Crazy Kia Tigers fans

I have spent the past couple nights enjoying Korean Professional Baseball in Gwangju. The KIA Tigers are sort of the Oakland A’s of Korean baseball. They are a small market team, in an old stadium, who find ways to win. In fact, they have won more championships than any other Korean baseball team (ten). The fans are absolutely nuts. Literally, some of them are not quite right in the head. Not being able to speak Korean, I purchased a random ticket which happened to be right in the middle of the craziest of the bunch. Perhaps the ticket lady thought she was punishing me for not speaking or understanding Korean, but I had a blast (even if I did suffer some permanent hearing loss). The guy who sat behind me majored in English so he gave me a good history lesson on the Tigers and also on each of the lunatics before they came up to try to talk to me.

The KIA Tigers get a new stadium next year. You can see it being built behind left field in today’s photo.

Posted on June 27th, 2013 under Korea. Tags: baseball, gwangju, kia tigers, Nikon 24mm f/2.8 AF-D nikkor lens, Nikon D600, sports photography. Comments Off on Gwangju Mudeung Baseball Stadium

The Island of Jeju (제주)
I’m not sure the name of the small island off of Jeju, but it appears to be inhabited as well.

I could see why they call Jeju the Hawaii of Korea when I was in the air. On the ground the similarities disappeared, but perhaps if I had a car and could have seen some more remote locations outside of the city of Jeju the comparison would become more apparent. The weather wasn’t good either–overcast and rainy which is how it is much of the time I hear.

Posted on June 26th, 2013 under Korea. Tags: aerial photography, East China Sea, jeju, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600. Comments Off on Jeju (제주)

I booked an airline ticket through Kayak. I wanted to change the date of a flight, but I didn’t purchase their flight insurance so I figured I’d get hit with some sort of fee or penalty for changing the date. I contacted Kayak, and they told me to contact Travelocity as my flight wasn’t really booked through Kayak; Kayak basically booked my flight through Travelocity for me. I looked at Kayak’s website, and they made it sound like the cost would be at least $240 in change fees to change my date. I then contacted Travelocity, but I didn’t hear anything back for a couple days. While I waited I also contacted Korean Air since they were the actual airline. Travelocity got back to me saying the cost would be at least $81 if I changed my flight through Travelocity. Korean Air then got back to me and said there would be no charge. That’s right, by dealing directly with the airline I saved at least $81 and maybe more. I don’t know if this works with every airline, or if Korean Air is a fluke, but being able to change the date on a plane reservation for free was nice.

Posted on June 1st, 2013 under Korea. Tags: Travel. Comments Off on How to avoid airline flight change fees

Next month I will be in…

Today’s photos are from Thursday night’s International Show at Southern Oregon University.

Nanta

Posted on May 4th, 2013 under Korea, Oregon. Tags: AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, ashland oregon, Nikon D600. Comments Off on Korea

Korean dance performance at Southern Oregon University

My passport was returned to me in the mail from Seattle yesterday complete with a Korean visa attached. Barring some sort of huge military outbreak, I will be heading off to Korea in just over two months.

Speaking of my passport, with three visas (Korea, Japan, and China) taking up a full page each, and about 30 country stamps, there are only a few spots left for new stamps. It would probably already be full were it not for the fact that most countries I have been to in Europe didn’t stamp my passport.

Speaking of getting a Korean visa, the process was exceedingly quick. The instructions said to include an express mail mailer with postage attached for them to send it back, but I figured I could get away with a priority mailer given that I still have two+ months. I was anticipating a month to six week turnaround. Instead, even with priority (2 or 3 day mail instead of overnight) mail in both directions, I received my visa a mere week after I sent my passport to the Korean Consulate in Seattle. They must have processed everything in just a day or two. Fantastic!

Posted on April 9th, 2013 under Korea, Oregon. Tags: AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, ashland oregon, nikon d7000. Comments: 2