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Seoul City Tour

May 26, 2019

I enjoyed wandering around the Gyeongbokgung Palace. Colorings on the wooden roofs were captivating. We even saw the beginning of the changing of the guard ceremony. 

The Namdaemun Market was busy, yet I enjoyed seeing all the different items vendors had for sale. Dr. Lim showed us how to navigate a crowd—you push. I am so glad to be here, but I can’t wait to be back in the States where there is space and clear air to breathe. 

Gangnam was fancy. The architecture was nice, other than the apartments we saw. They cost upwards of $2 million, but they look ragged and old. It’s all about location. We went down Rodeo Rd for a bit. There were lots of nice shops. 

We went to the Han River Riverside Park last. It was a nice area right by the river that would is a nice place to go if you didn’t want to spend a lot of money and still go outside and hang out and get exercise.

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1. This is a panoramic photo I took--that is North Korea on the horizon!

2. This is my ticket to view Dorasan Station.

I wish I could have taken a picture of the tunnel we went through, but there were no cameras allowed.

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Demilitarized Zone

May 25, 2019

The DMZ was fascinating. It was crazy to me that they had dynamite still rigged to blow a bridge in case of war and land mines laid out in certain areas. That was so different from the environments I am used to being from Tennessee and living in Mississippi.

I saw a monument that had stones collected from wars around the world and throughout history. It was advocating for peace. There was a peace bell that one could ring for a few won. Everything was about peace around the DMZ, but it was opposed by weapons and explosives and soldiers. It was an eerie place to be. 

We later went into the Third Tunnel. It was small, and I had to crouch most of the walk to the wall at the end. The end of the walk, there was a wall with a square hole in the middle. This marked that we were 170m from North Korean land. Years ago, the North Koreans tried to disguise the tunnel as a coal mine by putting black soot on the granite walls to avoid detection.

Dorasan Station was interesting to experience. It was built to connect trade between the Koreas, but after a woman was shot it was shut down. I hadn't thought about how inconvenient it must be for South Korea to not be able to ship through North Korea into the other Asian and the European countries; it’s a shame for South Korea to have lost the railroad.

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Here are images from the tour of the Pyeongchang olympic facilities!

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Pyeongchang

May 24, 2019

We saw the winter olympic facilities of Pyeongchang today! The Alpensia Resort Ski Jump Park was very tall, and we had to ride a gondola and an elevator to reach the top. I found it clever to use a soccer field as the landing site to save money and space -- there has to be a landing field, so why not make it one you can use in the summer, too? The Olympic Park’s ice rink had ice hockey players practicing along with a few skaters. It’s smart to make the ice rink usable for multiple sports’ activities. The Gangreung Olympic Plaza is where we stopped for lunch. It was like a ghost town. I assume it's because it isn't winter, the resort's peak. Yongpeong Resort had a beautiful ride up the gondola and a pleasant hike to a clearing with a wonderful view. I had some real mountain spring water from a spring at the top.

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Hanyang University

May 23, 2019

We visited Hanyang University and took part in their Global Sport Management Program for our final round of presentations and class lectures. I presented with my group about social activism in sports. The following lectures by our professors were finally presented to us in English, so Dr. Choi and Dr. Kim’s presentation made a lot more sense now. They talked about how there’s a decline in spectator turnout in all American sport leagues, and pointed out that it’s much because of how expensive and inconvenient going to the games can be. If leagues can figure out how to simplify attendance for fans, the turnout will increase.

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Ball Media

May 23, 2019

Ball Media, a basketball-related content company, has a CEO/founder who used his own money, planning, and creativity to begin this now successful company. Ball Media uploads YouTube videos to gain revenue and exposure while also providing entertainment to the public. We received magazines from them, and it had a female basketball player on the cover. It’s always so nice to see women in sports.

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Images from the ESports hall of fame. There were virtual reality stations as well!

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Here are images from touring the Seoul World Cup Stadium.

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E-Sports Hall of Fame

May 22, 2019

The Esports hall of fame was really interesting. I previously never considered video games a sport, but I’ve changed my mind since the tour; gaming requires specialized training, time, rules in the game, and dedication just like any other sport. 

We also went to LoLPark, a well known esports company. The first thing seen upon going up the escalator to LoLPark was an Internet cafe. People pay by the hour to stay in there and game online while also getting snacks and coffee. The stadium at LoLPark is high tech with a center ring for players and their computers, huge screens for the audience to watch the gameplay (these screens could also be used for easy advertising opportunities for sponsors), and hundreds of seats.

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These are images from the Korean International Circuit!

1. The journalists’ entrance that lead to the large room with nice TV’s and a great view that I mention in my text description.

2. This is a model of the track and also shows where they want to make a residential area near the track to fully utilize the space/ earn more money.

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Seoul World Cup Stadium

May 22, 2019 

We arrived in Seoul and went to the World Cup Stadium there. It was better kept than the previous one. The field and stadium itself was so big. Dr. Kim said they will cover the top of the stadium when less fans show up to make it look more packed with people to influence sponsors to want their brand there. They also move everyone to front seats if not many tickets sold to make it seem more full of people. The locker rooms were so nice and decorated. The home team room was red and white, and the visiting team had pictures of the 2002 Korean team on the walls. There was a warm-up room for the payers inside as well. Our group wound up using it as a playground. The 2002 team was a big deal in Korea. The team made the first Korean goal in The World Cup and made it farther than any previous Korean team. It put Korea ‘on the map’ in soccer.

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Korean International Circuit

May 21, 2019

Today we visited the Korean International Circuit, and I loved it. I don’t have much of an interest in car racing but enjoyed this tour. I am so glad we got to see sites that very few others get to see. The control room was fun to sit in and see how the cameras worked that monitor the tracks. The media/journalist room was so big and filled with tables and tv’s. This room had the best view of the sea to spoil journalists and get good reviews to increase popularity and improve their brand. The track finish line is styled in the traditional fashion to appeal to more people. They want to commercialize the area around the track to improve turn outs too. We saw the pits where the cars are maintained. There are a lot, and pit 1 is the desired one. It is closest to the media center and receives the information about the track and race the soonest.

Visiting here and learning about car racing gave me a new appreciation for the sport.

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These are images from an evening in Mokpo after the Taekwondo lesson. The food was great and the city was pretty!

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Global Sport Industry Seminar

The presentations afterward were interesting. Even though Dr. Lim spoke in Korean for it, I picked up some interesting points of sports management, specifically brand mapping. The chart describing how sporting events are on a spectrum of expensive/ inexpensive and specialized/various. For example, the Olympics would be in the expensive and various area, and a local 5k would be inexpensive and specialized. The point of brand mapping is to find where the empty spaces are on the map and work to fill that space, or see where your sport lies and try to move perceptions of it to the other side to increase revenue and turnout.

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Taekwondo

I learned some martial arts today! There were a lot of students majoring in Taekwondo there at the Mokpo National University, and they put on a great performance for us. The first group did a routine similar to like a floor routine in gymnastics to the music from Willy Wonka which was a surprise. We didn’t know they used music much less the soundtrack from a movie/musical. The next group was insane. They were flying in the air and breaking boards and yelling. After their performance we were given a lesson with them. Dr. Kim said you usually have to be a 4th degree black belt to be able to take part in the university’s team, so it was really cool we got to get a lesson from them.

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Baseball -- Eagles

May 19, 2019

The baseball game was wild, and I haven’t seen anything like it in the States. There were drums, a cheer master, and dancers. The whole stadium was packed, unlike the soccer match we saw last night. Seeing so many fans and people being excited together was nice to witness. It is interesting how the same sports can be so different across cultures; a great example being how quiet baseball games are in the States and how active/loud baseball is in South Korea.