EPT
culture. I have been picking up lots of korean phrases and sayings (I've learned more in a month than peter has in 2 years). There haven't been any major tournaments or TV games for me since my last report, but lots of stuff has been going on.
I have been to several Hexatron PC Baang events now. Since our team is sponsored by a PC baang franchise with PC baang's all over Seoul, we do events at the PC baangs about 2-3 times a week. Each time 2-4 rotating Team members go to sign autographs, take pictures, and play exhibition games vs. customers or tournament winners. They are quite fun. One time a bunch of kids were standing by some poster that had Elky's picture in his uniform, with the number 81. Since I don't have a uniform yet, I wear Elky's uniform to the events. They were looking at the poster, then back at me, then back at the poster, then they all looked at eachother and started mumbling some korean with confused looks on their faces. "WHO IS THIS GUY, SINCE WHEN IS ELKY SO TALL?"
Joel, Peter, Brian, and I all had to do an english teaching lesson in Korea as well. This was another Hexatron PC baang event except the focus was english (though starcraft sayings and units were the main method of teaching to keep their interest). It was in a small room with 8 computers. We all had english packets specially designed for this english teaching with all sorts of starcraft dialogue that we had the kids read aloud, conversation style. About half of them were really shy but the other half seemed to enjoy actively participating. There were lots of vague words and sayings that a Korean new to english wouldn't understand so we had to explain those words to them in the simplest terms. In one part of the dialogue one of the kids had to call the other one a "chicken." They didn't know what that meant so Joel, Peter, and I all looked at Brian(Assem) and were like "BRIAN IS CHICKEN, ALWAYS SCARED." Their juvenile giggling laughter was enough of a sign to let us know that they understood what the word meant. After the lesson we had the kids play a 4v4 on Hunters while using only english to communicate. After that we took some photos with the newsreporter that was there then headed out for some McDonalds.
As far as daily life goes, I have been eating the same things except when we go out to events and get food from some restaurant. My main diet around the house consists of lots of rice, lots of water, and some weird meat thingies whenever they get cooked up. I kinda like going to Korean restaurants though, for the first time in my life I'm eating and liking almost all kinds of foods, even the GREEN ones. Much better diet than in college, where I was forced to eat crap like pizza/hamburgers/hotdogs so often. I also recently joined a gym near to our home. Working out almost every day makes you feel energized at all times which helps in all sorts of things motivation wise...even starcraft. We haven't climbed the mountain in forever as well, so its good that I have this to keep myself fit.
Our team was contracted to have our photos all over a big mall in Seoul called the Rennaisance Mall. We all had to go to a photo place to do a huge photo shoot. We arrived around 8 AM in the morning (3 hours of sleep ouch). We basically sat around for a while because apparently we were in for the wait of our lives. After about 30 minutes of walking around, these two female models walked in. One of them was blonde and seemed American, the other seemed Russian and was disgustingly skinny. Right when they walked in the door, a lot of the Korean guys on our team started yelling, and then I witnessed the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Siva let out a big korean "AHHHHHHHHHH" yell, and then popped up off his seat on the couch and ran right up to the models and did a big bow right in front of them. Immediately after his bow he had a really embarassed look on his face then turned around and ran back to the couch and cowered his face. The models had looks on their faces like "WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED." We waited and waited and waited. Most of the time was the models in the makeup or hair rooms between shots. At one point Kab Yung (Lovedom) was sitting in his chair by the water machine as one of the models was walking to it to get a drink. I swear these must be the first non-Korean girls they have ever seen in their lives because Kab Yung was just sitting there with a gigantic gaping smile on his face staring straight at her as she walked all the way like 30 feet across the room towards him, it was like Kab Yung was a 8 year old boy. Eventually they got done after 6 hours, we all were exhausted from no sleep the previous night and all the boredom from waiting. We all got makeup and our hair done. Some of us looked decent and others looked really freaking stupid. We had to change into all sorts of various mall clothes and do all sorts of different themes for different picture sets. Was especially tiring for me because the Korean camera guy made me go in every set because apparently white people sell in Korea. Things were going well, and then all of the sudden the Korean clothes girls are shoving these white pants and this white tank top button up shirt in my face. I was really tired so I was just kinda going with the flow and putting the stuff on, then all of the sudden I find myself getting my hair slicked sideways and getting freaking white lip gloss put on my lips. Possibly the most degrating thing possible, but I manned up and aside from some shouting got the job done along with Peter and Dong Jin (ArtOfTerran) who also had to wear those silly outfits. We also had lots of shots that involved us moving around or jumping, so after a 14 hour day and a successful photo shoot, I passed out on my bed and slept for like 13 hours.
Last weekend I went to my second courage tournament. This time around it was basically the same except with a few more players, but lots of the same really good amateurs were there from last time around. Me, )Na(Pro, and Assem travelled from Seoul to Pusan via high-speed train. Getting from our house to Pusan where we met up with Danby and Said took about 5 hours in total with the taxi, subway, and train rides. We weren't able to get much sleep the night before because we had to get up so early, but that wasn't of importance at all. I kept trying to pound it in our heads that we must win, thats why we are here, we aren't here to make excuses and lose games. Just overcome all the things holding you back and win.
Thats all there is to it. I won round 1 vs some Terran player rather easily, and 2nd round I managed to lose 1-2 against Canata (SKT1 practice partner, terran player, pretty good -- he went on to win our group and everyone was hyping him up before hand). I just didn't get the job done. Game 1 vs him that I won was pretty good, but I still played poorly overall every game against him. In the first game I could have killed him early with a goon + 4 zeal in shuttle attack, but I messed up and lost the shuttle doing no damage but saving my goons. I kept my focus though, and won despite losing my main, nat expo, and another expo just by constantly expanding and using recalls to crush his economy. Turned out to be a pretty amazing game and he was pretty stunned afterwards. My confidence was pretty high after that game, but not cocky or anything. The maps were Nostalgia, Guillotine, and Temple...how the hell am I supposed to lose 2 games in a row PvT on guillo and temple? Well...it happened, both games that I lost I just wasn't playing fluently and he was taking advantage of that with some tank drop + vulture support attacks and I kinda fell apart even though playing really smart and well in my openings. )Na(Pro, Danby, Jelka, and Said all lost as well. Assem was in the last group again and I was giving him pep talks in between every game. Other than that I occupied myself during the day by taking lots of pictures and talking to the person at the front desk of the PC room. Even though I had lost, I really really really wanted him to win still. Assem played really solid and with a bye round 1, managed to defeat 4 other players in best of 3's to earn his status as a semi pro. Me not attaining semi-pro in my first month in Korea kinda hurts, because it would have been really great to get off to a blazing start. But then
again, this is Korea and things are hard. Winning 5 best of 3's in a row vs the top amatuers in Korea takes LOTS of skill/practice and sometimes a lot of luck. Assems group wasn't too hard, and he got a bye round 1--he did play one good guy in the semis who was Shinya's student when Shinya was still in Samsung. The guy Assem played in the final round was really bad...I have no idea how that guy made it to the final round. I will have more opportunities in the future, all that matters is that I'm constantly improving and that I never lose my drive, and both of those things are true. One down point of not having semi-pro is I most likely won't be able to participate in the proleague this time around or the challenge league, but we'll see, alot of the progaming rules and regulations seem rather volitile.
After the tournament, for celebration of Brian's victory, Danby took us to a restaurant that his sister works at in Pusan. After that we got a hotel room in some random alley for )Na(Pro, Brian, and I (it was really, really, really inexpensive). The next day we met up with Danby again (he lives in Pusan) and he took me to get a haircut and then we went and saw a beach on Pusan. He was all excited about the Beach and hyping it up, but then when we got there it was a wasteland with lots of construction going on. We still had some time to pass, so Danby took us to a hospital where one of his best friends who has an injury keeping him from walking at the time was staying. The guy is a big fan of the Hexatron team, so it was a nice thing to do going there and meeting him. After that we said goodbye to Danby who would be staying in Pusan a little longer, and us 3 took the regular train home (5 hour train ride then 2 more hours from walking/subway).
A few days ago, Daniel (the team manager) took Joel, Brian, and I to the WarCraft 3 teamleague finals. The WarCraft3 Hexatron team made it to the finals vs SK (not SKT1). We went backstage and I met tons of people who are high up in the Hexatron empire including "THE MAN" and Mr. Han. We briefly met (but didn't really speak to them because they had to focus on the games at hand) the Hexatron War3 team. Hexatron lost 1-3 I believe, but still get around 5-10k for 2nd place so thats pretty good. After that we went up on stage for some big group Hexatron photos and then got some food and headed home.
I don't know where I'm headed in the future exactly, but I do know what direction that is, and thats forward. Pretty soon here are the iTV and MBC trial leagues, which I am practicing for a lot. I also met a 30 year old Korean guy through Joel named AJ who is a great guy and took us out one night. I might be able to get a job through him teaching english 1 hour per day or so for around 1k/month. You don't really need to be a qualified teacher to teach english privately in Korea. Peter does it and Joel is going to do it as well. The Koreans can pretty much already write and speak english from all their schooling, they just want someone to speak it with for about an hour per day, so they can learn all the discrepancies of the crazy english language and actually learn how to speak it aloud. Not sure if I'll take it or not though, because I'd much rather focus on starcraft right now because the future possibilities are much greater than a measly 1k per month. I'm meeting tons of awesome people and having a blast so far and I suspect that through StarCraft I'll be here in Korea for quite some time.
You can view many pictures here:
http://gallery.isgsa.org/thumbnails.php?album=125
Until Next time,
-[pG]Rekrul
