South Korea - Baseball at its finest

On Sunday we went to Suwon to catch a professional baseball game. The local team is called the Hyundai Unicorns. Yes, Hyundai as in the car, and their sponsor's name is in their actual name. And also yes, Unicorns as in those horses with horns in their heads. Because unicorns are fierce.

Anyway, it turned out to be a pretty entertaining game. The score was pretty bad - 4-0 Unicorns (battling against the Kia Tigers - yes, Kia like the car), but the only four runs were scored in a grand slam during the first inning. Which made the rest of the game pretty slow. We kept ourselves entertained with the cheesy mascots, bad cheerleaders, and Cass.

Here a little one is getting a closer look at the game.


This kid just loved us. He spent more time watching us than the game. He was cute until he started eating... and then didn't stop. He got pretty gross looking by the end of the game.


This kid loved us to, and she wasn't nearly as gross as the last one.


At one point they gave out free flags to fans, and all the kids went nuts. Then half an hour later they'd apparently gotten bored, because there were flags all over the ground.


A really young fan. He was having some trouble holding this thing up.


Detail of a Unicorns flag.


Oh yeah, those are some tough mascots. Especially the one with a bow in her hair. Look out, Tigers!


During the national anthem, the kids kept trying to pull on the unicorns' tails. These guys weren't too happy about it and spent two minutes swatting kids away.


After the grand slam in the first inning, the crowd went nuts and these giant unicorns just appeared out of nowhere. They were gone almost as quickly, but they were pretty cool.


Fans paying very close attention to the 'action'.


Some very excited Unicorns fans.


Craig chillin before the game.


A warm-up batter. Note the colour of the grass. Not so much 'green' here.


Putting the lines on just before the game. Again - nice grass.


The scoreboard before the game started, complete with everyone's names in characters. I still love seeing the English and Korean letters all together.


The lights over the park against the blue sky. We got ridiculously lucky with the weather, because it definitely looked like it was going to rain.


The Kia Tigers fans. We initially sat over there till we realized we were on the wrong side, so we left and came in another entrance, which got us a free hat!


Shot on the way to the subway station. May 5th is Buddha's birthday, so lanterns with his image are being strung all over Korea right now.