EPT
Intro
My last post about watching live SC ended on a somewhat sour note. I, a lowly pilgrim journeying to the SC motherland, did not feel the incredible religious-like fervour about SC that I believed existed. I half-resigned myself to the fact that I had simply missed the boat. Only through the second-hand lens of a blurry Youtube video would I ever get close to the waves of raw SC passion that were so abundant 5-6 years ago.
The OSL finals yesterday proved me wrong.
The venue was inside the COEX - a frucking huge thing which is one of the most famous buildings in Seoul.
![[image loading]](http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/7725/dsc00869ri5.jpg)
The infamous COEX Mall is actually all underground. Everything in this picture is convention/exhibition space. The Finals were in a convention hall on the 3rd floor, to the right of the picture.
I arrived a relatively safe 4 hours before the start time (lol). The main entrance was pretty easy to spot...
![[image loading]](http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/7272/dsc01010ew0.jpg)
As you can see... the entire Finals was in Convention Hall 11 of at least 12 other ones... :|
The convention hall was near the end of a very wide corridor. Walking towards it, I saw at least 10 stalls, most of which were selling Incruit-stuff. Beyond that, was the initial queuing area (I say 'initial' because it got so full that latecomers had to queue in a different area).
![[image loading]](http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/184/dsc01012vr2.jpg)
The queue 4 hours before the start......... You can see the separate lines they had for Stork fans and Fantasy fans. Just behind me and to the right was a small stage area where some OGN girls with incredibly short skirts periodically hosted competitions. Naturally, they were pretty entertaining even when I couldn't understand anything they said...
Stamp collecting
Approaching the stalls, a run-of-the-mill gorgeous Korean welcome girl gave me a ticket and babbled Korean at me. This was a bit odd as I heard from nevergg that you never need a ticket even for final matches. It took me a little while to work out but basically the 'ticket' was just part of a prize system. At each of the stalls was a different stamp which could go on your ticket. To get the stamp, you theoretically had to sit down, pretend to be interested in some Incruit crap and give some contact details.
There was a max of 10 stamps. If you got 3 stamps, you could get a VIP ticket, to sit near the front. If you got 7, you got a 10,000Won shopping voucher. If you got all 10 stamps(!), you got a free Incruit Starleague shirt. After some consideration (approx 0.3 seconds), I realised I needed to have that shirt.
And so, like one of those university career conventions where the students have zero interest in the companies and an absolutely hellbent interest in the free stationery, I (with mel_nee) visited each stall and got the 10 stamps.
It was surprisingly easy. Most of the Incruit staff recognised the righteous fire in my eyes and stamped the ticket without a word. Any slight resistance was swiftly dealt with by telling them that we were foreigners, our Korean was crap, please don't sell us anything and we really really really wanted a free shirt.After getting our stamps, I rushed to the prize collection stall. I proudly thrust the completed collection to the guy who gave me a verrry suspicious look while he counted all 10 stamps. He turned to get our shirts but here it went horribly wrong. They only had XL shirts left in stock. Fuck :[ I took it anyway.. but its definitely wayy too big ... maybe it will find its use as pyjamas or a gift for Incontrol.
The match
Queuing for 3 hours wasn't that bad especially when I can leave mel_nee all by himself to do some food shopping
Anyway, I'm kicking myself for not taking more photos of the queues by the time it was 5:40 and the doors opened. Suffice to say the place was absolutely rammed. Returning from my shopping trip, I saw a cute area where the two rival fan clubs had separate meeting places. Stork's bunch (I guess 150+ people) was probably twice the size of Fantasy's. Stork fans were being given those triangular scarf things that you see on the VODs. They weren't free and I'm not a crazy Stork fan so I didn't get one.....In hindsight I should have bought the lot, forged a Stork signature and ebayed them.Okayokay sorry, I've talked about tonnes of shit except the actual match lol. To be honest, I cannot begin to describe how amazing it was. To sit in the middle of hundreds, no wait, THOUSANDS of other SC fans (there were ~5000).... To hear the incredible roar when they chant "hana, dul, set" and the players' names "FIGHTING"... To see the smiles, tears and tension on the faces of the fans around you...To be in the middle of the OCEAN of noise when the final "gg" comes... All that.. cannot be described in words.
Pictures might help a little...
![[image loading]](http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/762/dsc01017gc8.jpg)
This picture is the definition of "not doing it justice". Its the best I have though
Maybe even some amazingly crap quality videos...
Sound up please
http://tinyurl.com/5wuyk5
http://tinyurl.com/5wj3hh
But, in the end.. you have to go yourself.
Seriously.
+ Show Spoiler +
I think I've just about exhausted posting about SC watching- I have finally seen the light that is proper live SC. So the next blogs are going to be on other things like learning Korean, the school where I teach, night life, susie's boobs etc.
Comments loved as always <3
