Trail of the Lion King

Ground hopping isn’t really as interesting with the basketball teams as it is with football or baseball. I mean, let’s face it, an indoor basketball court is an indoor basketball court. There are usually benefits to my hobby though and in the case of ticking KT Sonic Boom off my list, it was a trip to Busan.

Jen had work stuff to do on the Saturday and so we didn’t leave Seoul until four in the afternoon. The great thing about the KTX  however, is its speed. It covered the 255 miles in two and three-quarter hours meaning that we had more than enough time to find a hotel and then have a night out.

We tried the Tokyo Inn to the left of the station but couldn’t get in there and so settled instead for the Hill Motel down a nearby side street. The surroundings were fairly ropey but the room itself was fine and half the price of the Tokyo Inn.

The Hill Motel, Busan. It’s the one on the right.

We then headed for a Uzbekistan restaurant across the road. There are a lot of Russians in Busan and the  area around Texas Street tends to cater for them. They get familiar food and the opportunity to watch Moscow cops and robbers shows on the telly. We had some lamb dumplings, lamb with potatoes and lamb on skewers. Presumably lamb is a popular dish in Uzbekistan.

I should really have had Russian beer with it but took a chance on a bottle of red wine. I’ve no idea how good the conditions are for growing grapes in Eastern Europe but as the wine was made from pomegranates, I’d guess there aren’t too many vineyards. It was sweet, with less colour than you’d expect, presumably due to the amount of sediment that coated one side of the bottle.

I quite fancied a post-dinner beer or two in a Russian bar afterwards but there weren’t any where it didn’t look like we would be relieved of our wallets or front teeth within the first five minutes. A few of them had hookers hanging around the doors, often Filipino rather than Russian. We settled for a couple of hours in a Beer Mart which is one of those bars where you get your own drinks out of a fridge and then just settle up at the end after handing over your pile of empties. With it having a varied stock it was a good way of trying a few different beers.

Texas Street.

The next morning we headed off to Jagalchi Fish market to meet fellow Boro fan Alan and his family for lunch. It’s one of those places where you select your live fish from one of the stalls downstairs, they then send it to one of the restaurants on the next floor up where it’s served.

I went for the still wriggling octopus arms, Sannakji. Is it arms or is it legs? Don’t suppose it matters really. They just snip the arms off a live octopus with scissors and serve them raw with a little sesame oil. We’d barely sat down when the plate appeared. I suppose that is how it should be as there’s probably more preparation required when peeling a banana. It was disappointing though. I’d eaten it before but with a larger octopus and on that occasion the cut-up sections seemed to be making a run for it and then whilst being eaten attached themselves to my tongue and the roof of my mouth.

Despite the prompt service, these much smaller arms didn’t wriggle as much and only briefly did the suction pads on them cling to my gums. The taste is nothing special so it’s all about the sensation. Actually I’d have been happier just putting each leg in my mouth, letting it do its stuff and then spitting it out. That strikes me as a bit disrespectful though. If you are going to have the limbs snipped off a live octopus then I’d concede that the least you can do is eat them.

This was a stall outside selling dried fish carefully sorted by size.

After lunch we took a taxi to the Sajik Arena. It’s about half an hour away from Jagachi Fish Market and part of the same complex that houses Busan I’Park’s Asiad Stadium and Lotte Giant’s Sajik Baseball Stadium.

There were plenty of people milling around outside, but within a few minutes we’d got our 8,000 won General Admission (free-seating) tickets.

Sajik Arena.

The game was already underway when we got inside with Sonic Boom six points up. It’s an impressive venue that potentially seats fourteen thousand people. The top tiers were closed off but there were enough people in the open sections to create a decent atmosphere.

View from the cheap seats.

I’d been expecting an SK win, probably by a good deal more than the five point handicap that I’d backed them to overcome. It didn’t pan out that way though and Sonic Boom continued to build on their lead throughout the first two quarters. By half-time the home side led by forty-five points to thirty and it was pretty much game over. At that point I met up with Charlie, a fella I know from the football, and I spent the second half drinking and chatting whilst giving the game little more than the odd cursory glance.

Jasper Johnson was the star man for KT and by the end had accrued thirty-one points. He’s a hefty fella, not quite Big Jelly size, but large enough for the opposition to keep out of his way.

Jasper Johnson causing more problems for SK.

SK usually rely upon Aaron Haynes but this wasn’t one of his better days. With the game effectively having been decided early on he didn’t play as much as he normally would, contributing eleven points in his twenty-one minutes on court. His team-mate Courtney Sims benefited from the additional game time and top scored for the visitors with sixteen points in eighteen minutes.

By the end of the fourth quarter Sonic Boom had increased their margin to twenty–five points, winning 88-63. SK stayed top of the league with KT moving up from seventh place to fifth.

This entry was posted on January 24, 2013 at 1:06 am and is filed under Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.