The water is good

About two weekends ago I went to my dad's hometown, Daegu, to visit my cousin Young Joon. He spent some time living with us in NJ when we were younger, so it was exciting to see him all grown up and with a fiance! Before we did anything, we drove about an hour away from the city to visit my grandfather's grave.

The cemetary was up in the mountains, and it was quite beautiful. Probably really hard to visit in the winter.


When Koreans visit the cemetary, they wipe down the headstone and remove any weeds that sprout around the grave site. Young Joon and his family had come a few weeks before, so the area was already pretty clean.

After we drove back, we met up with Young Joon's fiance, Mi Ok, and went to a baseball game.


Afternoon game.

Mi Ok is actually a radio broadcaster for a Daegu station. While we were driving back to the city, we listened to her give the news and weather report every hour. Since she has press badges, she and her guests never have to pay for baseball games. Pretty awesome if you ask me. She's really sweet and has a good sense of humor.

Young Joon would later buy me an awesome Samsung Lions jersey.


One of the players on Daegu's team is really close to breaking the career homerun record. He didn't hit one at the game we saw, but there were probably 5 homeruns throughout. Pretty exciting stuff.

I'm pretty sure I'll be going to some more baseball games soon. In Korea, it's less of a family event and more for just adults. The stadium actually doesn't sell beer, so you're allowed to bring your own. I saw guys with huge coolers full of beer just sitting back and enjoying the game.... As the weather warms up, watching a night game with some friends, beer, and chicken wings sounds like a good way to spend your time.

After the game, we went out for dinner and a drink.

Young Joon ate too much, so sipping on his lemonade didn't really help.

Still, he always rallies to take a photo. The girls in this bar were actually all very good looking and alone (as in, no male companions). I was pretty shocked. Actually, Daegu is known for its hot weather and hot women. My friends were telling me that when they see someone who's really hot in Seoul, they like to say that "she's probably from Daegu". Mi Ok told me that it was too bad that I could only stay for a weekend. If I had more time she could introduce me to people. So for you cousins out there, plan a few weeks in Daegu.

The next morning I had dinner with Young Joon's family. Young Joon's sister is an English teacher and has a pretty sharp wit.

After breakfast, we rushed over to Young Joon's english club (which was at my dad's old University). The discussion topic was the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (which is probably really dated by now, right?), and his friends were all very funny. Towards the end of class, they asked me to teach them about curse words and insults. Don't worry, I dropped the knowledge, Jason Lee style.

We wanted to get a picture of us all together after, and the random guy walking by took this photo. Uh, I'm glad he got half of that Hyundai Santa Fe in there, and all that pavement. The picture makes me laugh. Don't worry, if you squint hard enough, those peace signs are still there.