BEYOND THE GAME!

Four days before the event's starting date, we found out that the World Cyber Games with League of Legends tournaments would be held two hours away from us. High-profile teams were going to be there, like CLG and Dignitas. (This is the LoL equivalent of, like, major football games and stuff, I guess, but I don't really know 'cause I don't watch football. But you can go to these events and they're broadcast live and we always watch them and talk about them and sometimes yell at the screen.) Joe was scheduled to work all four days of the WCG, but I pretty much begged him to ask for some time off so we could go. It would be in the same country as us! Two hours away! We've spent hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours on this game in the past two years! How could we miss it?

The time off was granted, two backpacks were packed, and we got on a train at 6:55 AM on Thursday.

Two hours later, we were in Busan. It was cold. I bought some hot tea to carry around to keep me warm. As soon as we got out of the taxi at the convention center, I saw a WCG poster in a bus-stop shelter. My excitement level increased exponentially. Joe's holding my tea so I can take this picture.

The Bexco Convention Center had another LoL poster on it and I got even more excited.

We went inside and bought tickets in the lobby. Then, from inside the WCG room, I heard the voice of the announcer who begins every game of LoL say "Welcome...to Summoner's Rift!" with the normal in-game LoL music in the background, and my head exploded. I grabbed Joe's hand and dragged him over there. They were just running a test game on the secondary stage, but I didn't care, because I was really in a world where LoL was on the big screen.

I calmed down a little and got my picture taken with some cardboard LoL guys.

THEN, I saw Dignitas just walking around and reacted (but quietly) the same way a normal person would react when seeing a small group of legitimately famous people, even though they were just LoL famous. Household names in the LoL world whose strategies I'd watched, people I saw on the internet ALL THE TIME, whose broadcasted games have thousands of viewers, were TEN FEET AWAY FROM ME IN REAL LIFE. I don't know much about them; I couldn't even recognize any of them without their screen names (except qtpie, who's kind of easy to recognize.) I'm not, like, obsessed or anything. It's just THEY'RE FAMOUS.

When I was done hyperventilating, we went and sat down at the main stage, since the commencement ceremony would be starting soon.

huehuehuehuehue!

The giant really really loud speakers were blasting the WCG theme song, the nerdiest pop/rock song ever, "Beyond the Game." It sounds like the Pokemon song and Bon Jovi. I felt like I was in an alternate dimension built by nerds. It was absolutely amazing. (With me, pop songs always elicit exactly the response they're going for. Yeah, maybe the song is kinda stupid - Joe certainly thought so, and rolled his eyes each of the 100 times they played it while we were there - but I didn't care. I was in the moment.) During the ceremony, WCG's Korean "cheerleaders" danced to the song. We were supposed to be dancing, too, or at least standing up, but most people weren't.

There was also a sword dance thing. Swords are usually boring, but it was part of the Nerds in Korea thing and I savored it. Short clip:

Near the end of the commencement ceremony, they announced the games which were part of WCG, playing very short clips on the screen for each one. People cheered for their games. When the Korean announcer-lady said "League of Legend!" (without the 's' at the end) and part of the Season One trailer came on, I threw my hands up and screamed "WOOOOO!" like I was about to go down a hill on a roller coaster. Then "Beyond the Game" started playing again and there was a POP which scared me so much that I hid my face in Joe's shoulder, but it was just silver streamers being shot out of the ceiling. (We brought some home.)

First big-screen LoL, then really loud nerd music, then swords, now streamers being shot out of the ceiling. I was FLIPPING. OUT.

After the ceremony, tournaments for other games started. There wasn't anything LoL-related going on until later, so we left to look for lunch. There was a Mr. Pizza, so we went there for our first Korean pizza. The toppings included German sausage, honey mustard, green peppers, onions...and bits of cabbage.

After lunch, we explored a department store called Shinsegae. They were having a HAPPY SALE. Everything was very expensive.

Then it was LOL TIME!

This was Germany vs. Vietnam on the second stage. The quality was terrible. The blow-by-blow commentary was in Korean. I don't even remember who won. The teams weren't familiar to me.

We started to realize that this was a much smaller event than what we'd expected. WCG was advertised as "The world's largest computer & video game festival." I'm pretty sure it wasn't. There were very few Americans, not really very many Koreans, and all the commentary was in Korean. None of the LoL games started on time. There weren't even any people dressed up as LoL champions. Maybe we just missed the crowds and cosplays because we were only there for the first two days instead of for the main events.

Next game was Dignitas (the USA team) vs. Spain. We assumed Dignitas would win, since we'd never heard of Spain's team, and they did. It was on the main stage, with MUCH better quality.

When the LoL events were over, it was dinnertime. There was a Korean buffet upstairs. It was fancy. We ate there. They had things like sea urchin roe, and duck breast, and squid (I just couldn't try it,) barbecued eel (which I tried,) pine mushroom porridge, pumpkin porridge, a hibachi bar, a sushi bar, and some weird fruits I'd never even seen. I asked our waitress how to eat them, and she had to get her manager to speak English to me.

A mangosteen and a.....pink thing

After that, we went to the hotel, which was not fancy but was clean and didn't cost nearly as much as the alternatives. Whenever you sat down on the toilet seat, water started running in the bowl. And the shower got its water from the sink.

Once the sun came up, we had a beautiful view of a not-so-beautiful harbor.

We ate at Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast (but didn't try any of the red bean paste donuts.) It was cold outside. I got more tea. We took a taxi back to the convention center. It wasn't LoL time yet, so we explored the department stores again.

The first store we went into had just opened for the day. We were the first people to go inside. All the employees, all dressed in business suits and ties, were all standing next to their cash registers, and each employee bowed to us as we walked by. Sometimes we were getting bowed at by people on each side of the aisle at the same time. It was surreal. We were giggling and looking at each other and had no idea how to react.

We also saw a coffee shop with a weird name, and a Korean Twilight movie poster.

Then we went back to the convention center and watched LoL games, first Malaysia vs. Korea, then CLG (representing Canada) vs. Italy. Of course we expected CLG to win, since we'd never heard of Italy's team, and they did.

I got my picture taken with the stage.

And then I got my picture taken with DIGNITAS!

Well, not all of them. But I was still really happy. I'd also talked to Reginald for like 5 seconds the day before, and HotshotGG and the rest of CLG for like 3 seconds when they came off the stage and I was like, "Hey, that was cool" after the game. The whole time we were at the convention, I kept seeing all these "famous" people walking around and it was SUPER FUN.

in the practice area

With the train ride and exploring Busan and being in nerd heaven, this was probably the coolest vacation me and Joe have ever had.

I was pretty bummed to be home on Saturday, since the convention was still going on, but so happy to have had the experience. I listened to "Beyond the Game" like 12 times while I was doing chores. I bought a lot of tea when I went grocery shopping. I hung the WCG programs and tickets on the wall by our computers, and hung my mangled admission bracelet from the first day and Joe's from the second day on my computer monitor.

And the streamers went on the Christmas tree.