LINK: a korean-american weekend part III (to view this page optimally)
Currently listening to: DNA – BTS
내 혈관 속 DNA가 말해줘
(The DNA in my blood vessels tell me)
내가 찾아 헤매던 너라는 걸
(That you were the one I was looking for)
Dodgers
The last time I was at a Dodgers game was about ten years ago and it’s only because my friends dragged me to go with them because they had some sorta Hello Kitty freebie that day. I’m a Twins fan at heart (Minnesota pride), so the Dodgers have never really been my team. The only Dodgers players that I could name off the top of my head are : Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and of course the two Koreans – Hyeseong Kim and Tommy Edman (he is half Korean).
V (Kim Taehyung from BTS) was throwing the ceremonial first pitch, and as ARMY (BTS fandom), there’s no way we were missing it, especially since it was local for us. There were five of us in our group attending, and even though going to a weekday game after work wasn’t exactly ideal, we agreed that it was worth the loss of sleep. Thankfully, we were quick to grab tickets the second the news dropped. By the very next day, prices had skyrocketed to five times more and the game sold out. I also made sure to get preferred parking because we didn’t want to waste time and deal with the annoying stadium traffic.
Of course I had to bring my Labubu in her cute Ohtani Dodgers fit. Priorities.
Also, this was the Mookie Betts replica World Series ring (freebie that they were giving away to the first 40,000 fans) I was talking about in my previous post, annoyance, on what I should do with it and the drama between Isabella and Suzanne. Ugh. I still haven’t made a decision…
Side note, the ring is absurdly huge.
Celebrities like Jeremy Allen White and Jason Bateman were spotted in the crowd. I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have recognized them if their names hadn’t popped up on the DodgerVision screens.
It was a gorgeous day for a baseball game, and the Dodgers ended up beating the Reds 6-3. I forgot how fun it was to be at a ballgame in person. By the 7th inning, the lead felt safe enough that we decided to dip out early, we wanted to get outta there before hitting the post-game traffic.
V (Taehyung) from BTS
But the real highlight? V. Every time his face came up on the screen, the stadium erupted. I managed to capture a few vids of his moments from the DodgerVision and made a compilation reel.
We were able to get a better view by going down below to get snaps of V (he’s the one wearing a jersey and in jeans) practicing before his pitch. My friends were beyond excited because he is their bias, mine is Jungkook and Suga is my bias wrecker.
My friends were scheming like it was Mission Impossible, trying to figure out how to “accidentally bump into him” if he went to the restroom or how they could casually buy him food. At one point, a couple of them were told by security to back up because they were inching their way toward a restricted area, while me and Maria hung back. I tried to tell the others that they were doing too much but reasoning with people when their bias is so close is like trying to talk to a brick wall.
I like to admire Kpop idols from afar, and not be that 사생팬 (sasaeng fan—the obsessive stans who cross the line for attention). I’ve met a few celebrities over the years through friends, parties, screenings, and accidentally, but when it happens, I try to be chill about it and not fangirl too hardcore or be super creepy. They ought to be like free range chicken and go where they want to go without being bothered.
I had to learn that lesson the hard way. Back when my former blog was at its peak, I had well over 10,000 regular readers, mostly Asian, and I thought the more I shared, the more “real” I was being. I’d post specifics—where I worked, what kinda work I was doing, what school I was at, venues that I was going to, even what I was wearing to the event beforehand. It felt harmless at the time, but it came back to bite me in the ass. HARD. Rookie fucking mistake. People would show up at the exact places I wrote about beforehand, acting like we were besties or worse, like we were dating. Yes, a few of them showed up to my job in person or called my work asking to speak to me. And when I tried to set boundaries, some of them got angry. A few even escalated to threats when I blocked them from commenting but that didn’t stop them from e-mailing me. Le sigh. This was not the vibe.
It was an epic disaster and I was shooketh. But it also taught me to guard my privacy better and not confuse “being open” with “giving away too much”. Now, I post about things after it has occurred and not before or during (unless I’m at a concert with 50,000+ others) and I’m more obscure about other things. Anyway, I digress, these 사생팬 moments probably deserve their own blog post some day.
My friends and I ended up with freebies from other ARMY (I didn’t have enough time to make any to give away this time). Most of it was V related but there were a couple of Jungkook and Jin freebies too. Jin has the same U of M sweatshirt that I have. LOL.
PIGYA
Afterward, we were all famished. We thought of eating at the stadium but figured it would be cheaper to go to Pigya instead. It’s also one of Jungkook’s fav places to eat in K-town. It seemed like a lot of others who were at the game decided to go here too, so we were in good company.
This meal set serves 2-3 people, we had five but this was more than enough food for us all. It cost $89 ($17.80 before taxes and tip per person) but it included: pork belly, pork cheek, boneless beef short rib, wagyu beef belly, steamed egg, wagyu carpaccio, kimchi fried rice, and hangover ramen. We were all laughing, eating, and dropping pics and vids in each other’s AirDrop.
When I got home around midnight, I had to finish up on my consulting gig and check my second job’s e-mails. The rest would have to wait till Tuesday because by the time I fell asleep, it was well after 0200 and I had to wake up in a couple of hours to go to work.
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