Jamsil, Gochoek, and Munhak: Seoul's baseball stadiums

From top: Jamsil, Gocheok, Munhak

Having just returned from a long weekend in Seoul featuring three baseball games at three stadiums, I provide here a brief review of those venues.  A post outlining planning and travel considerations can be found here.

Jamsil exterior

One of the vendors outside Jamsil:  kimbop, dried squid, and soju

Jamsil Stadium opened in 1982 and is showing its age, especially in its institutional hospital-green paint.  Old is not always bad, but Jamsil isn’t yet old enough to be considered classic or retro, just ugly.  It is in any case functional and offers a lovely view from its higher levels of nearby hills, two highways seemingly always populated by cars, and a few high rise buildings.  What sets Jamsil apart from Seoul’s other baseball venues is its lively extra-stadium market populated by mom-and-pop vendors offering fried chicken, dried fish, sushi, and buckets of iced beer.  You’ll find them as soon as you step out of the train station.

Gocheok has landed

Gocheok is known otherwise as the Sky Dome, an enclosed facility used for concerts and other nonsporting events. Management here appears stricter than at Jamsil.  There are no street vendors around the facility, which abuts a school on the outfield side near the train station, and staff at least pretends to be concerned about security.  The perfunctory molestation of my wife’s bag was more attention than we received at Jamsil or Munhak.  Exterior appearance is more appealing than interior.  It looks as if a spaceship has landed in an urban neighborhood, but once inside it feels like any other domed stadium, though the translucent ceiling cap is a nice touch (and probably saves a bit on lighting costs for daytime events).

From Munhak station to the stadium

Munhak baseball museum

Munhak stadium is technically located in Incheon, a separate city neighboring Seoul.  But as in much of urban Asia, the uninformed traveller will have little clue of having left one city and entered another.  Like Jamsil and Gocheok, Munhak is served by a train station that leaves you right at the stadium’s doorstep. A couple of temporary restaurants can be found along the path from station to stadium, stools, folding tables and tarpaulin affairs serving noodles and other Korean fast fare.  Munhak opened in 2002 and appears to be in good shape still. A museum dedicated to the history of the hometown team is a lower-deck feature, as is a playroom for children. The experience at Munhak seemed more intimate than Jamsil or Goechoek, as if being in a neighborhood park rather than a massive urban sporting facility.

Prices at all three stadiums are reasonable compared to what fans of Japanese or American baseball might be accustomed.  Tickets for the upper deck infield were 13,000KRW (12USD) and 12 rows from the field close to homeplate were 38,000KRW (35USD).  By comparison, similar tickets at Atlanta’s SunTrust Park run 25USD and 75-115USD, while tickets at Osaka Dome are 2100JPY (20USD) and 6000JPY (56USD). Food and beverages at Korean stadiums are a similar bargain.  A liter of beer, for example, is 4000KRW (4USD), compared to 9USD for half that amount at Atlanta SunTrust and 800JPY for the same in Osaka (7.5USD).  And as all three stadiums are served by rail networks, there is no hassle with parking or parking fees.

Altogether, Seoul is an attractive destination for baseball fans.

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