Baseball Legend!!!

Its true, I am now a fully fledged baseball player person guy! So I don't quite know all the lingo yet, but I made my debut in the Seoul Baseball League last Saturday, and I was almost awesome! My team finished bottom of the league last season, were on a 13 game losing streak, and hadn't beaten our opponents in 3 years. I make my entrance, and we storm to an 11-1 win and top the league after the first week! Boom!
I can't claim all the credit, its a team game after all (and I did strike out, get run out, and drop an easy catch), but you could tell that my presence on the team, made everyone else perform that little bit better. All the Americans didn't want to look bad in front of the English guy! After the game we all sat around in the sun drinking beer and eating hotdogs, which is definitely my kind of game!

My favourite moment in the game was this exchange between me and the umpire as I went out to bat;

Umpire - (Reading the name on the back of my shirt) "So is that some kind of old British name or something?"
Me - "Yeah man, pretty sure I'm the only British guy in the whole league."
Umpire - "Holy shit!!! You're really English!!!"

That was the second time that day that someone had said "Holy shit! You're English!" Which I enjoyed. No-one ever said that to me when I played football and cricket back in England. I'm stepping back up to the plate again tomorrow, still looking for my first homerun, and hoping to keep my 100% winning streak going!


In better sports, I was back at The Big Bird Stadium for the big grudge match between the Suwon Bluewings and Seoul FC, and it was a great atmosphere. Before the game, a young Korean woman came out on to the pitch and waved, and the crowd went mental. And while she had obviously waved before, and was pretty good at waving, I sensed that maybe she was someone famous, and the crowd weren't just really impressed with her waving skills. But I had no idea who she was, which caused a great deal of shock amongst the Korean fans nearby. Apparently this was the world famous figure skater and Olympic Champion, Kim Yuna. Sadly, I've not renewed my subscription to 'Figure Skating Monthly' for a while, so I didn't recognise her. But she's kind of a big deal here. This is her;

She's kind of a big deal. People know her.

In non-sporting news, the cherry blossoms are finally out in force in Suwon, and they do look rather lovely! Cherry Blossom Festivals are a big thing here, and they've been going on in the south of the country for a few weeks, but its only been the last few days that the blossoms have come out up here. So this weekend I'm heading to Gunsan to check out some cherry blossoms and stuff, and to meet up with a fellow Sheffielder, which should be good. There's some really nice cherry blossoms right outside my apartment;

The view when I leave my front door every morning.



And finally, I'm getting a turtle. But more on that next time . . .