Olympic Baseball at Wukesong

We were able to get tickets to a couple Olympic Events before we arrived in Beijing. Once we found out we had the assignment, I logged on to the official web site and saw that there were tickets available. I chose to get tickets for an Athletics event at the National Stadium (aka: The Bird's Nest) which, we will be going to next Friday and a Baseball preliminary match. We went to the Wukesong Olympic venue on Saturday night to watch a game between Korea and Japan. The venue was really nice and the security checks were painless and fast. No long lines or waits and the staff was very polite and courteous.

The Wukesong venue complex is home to the basketball arena which is a permanent facility unlike the baseball stadium which will be torn down after the games.

The Baseball stadium was nice and it was really easy to get around. The volunteers were at every corner and very willing to help you out. We found our seats which were just past third base and provided us a good view of the action.
The game started in typical western fashion where the stating line ups were announced and brought on the field after which they shook hands and went back to their dugouts.

We bought an extra ticket for Olivia even though she didn't need one but we wanted her to have a seat. She was very good spending a couple of innings sitting in her pack.

We found a guy outside the venue selling flags and we picked up the US flag for .75 cents and the Olympic mascot flag was given to us by one of the volunteers. While we were waiting for the game to begin JingJing (one of the 5 Olympic mascots and Olivia's favorite) came out and danced around the field.

As you can see there was one little girl who was very happy to see him and I think it made her night.

Here are some action shots of the game.



Here are some pictures of the crowd.
The Japanese fans and the Japanese super fan.

Korea had many fans in stands and they were loud and proud.

We had a great time at the game and here are some pictures of us.



The game was very good and the crowd made it that much more fun. Apparently baseball is very popular in both Korea and Japan and who knew that there was a grudge between the two. The game was scoreless up until the 6th when Japan scored 2 runs only to be answered by Korea in the top of the 7th with 2 runs of their own. It was all tied up
until until the top of the 9th when Korea hit a 3 run homer. Japan came up to bat and was able to score 1 more run and left 2 runners on base only to lose the game.
It was a great night and everyone had a good time.