Hello everyone and welcome to bonus episode number 176 of the Q-Lips English podcast.
How's it going?
It's been a couple of weeks since our last bonus episode.
I hope you're doing well.
What's new with you?
Let me know in the comments.
I always love to hear from listeners.
So guys, if you're new to our bonus episode series, let me quickly tell you what it's all about.
My name is Andrew.
I'm a Canadian, but I live abroad in Seoul, South Korea.
And in this series I help you improve your English fluency by telling you some stories about my everyday life.
And today I've got a story about baseball.
Yeah, baseball, America's pastime.
So we'll get into that story in just a sec.
But before we do, let me tell you that there is an interactive transcript and a vocabulary glossary available for this episode, for everyone.
You don't have to be a Q-Lips member.
It's free for everyone and it's a great resource.
You can check that out by clicking the link in the description.
But if you are a Q-Lips member, then you'll also get a comprehension quiz.
And that's just the way that we say thank you to our members is by throwing in that comprehension quiz.
And if you're interested in learning more about QLips membership, then you can visit our website, QLipscom and find out all of the details about the benefits and bonuses that you get when you are a member.
And there are too many of them to mention right now.
There are a lot of great benefits and bonuses that we give to our members.
So check out our website, QLips.com.
Sign up and become a member today for an affordable price.
And thank you to all of our members out there.
Guys, we really appreciate your support and we couldn't do Q-Lips without you.
So thank you so, so much.
So today, as I mentioned, I'm gonna tell you a story about baseball, baseball.
And okay, to tell you this story the proper way, I really have to go back many, many years ago, to when I first started dating my wife.
And yeah, we got to go back like seven, eight years ago, probably.
And every year for my birthday.
I think, since I met my wife, really when we were first dating, she would ask me around my birthday, which is in the middle of May.
She would ask me, Andrew, what do you want for your birthday present?
Or what do you want to do for your birthday?
And so every year I would say kind of half jokingly, at first I want to go see a baseball game, because where we live here in Korea there's an amazing baseball league, a professional baseball league called the KBO, the Korean Baseball Organization.
It's a league of probably wow, i should know this, i should have looked it up before but probably like 12 teams, maybe 15 teams maximum, various uh teams in cities throughout the country.
I think in seoul actually here there are three different teams.
So Yeah, it's a great league.
There are big stadiums where you can go watch the games with thousands and thousands of people.
This is no little league, okay?
This is really professional, high level baseball, the KBO.
And so every year for my birthday, my wife would ask me Andrew, what do you want to do to celebrate?
And I would say, I want to go see a baseball game.
Now.
I've been to a few games here in Korea throughout my years and my time in this country, but never with my wife.
I'd gone with friends.
One time my brother visited Korea and we went to a game together.
And so it's not like I had never had this experience, but I wanted to do it with her because she had never had this experience.
And for whatever reason, she had like this prejudice this this, this prejudice, bias against baseball.
I'm not sure exactly what it was, but she always said no, i don't want to do that, i don't want to go to a baseball game, it's just not her style of thing, not her kind of entertainment.
And so she'd always say yeah, right.
Go with your friends if you want to go see a baseball game.
But I'm not doing it.
So, of course, for me, that was fine.
At first, that was fine.
Everybody can have different likes and dislikes.
And it's OK if you don't like everything in the world.
My wife didn't like baseball.
That's all right.
To be honest with you, I like all sports.
I enjoy watching all sports.
I think even I don't know.
This is really weird on my social media algorithm these days.
I've been getting these weird sports videos from different countries.
I'm not even sure where, but like.
In the Middle East to India region, that kind of area of the world.
I've been getting these really weird sporting videos which I've been sending back and forth with some of my friends in Canada.
Different sports.
I don't even know what they're called.
Like there's this one sport where you have to flick this ring and you try and knock something other rings that are on this table into corners.
It's kind of like pool or billiards, but with flicking a ring.
I have no idea what this is.
I've seen some jumping videos, like all of these guys outside and they're jumping.
One of them they were even jumping over, i can't remember was it cows or goats or something like.
What i'm trying to say is i've been seeing these weird sporting videos at least weird to me, because i've never seen them before on social media.
And i'm loving it, i'm into it, even though it's a brand new sport.
I don't know the name, i don't know the rules, but it just grabs my attention.
So i'm not a huge, huge baseball fan, but i think in general i'm a fan of sports and so going to watch probably Korea's best sport in terms of the passion of the fans, the excitement of the live atmosphere.
Of course, I'm down.
I'd love to go see that.
So at first, when my wife would ask me this question around my birthday time Andrew, what do you want to do?
Say, let's go see a baseball game.
She'd say, sorry, no.
Okay.
For the first five years or so, maybe I just kind of brushed it off.
And then there were a couple of years, probably around the pandemic, where I didn't think about seeing that.
Uh, I don't know what happened to baseball around that time, but I imagine that they weren't having games.
And then, two or three years ago, after the pandemic was finished, I started saying it again.
I want to go see a baseball game around my birthday.
And, at this time, my attitude towards my wife.
Maybe now that we had been married for several years around this time my attitude kind of changed.
And I started to get a little bit, not angry, but maybe disappointed.
I'd be like, come on, it's my birthday.
And I just want to go see one game with you.
And that's it.
If you do it one time, then I won't bring it up again.
And if you hate it, then you'll never have to do it again in your life.
You don't have to... do anything.
You just have to go and sit in a chair.
If you don't want to watch the baseball game, that's okay.
You can just use your phone if you really want to zone out.
But something about, in my opinion, sitting outside on a beautiful day in the spring or in the early summer and just
It's not even so much about watching the game, but the atmosphere in the stadium, the passion of the fans, and you can pig out on some good snacks too.
There's always delicious food at the stadium and maybe an ice cold beer or a nice beverage.
Like it It's all right.
It's not terrible.
So I was really questioning why she was so against it.
Like, does she have some deep, dark baseball trauma in her past?
So I prodded her a little bit, and to prod means to poke someone or to question someone more deeply to try and get more information.
So I didn't physically poke her, but we use this word prodding.
It's got that kind of imagery like where you're sort of pushing somebody and asking for more information.
So I prodded around and I tried to get more details to find out her deep, dark baseball trauma past.
And I found out that she didn't have one.
She just had this prejudice against baseball that she thought she wasn't going to like it.
So I tried to level with her and to level with someone means to try and get on their same page.
And I said, okay, imagine the tables were turned, the tables were turned.
So you are in the position where it's your birthday and you really want to do something with me.
But every year I say, no way, i hate it, i don't want to do it, like how would you feel in that situation?
And so she put herself in my shoes, she looked at things from my perspective and then she she started to to realize that, oh yeah, maybe she was being a little bit irrational.
She had this irrational hatred of baseball for no real reason, And so she became open-minded to it.
And she said, okay, one time we'll go to a game.
I'm gonna do it with you.
And so I was very happy about that.
She was coming around.
To come around means to change your mind after being very stubborn for a long time.
So she was coming around to my perspective, coming around and starting to see things through my eyes.
And yeah, during my, I wouldn't say this was arguing.
It's not like we were like yelling and screaming at each other, just a conversation.
But during the time when I was trying to change her mind, to persuade her, to convince her to think like me, I said you know, I don't think there's anything that I wouldn't do.
For you.
If you really wanted to go see a concert by some band that I super hated like I really didn't like this band, I would still do it for your birthday.
Or, if you wanted to do I don't know, go to watch a ballet performance, which is not my cup of tea, not really something that I would usually do.
I would do it for you.
So that's how I persuaded her.
I think I'd say said something like that.
So anyways, this year came around.
And again, my birthday was a couple of months ago in May.
And my wife asked me, Andrew, what do you want to do to celebrate your birthday?
And I said I want to go see a Doosan Bears game for Korean listeners out there or any followers of the KBO.
That is my team, the Doosan Bears.
My wife asked me, Andrew, why are you a Doosan Bears fan?
And the reason is and this is just a little aside for any Korean listeners, maybe you'll find this funny, I'm not sure.
But when I first lived in Seoul, my very first apartment was in the Dongdaemun area, an area in the center part of the city, right by a station called the Dongdaemun Design Plaza Station.
There's this big, amazing kind of gallery museum, exhibition space called in English I call it DDP Dongdaemun Design Plaza Station.
Really cool space.
One of my favorite areas in the city.
I really love it.
And I lived really close to there.
Now, at that time, it was actually under construction.
The DDP wasn't completed yet.
And originally, there was a baseball stadium in that space.
So it used to be a baseball stadium.
But also right across the road from there there's this big kind of skyscraper office tower which has Tucson on the top.
So they are the sponsor of that tower.
And so every day when I would wake up and I would look out my window, I saw this Tucson tower.
And so that's why I chose my team, the Tucson Bears, because when I learned about the KBO and the different teams which are all sponsored by corporations and companies, by the way, which is something different than back home in Canada
In Canada, we always call the team by their city.
So like my favorite ice hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks.
There's no corporate sponsor.
They're just the city's team.
But here in the KBO at least every team is sponsored by a company, or maybe they're owned by that company.
And so you call them by the company name, the company's team, the Tucson Bears.
And Tucson is like a heavy brand machinery equipment manufacturer, i believe, like making forklifts or diggers or something heavy machinery, maybe all sorts of heavy machinery.
And so that's my team, Doosan Bears.
So my wife asked me this year, Andrew, what do you want to do for your birthday?
I said, let's go see a Doosan Bears game.
And she said, okay, for the first time. and so yeah that was awesome i was excited and then i kind of forgot about it you know she asked me what do you want to do let's go see the baseball game okay but we didn't make a firm plan it wasn't like in that moment i went and immediately bought tickets But then I was shocked about a week or two weeks later, my wife said, hey, in a couple of Fridays, do you want to go see the Tucson Bears game?
And I said, yeah, let's go.
And I guess her company was giving away free tickets to any employees who wanted to go see the game on that day.
So we could get a free ticket to go see the game.
So I was like, yeah, sign us up.
Let's get some tickets and let's go and see the Tucson Bears game.
And they played against a team called Kium.
So I counted down the days until the game.
And then finally it was game day.
And I wanted to make sure that I really enjoyed myself at the game.
And also I wanted to make sure that I really had put some effort into making sure that my wife enjoyed herself at the game, because if she had a bad time then I knew this was the end.
We're never going to see a baseball game together again if she had a bad time.
So I really went over the top to try and have fun and to make things enjoyable for her.
So when we arrived at the stadium, first of all, I thought we got to get swagged out.
We got to make sure that we get people.
Doosan Bear shirt or hat or something like this.
And I was in the spirit of like, let's spend a little bit of money.
Let's get a jersey or something like this.
Like, let's get some nice swag so we can cheer on the team and look the part and have fun.
And so we got to the stadium and we were walking around trying to find the pro store, which is where they sell the official jerseys.
And there was like a special pop-up shop set up which was an Adidas collaboration with the Doosan Bears, and so we went inside that pop-up and they had some really cool adidas themed doosan bears jerseys and so i said to my wife let's spend a little bit of money on these, like they look cool.
We tried them on and we found some jerseys that looked cool for us and i think my mindset was that our tickets were free so We can spend some money on the jerseys, and it's kind of like we get the jerseys for half off.
Now, I didn't know how much the tickets were, because we were getting them for free, so I didn't even think about that.
But the jerseys that we bought were perfect.
To say in American dollars, they're probably around how much 70 American dollars, 65 American dollars?
So I would say that is cheaper than a professional jersey back home in Canada, for sure, but not Not cheap, right?
They're still kind of expensive.
But I thought, oh, these tickets are free.
And so it's kind of like we get a good discount on the jerseys.
And I wanted to be in a good mood and feel the atmosphere of the stadium and look the part.
Look the part.
And so we got the jerseys.
We got our jerseys on.
We're all geared up.
And then I said to my wife, you can pick any food that you want to eat and I'll buy it for you.
And we'll have some delicious food there.
So we got some food.
And we had our jerseys and then we picked up our tickets and then we got to sit in our seats and we were the front row of the outfield, the front row of the outfield.
So the front row at the very back of the stadium, and then I looked at the ticket and the ticket was super cheap.
Now I don't want to sound like I'm not thankful for the ticket or anything, because the seat was actually great.
This is more of a compliment to the KBO in that they can provide this great entertainment for super, super cheap.
The ticket was 11000 Korean won which yeah, is probably around eight American dollars, like really cheap.
So a great deal.
And yeah, then I felt like maybe I shouldn't have splurged so much on the jersey.
Maybe I spent too much money on the jersey, but I'm happy with it.
It's a cool jersey.
I should have.
If you're watching the YouTube version of this episode, you'll see that I'm not wearing the jersey, but now that I'm talking about it, I should have worn it for this filming.
That's okay.
Now we had these great seats, the front row of the outfield.
However, the outfield is really far away from where the action happens.
And I was hoping that they would have like a big screen in the baseball stadium that would display the action just like on a TV broadcast.
But they didn't have that at all.
So...
Yeah, it was a little bit hard to follow the gameplay, but overall, it was really fun.
The atmosphere in the stadium is unmatched.
There were two big fan sections. in the stadium.
And guys, this is a huge stadium, probably holds 20,000 plus people if I had to estimate.
So thousands of fans.
We're there on a Friday evening.
So a lot of families as well.
A lot of people just getting off work and going to the game.
There are two big sections of the stadium that had cheerleaders for the Doosan Bears.
And these cheerleaders really get the crowd going.
And each player has their own unique cheer song.
So when every player comes up to hit the ball when they're at bat, There's a really fun song to encourage them and to cheer them on.
But then also on the opposite side of the stadium, there's a section for the opposing team and the Kiwoom team.
They also brought their own cheerleaders and there was a bunch of Kiom fans there and they were all wearing their team's colors and jerseys and they would cheer when their team was up to bat.
And so yeah, just this awesome rivalry between the two teams and lots of fun, fun songs and people just going crazy and all these little different dances and stuff for each player.
Now, if you are an astute QLips listener, if you listened to the last bonus episode that I released, You'll notice that at the end of that episode I said I think I have to wrap it up because I'm feeling a little crummy and my throat was a little sore.
Well, it turns out that after I finished filming that video, my throat went from being really sore to very sore.
And I caught this kind of weird feeling.
And my wife got it too, where we both had really sore throats and kind of a congested cough in our lungs and in our chest.
And so that turned out to be pretty bad for me.
My wife healed up quickly, quickly in the next couple of days, but for me, i completely lost my voice.
That's why we didn't have a bonus episode last week is because i couldn't talk at all and so i lost my voice.
And it sucks because I felt pretty good.
I didn't feel sick.
I wasn't tired, anything like that.
I just lost my voice completely and couldn't talk.
And so I went to the clinic.
I went to the doctor.
I got some medicine.
But the doctor told me, no talking unless absolutely necessary.
You need to rest your voice until it comes back.
So unfortunately, when we went to the game I had absolutely no voice and the times that I had been to Korean baseball games earlier they were kind of like when I hadn't been in the country for a long time.
So of course I felt the festive atmosphere, the awesome vibes at the baseball stadium before, but I really had no idea what was going on at that time.
However, now that I've been in Korea for such a long time And to an extent, I know the language and it's really easy for me to hear the cheering songs and they're so catchy and so simple and they repeat and repeat and repeat.
You can learn them after you hear them just like...
One or two times.
So I really wanted to be the guy that was like cheering a ton and singing along and having fun.
But I couldn't even cheer at all.
I couldn't yell.
And so I was clapping a lot and pretending like and mouthing and lip syncing the words to some of these songs.
But I couldn't be very vocal in my support for the Doosan Bears.
So Doosan Bears, I apologize that I couldn't be out there screaming my lungs out.
They didn't need my support anyways, because at the end of the day they won the game and it was really cool.
Some things that I noticed about Korean baseball that are very different from the pro league in North America, the MLB, Major League Baseball.
I've been to a few Major League Baseball games two in Seattle to watch the Seattle Mariners and one in New York City.
I saw the Yankees play in New York City once.
So I'm familiar with Major League Baseball and some things that struck me as being different.
Here in Korea, you can buy your food from outside and bring it into the stadium, or buy your beer, your cold beer, outside.
It was also very sad.
I was sick and on medicine, so I couldn't have an ice cold beer while watching the, And they were all drinking ice cold beers.
And I was like, I can't do it.
But it doesn't matter.
But in North America, you got to pay through the nose.
You got to pay so much money to buy a beer or snacks from the stadium.
And it's really, really expensive.
But here in Korea...
There's barely any food vendors inside.
And there is like a guy that's going around that's selling ice cold beer right to your seat.
He's got the backpack on with all of the beer in the back and he'll pour your beer right there at your seat.
And I'm sure that's a little bit expensive.
But yeah, you can buy your food outside and bring it into the stadium.
No one cares.
And it's encouraged and everybody does that.
In fact, we bought some chicken right in the subway station.
We got out of the subway and there was a store in the subway station selling chicken to go that you could buy and then bring and eat and enjoy while you're watching the game.
So we got our food like right in the subway station.
And the other thing that I thought was really funny in the subway station as well, I saw there was a jersey rental.
So you could rent a jersey for the game.
And then there was a place in the subway station, a return box where you could return it.
And I actually took a picture of this.
So I'll put the picture online where you can see this jersey rental system.
I thought that was such a great idea.
I'm happy that I have the Dusan Beres jersey now.
And I'm going to wear it again.
And I've been wearing it since I bought it.
But...
You know if I was more of a fair weather fan or someone who wasn't as interested, but I wanted to fit in.
Instead of having to spend the high price for a jersey, why not just rent one for a couple of bucks?
Wear it for the game.
And then afterwards you could return it.
I thought that was really cool.
So I love that here, the KBO, they have these affordable options for sports fans.
They have the Jersey rental.
They have the food that you can bring yourself.
They have the tickets that are really, really affordable.
Props to them.
That's so good.
I wish in North America we had that.
You know, North American tickets are super expensive for all of the pro sports teams.
If I want to go see an ice hockey game, it's hundreds of dollars for a good seat.
And even for a bad seat it's probably 150 Canadian dollars plus parking, plus snacks, plus beverages, and it gets really, really expensive.
In fact, right now in the NBA, the National Basketball Association, they're playing their championship games.
Series is happening right now.
San Antonio Spurs versus New York Knicks, and it's very exciting to watch.
And in the last game that happened in New York City there were tons of celebrities watching the game.
It was like a who's who of celebrities at that game, cheering on their team, the New York Knicks, who I think haven't been in the finals for the championships since the 90s maybe, or for over 25 years at least.
Maybe in the early 2000s they were.
But one of the celebrities who was in attendance was Ben Stiller.
Maybe you know him from Zoolander.
He's a very famous, funny, comedic actor from the States and a New Yorker.
So he goes to many of the games.
And at the game, he was interviewed on TV.
And I saw his interview on YouTube. and they asked him about his season tickets.
They asked him, how long have you been a season tickets holder?
Season ticket is when you buy tickets to all of the games for that season at once, so it's quite expensive.
And they asked him, the interviewer asked him, how long have you been a season ticket holder?
And Ben Stiller answered that...
Hey, I'm a celebrity.
They just give me the tickets for free.
I don't have to buy the tickets.
And he was very honest and people commended him for being honest.
At least he didn't lie about that.
But at the same time the ticket price to go see the New York Knicks game in the playoffs for the finals, the championship series, I think even on the balcony, like we call them, the nosebleed seats at the highest part in the back of the stadium.
Those were going for seven or eight thousand American dollars.
And so there's a lot of people saying like, is this really fair?
The celebrities can go and sit on the floor.
They get front row action to the game and they don't have to pay anything.
They're just there because they're celebrities.
But the true diehard fans, you know, they're priced out.
And priced out means that something is too expensive for you to see.
Me too.
Like of my favorite ice hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks.
I've been a diehard fan of theirs my whole life.
You know, I'm 42 years old.
They've been my only team that I've loved my whole life.
And they've never won a championship.
So if they did, hopefully someday before I die they do get to go to a championship game and win a Stanley Cup, which is the name of the prize trophy for ice hockey.
Hopefully they get to do that.
But I imagine, unless I win the lottery between now and then, that I'll be watching on TV.
Because unfortunately this is the way pro sports works in North America is that it's very, very expensive.
And when the demand is high, the ticket prices are extreme as well.
I really appreciate that here in Korea.
Yeah, I'm sure the tickets are more expensive if you get a better seat closer to the action.
And I'm sure the tickets are more expensive in the playoffs as well.
But just in the regular season, you can go and see a game for a very affordable price.
Thank you to the Doosan Bears for the great game and the great entertainment.
Thank you to my wife for not only accompanying me but for the ticket hookup as well.
And in the end, guys, she had a good time.
And I was like, will you go back again next year?
Can we go again?
We got to wear our jerseys now that we have them.
And she's like, yeah, let's do it.
She had a great time as well.
So I was so happy about that.
All right, guys.
Well, I think that'll bring me to the end of my story for this week.
Thank you for listening.
You can pat yourself on the back.
You made it all the way to the end of the episode.
You got in a solid English listening session here today.
And that's what you need to keep doing to build your fluency.
You need to make English a part of your life.
You got to do listening every day and you got to do speaking as often as you can.
But maybe you're saying to me, Andrew, there's no one around who I can speak with.
Well, don't worry.
We got you covered here at Q-Lips.
We have speaking classes each and every week.
These days we have about four classes a week.
We have classes where we talk about our Q-Lips episodes.
So the idea is that you listen to the episode, you think about it and then you meet online with us and our other amazing members from all over the world.
And we practice speaking about that episode.
So we got all your bases covered.
We got your listening, your vocabulary study, your speaking practice, everything with these classes.
But then also recently we added some new classes, some games classes, grammar classes, video and article discussion classes and more.
So we have many classes hosted by our awesome teachers here each and every week.
And if you are a Q-Lips member, you are allowed to attend as many of them as you would like.
So there's no excuses for not speaking.
We got you covered, and you can do it here with QLips.
Visit our website QLipscom to sign up, become a member and join us for an upcoming speaking class.
Don't be shy.
We'd love to have you, and we have a great group of people who join us each and every week for the classes and they'd love to have you join as well.
All right, that's it for me today.
Please take care.
Have a great week up ahead here.
Happy English learning as always, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
Until then, bye-bye.
