Opening

SA: Hello and welcome to Hwa-ting sports! I am Mr.S.

PM: And I’m Mr. Paul!

SA: And we are the hosts of Hwa-ting Sports podcast. We focus on sports played in South Korea, their history and other things of interest. You can find this podcast on whatever and other spots, and episodes on our website, when we make one.

PM: What’s our credentials you ask? We’re long-time residents who’ve lived here for decades and we’ve been to sooo many sporting events! But the sports podcast market is a bit empty (cricket sounds) so you’ve got us and only us! With that, 1, 2, 3 Hwa-ting!

SA: Today we begin our podcasting journey with the always popular topic, stadium food! 

PM: What, you thought we would talk about sports first? What kinda podcast do you take us for? 

Korean Stadium background first

Then Absurd foods: Bossam, San Nakji, Sushi, soups (Ramen included), burgers (because of the wrappers)

Steve’s food notes

10- hot and cold drinks! Mini coffee shops in the stadium! And the ice cups!

9- Nachos (also tell the story of the woman whose nachos spilled on her because of bad fans at Mudeung) 

8- the little gimbap rolls.

7- Taco trucks at the hockey stadium.

6- Makkori (But they ban the bottles now) 

5- Pizza but only if you have a table or a space for the box (grassy field access) 

4- Beer! Talk about the beer boys & girls with the kegs on the backs and the spigots.

3- snacks from home. Korea is less picky on outside food!

2- Boneless skinless fried chicken. Talk about how I almost died at Suwon stadium because a bone got caught in my throat and nobody helped me. Never eat bony chicken again.

1- Chop steak. Seems like every stadium has a food truck inside or outside that cooks this up,

Foods you might expect to get but can’t:

1. Hot dogs

2. Popcorn (or should I say decent popcorn?)

   1. Stadium convenience stores have popcorn so a fan could buy or bring their own microwave popcorn to the store and pop it there.

   2. But wouldn’t you rather have movie theatre style popcorn?

3. Crackerjacks (now I’m just being silly!)

Finally, here’s a segment we like to call “The Worst Persons in the Sports World”

The Nap or lead in Korean, goes to the VAR crew at the Korea Baseball Organization. During the NC Dinos vs Doosan Bears game, a ground ball got to the second basemen of the Bears while Dinos number 44 김휘집 was running. The second basemen throws it to first but the first basemen throws it to second where the shortstop applies the tag but 휘집 dodges the tag and is called safe. Video Replay gets called in and they declare it safe, but later… they’re wrong! Apparently the first basemen of the Bears never touched first base when he had the ball and the umpires had to override the VAR team, declaring it a force play and 휘집 out at second. Look, the VAR team has multiple angles to call upon. It’s not like they’re watching the KBSports feed like we are at home. They didn’t bother to check if the first basemen was on the bag! Dunno how long this took to sort out but now the fans wanna scream at the VAR guy. Usually we wanna scream at the umpires. 

The Radon award goes to Gwangju FC, for facing a transfer ban because they lied on their books. You know, boys, there’s this thing called an audit. Organizations do them from time to time, When the numbers don’t match, you get carded. Also, the manager said Jasir Asani gained too much weight and doesn’t train well so he doesn’t want to play him anymore. Last year he was instrumental to the team’s surprise run to the top tier of the league. What’d you do to piss him off, huh? He was fine last year.

But the Plutonium award goes to Rodrigo Bentancur, Son Heung Min’s teammate at Tottenham Hotspur. During an interview on an Uruguayan TV show, he is asked for a Spurs jersey while holding his kid and his kid waves around a jersey. He says in Spanish “Sonny’s? It could be Sonny’s cousin, too. They all look the same.” A couple of days later, he posted an apology on Instagram, claiming he loves his teammate. Look, I’m not going to second guess his feelings for Son, but considering the level of racist abuse he has to deal with from the English fans, he doesn’t need it from his teammates too. You saw what happened to the Crystal Palace fan who couldn’t keep his Klan from showing at a game. Don’t get in trouble because of a bad joke. Rodrigo Bentancur, today’s Worst Person in the Sports World. 

Music “Frederic Chopin, Funeral March, Opus 35, Classical Remix” by Nesrality. 

From Korea Herald: Fried chicken is a popular choice across baseball stadiums. An online survey conducted by research agency Nielsen Korea between Aug. 8 and 14 showed that, among 500 stadiumgoers who responded, 71 preferred fried chicken at games. Hamburgers followed at 6 percent, with dried seafood and nuts coming in with 5 percent.