at some US ball games, each batter had his own theme song. But I blushed when more than half of the 27,000 fans attending Friday night's game started singing "Sufin' USA" in unison for Kim Seung-hee (see video at end).

Batter up! Kia Tigers

The game, as see by Mike.

The crazy fans.

Baseball meta: A fan watches the game on her cell phone TV and in real life at the same time.

Rocking the nosebleeds.

Xmas and New Years photos

Photos from our week-long vacation in Taiwan and Thailand over the holidays. Move your mouse to the top right hand side of the screen and click "Show Info" for details of where the photos were taken.

FC Seoul vs. Daejeon Citizen

We went to the Seoul World Cup Stadium on Sunday to see FC Seoul play Daejeon Citizen for the K-League title.

It looked like the game was going to end in a tie until the last three minutes when FC Seoul sneaked in a final shot.

When the score board lit up, so did the flares. One big difference we noticed from games in the United States was the total lack of entrance security here. No bag checks, no metal detectors, nothing. Good thing Korea is so safe.


By winning Sunday's match, FC Seoul finished the regular season at the top of the K-League. Accordingly, they were given a certain amount of pomp and circumstance after the game. I think it will take a few days for our ears to recover from the celebration.

Korea vs. Uruguay

Tiger masks -- for when you're deathly ill but still want to show your Korea pride!

Saturday night Korea played Uruguay in the Round of 16 World Cup game. Having been immersed in pro-Korea advertisements for the last couple weeks, we were excited to see our adopted team play.

Mike even got in on the Red Devils fun by joining a subway ad cheering on the Korea team. (See ice skater Kim Yu-na on the right).

Seoul skyline from south of the river.

We headed over to Banpo Park along the Han River to watch the game on a huge projection screen. But alas, it rained, so we went to our friends' house to watch the game instead.

It was a depressing evening -- both the U.S. and Korea lost their matches. But the teams' World Cup runs were fun while they lasted. I don't think I've gotten that into a tournament since the Bulls or White Sox were in the championships. And now we have these nifty jerseys to remember them by.

World Cup fever

World Cup fever has overtaken Seoul! Everywhere you go, stores are selling "Red Devils" T-shirts and restaurants have rented extra TVs to show the games.

Saturday night we went out with some friends to a Korean BBQ place to watch the Korea-Greece game. We wore our red shirts: I just had one from Gap, but Mike had a more authentic-looking jersey he had bought on a previous trip to Korea.

The table next to us was filled with die-hard fans, and it wasn't long until we were all jumping up and chanting "Dae-han-min-guk (South Korea)!" By the end of the game, our fellow fans were even passing us their baby to look after while they had a final toast.

Bump, Set, Kixx!

Nissa and I had a chance to check out Korea's pro volleyball league for the first time this weekend.  We saw a men's match and a women's match -- both of which were pretty damn entertaining.

The above video is from the women's match between GS Kixx and Hyundai Hillstate.  Note the corporate team names, which is standard in Korean professional sports.  Exhibit A: the Kixx' mascot, which is a gas pump.

While the game was great, the highlight for me was the crowd participation.  As you can see, they're led by an energetic conductor and a group of cheerleaders.  Nissa was the first to notice the sound effects that play in sync with each bump, set, and spike by the home team -- "G...S...KIXX!"  The woman who spikes the ball in this clip is Destinee Hooker, an import from the U.S., who dominated whenever she was on the court.  She even had her own theme song (which you can hear) that they played after she made kills like that.  Granted, a few of the other players had theme songs, too, but I thought her's was the best -- "My Destinee, my Destinee..."

We had another first after the game as well.  Yellow sand (황사).  It's the toxic dust that blows in from China every spring and can be hazardous to your health.  We couldn't really see much since it was dark outside -- in daylight, a yellow haze hangs over the city like a fog -- but we took note of what the locals did and covered our faces as we headed for the subway.

Korea's love affair with baseball

My first "Feature" article was published in the JoongAng Daily today. It's about how crazy Koreans are for the "all-American" sport of baseball. I talked to Korea's star pitcher and he told me soccer is over-- baseball is now Korea's favorite sport.

This was my first big reporting assignment since coming here, and I felt I grew a lot in the process of writing it. I learned how to navigate the language barrier and find people who spoke English for the article (which is a real challenge here at times). And I pushed myself to cover something that is out of my comfort zone (ie, not wars, refugees, or massacres!).

Mike has also been leaving his comfort zone lately with his reporting and production work on TBS eFM. I hope that this laboratory called Korea will keep giving us opportunities to challenge and expand our abilities as journalists.