The heat alone in Hà Nội, Việt Nam during my trip hasn’t been too much of an issue, but paired together with the insanely high humidity, going outside has been an uncomfortbale experience for me. Because of this, I’ve been trying to find tourist activities that involve staying indoors, preferably in areas with air conditioning.
One of the spots I found was the Vincom Mega Mall Royal City, an underground shopping and entertainment complex. I scouted out a few museums inside the complex that I wanted to visit ahead of time online, but while walking around, I came across Vườn thú Chú Voi Con, which translates to the Baby Elephant Animal Park. I peeked inside and saw a bunch of animals in the format of a petting zoo, so I figured I would make a spontaneous stop to check it out.
This was very fun. I had an opportunity to get closer to some of these animals than I have ever been before, and got to pet some of them for the first time, such as the alpaca and sheep.
With that being said, this is probably the most unethical zoo I have ever seen in my entire life. The two alpaca and the sheep were confined together as a group of three in a pen that seemed too small to even accommodate one of them. A lot of the animals looked malnourished. Some of them looked like they were infected with something, or at the very least, extremely unclean. There were no attendants carefully supervising the petting areas, so there were children in the animal park that had free reign to yank at animals’ limbs and otherwise inflict distress on them.
In a vacuum, I enjoyed my time here, and it was very amusing seeing a bunch of farm animals inside an underground shopping center. However, I cannot fully recommend visiting the Baby Elephant Animal Park. If you’re not too concerned about the morals and ethics aspect of zoo animals, that is fine, but it is personally conflicting having this fun activity in the Mega Mall but also not wanting to encourage supporting their business model of making profit at the expense of what seemed to me like animals that weren’t really having a nice life.
The animal park had glass that allowed passersby in the mall to look in, so that is one alternative if you want to check it out but don’t want to purchase an admission ticket.
Here are some photographs I took of the animals during my visit:
Visiting the Ba Đình District was one of the first tourist activites I did after arriving in Hà Nội, Việt Nam. It’s one of the most popular tourist areas in the city, and there was a lot to look at in a fairly condensed area, so I figured it would be a good place to start.
I already published a blog post a few days ago from seeing Bảo tàng Hồ Chí Minh, which translates to the Ho Chi Minh Museum, located inside the Ba Đình District. I gave that location a dedicated blog post because I had a lot of photographs from within the museum, but for everything else, I figured it would make the most sense doing a single Ba Đình round-up.
I believe this is Chùa Diên Hựu, which translates to the Dien Huu Temple.
On the opposite side of the walkway, there was this water featured labeled as đài phun nước, which translates to “fountain.” I’m not sure if it actually really is a fountain that was just turned off, or if it mislabeled, but it had an interesting rocky centerpiece to it.
This area had a little marketplace where people were selling apparel and other merchandise. I was getting thirsty, so I purchased a cold beverage from one of the stalls; I found it funny that they stocked Monster energy drinks there, so I got a Zero Sugar Ultra Paradise.
Afterwards, I looped around to Chùa Một Cột, which translates to the One Pillar Pagoda.
After enjoying looking at the temples, I came out into the sunlight and walked towards the gardens.
This is an interesting fountain I saw next to the offices of Ban Quản Lý Bảo Tàng Hồ Chí Minh, which translates to the Ho Chi Minh Museum Management Board.
Here is a photograph I took while standing on Hùng Vương Street facing south towards the intersection of Lê Hồng Phong Street.
The city was setting up for the 80th anniversary celebration of Cách mạng tháng Tám và Quốc khánh nước Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam (which translates to The August Revolution and the National Day of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam). There were extra bleachers being set up and signage being installed in preparation for the events.
I was able to see Lăng Chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh, which is Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. Apparently Ho Chi Minh’s body is on display here, but they are only open for tourists during certain hours, and I was a bit too late that day to be able to go inside.
Once in a while, the guards in front of the mausoleum will be swapped out. I managed to catch two new guards in the distance headed towards the mausoleum to relieve the current guards and take their place.
After finishing my exploring, I headed back towards the entrance/exit. On the way there, I saw the outside of Phê La Ngọc Hà, a coffee shop.
For my meal in the neighborhood, I had bún chả ăn kèm với rau sống, which was a highly-recommended famous dish in Vietnam. To my understanding, this roughly translates to “white rice vermicelli noodles and seasoned minced pork patties served with fresh herbs.”
And no, I do not know why my noodles look so radioactive in the picture…
Here are some more photographs I took around the neighborhood right outside the fenced tourism area:
This is probably very unsurprising to hear from someone who lives in Las Vegas, a city located in the Mojave Desert, but it is excruciatingly humid in Hanoi. My hotel feels fine when the air conditioning and dehumidifier are both running at full power, but stepping outside feels like it requires more effort even just to breathe because of how much moisture there is in the air.
One of the concerns I had prior to arriving in Vietnam was the pedestrian crosswalk situation, i.e., how vehicles don’t really stop for people and just drive around you. I might have just been lucky so far in only having needed to cross streets that aren’t too busy, but it’s been a lot easier than I expected. As long as you telegraph your movements clearly, remain at a consistent pace, and opt to use marked crosswalks where possible so that your motion is predictable, it seems like Vietnam’s traffic system sort of has it figured out.
In general, sightseeing has been very interesting so far. I’ve never seen temples like this before in-person, so it was nice being able to go inside one and experience it first-hand.
I already mentioned this in my blog post reviewing my flights on EVA Air from Los Angeles to Hanoi, but one of the major reasons I decided to travel to Hà Nội, Việt Nam was because my company Tempo’s game The Bazaar was having its very first community-run in-person esports event at PK Gaming Ngoại Giao Đoàn. This event happened earlier today (or yesterday, if you convert Hà Nội’s local time zone to my home time zone in Las Vegas).
As you probably expected, while I was in attendance, I took a lot of photographs.
The entryway to the gaming café had a banner advertising the tournament, which invited competitors to wander the bazaar in a paid event with a total cash prize pool of US$750.00.
The interior also had a banner, this one being significantly taller and larger.
Tempo’s Lead of People and Culture was also in attendance, and he was responsible for bringing over a bunch of prizes for the competitors.
There were some embroidered hoodies…
… some specially-branded mousepads in partnership with PK Gaming…
… and the grand prize trophy, a Founder’s Edition collectible statue of Dooley, one of the characters from The Bazaar.
I showed up pretty early, so while the venue was still almost empty, I had an opportunity to walk around and explore the rest of the gaming café.
As the players started trickling in, some of them got set up on the computers in the competition area and started warming up.
After everyone found their way to the café, the tournament started with a small opening ceremony by the casters.
Once all the rules were explained, the players took their positions and started playing.
The event was live streamed on Tempo’s Twitch channel from the “Alaska Zone” streaming booths.
This is a shot I got of the person who eventually went on to win the entire tournament.
As a reminder, I work solely on the corporate side of Tempo and have no involvement in game design or game development pretty much whatsoever, to the extent that I have literally never even played a single game of The Bazaar. It was an amusing experience going around and looking at people’s screens, only to be completely clueless as to what’s actually happening in the game.
The main stage of the gaming café was used to play the live stream for in-person spectators.
One of the spectators, of course, was the Dooley statue.
Once in a while, players would be brought into the casting booth after finishing a round so that they could get interviewed about their most recent game.
The tournament was going on for longer than I expected, so I decided to order some food from the on-site kitchen.
Their menu was in Vietnamese, and I couldn’t understand what their entrée options were, so I just went with the recommendation of one of the staff members at the gaming café. I ended up with some grilled chicken, vegetables, and white rice. This actually ended up being pretty unexpectedly delicious.
A handful of hours into the tournament, we were approaching the end, with only a couple players left needing to finish their final run.
I believe some people left early, but those who wanted to stick around gathered around the stage area to watch the final moments of gameplay.
Upon the conclusion of the tournament, the winner was crowned, and he received his limited edition Dooley statue.
In addition to the trophy, both the first place winner and the runner-ups received an envelope containing their cash prizes, and pretty much all participants got some form of consolation prize, be it a set of earbuds, a desk mat, or apparel.
After all the prizes were distributed, the casters gave their closing speech.
The tournament organizers hired an actual, professional photographer to take pictures throughout the event. I’m not sure what his name is so I can’t give proper credit at the moment, but I found these on PK Gaming Ngoại Giao Đoàn’s Facebook page in the Cộng Đồng The Bazaar group.
He captured this shot of me helping set some of the technical specifications of the live stream software to ensure a smooth broadcast…
… as well as this shot of me joining the casting booth for a little bit while the Vietnamese caster was busy helping tally up the final results.
Here’s a screenshot taken of the live broadcast from the short period during which I was filling in for one of the casters.
It is very amusing (and quite difficult) trying to be a commentator for a game that you’ve literally never personally played before and hardly even know the mechanics for. The other caster next to me hard carried both the play-by-play and color commentary, while I mainly contributed by telling stories of Tempo’s past and how The Bazaar came to become what it is today.
Before parting ways, we took a group photograph with everyone who stayed until the end of the event.
During my time at Tempo, I’ve been a member of the production teams behind a decent number of live events, so this one wasn’t particularly special for me. However, I could tell that everyone else in attendance was very excited for it, which was nice.
I went into this thinking the turnout would be in the low multi-hundreds. I didn’t know how or from where I established that expectation, but as you can see from the photographs, there were nowhere near even a single hundred competitors. With that being said, I might just be used to running events taking place in larger cities for more well-known games, and it’s possible that the turnout for “Catch the Cash” was still considered a success given the circumstances.
I thought the gaming café was decent and comparable in quality to some of the smaller and lower-budget gaming cafés you might find scattered throughout less populus areas of the United States. The food, though, was incredible. I found the chef and the literal full-blown kitchen to be amazing and comparable in quality to a very good street food vendor or a small family-owned restaurant that focuses on replicating authentic flavors derived from their local cuisines. I had two meals there—one on tournament day and one on the day prior during a walk-through preview—and both entrées were delicious.
With that being said, I had a persistent headache and an overall miserable time being in PK Gaming’s facility due to the smoking room.
Cigarette smoking is far more common in Việt Nam than it is in the United States. It is also far more socially and culturally accepted, so this gaming café had a designated smoking room indoors, directly in the center of the café. The smoking room had a door, but every time someone opened the door to go in or out, waves of cigarette smoke would escape and spread throughout the rest of the building.
As long as there’s good ventilation, it’s fine, right? Well, from what I could tell, it felt like they had no ventilation. They had fans running everywhere, so the cigarette smoke would expeditiously get blown around into all corners of the building to make sure everyone would smell it, while none of it got sucked up into the vents to be exchanged with fresh outdoor air.
Marinating in cigarette smoke for about 7 hours was horrific, and that alone was single-handedly enough to make me hate the entire thing. It is insane to me that everyone who showed up to compete had to be subjected to degrading their health from fairly dense second-hand smoke because some people were too lazy to spend one extra minute walking outdoors before smoking.
After landing in Hà Nội, Việt Nam and spending half a day to rest up, I headed over to the Ba Đình District southeast of Hồ Tây to squeeze in a few tourist activities prior to Tempo’s The Bazaar event coming up on Saturday.
One of the spots I checked out was Bảo tàng Hồ Chí Minh, which translates to the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Not everything had English translations so there was a lot of information I couldn’t understand, but all the exhibits on display were still nice to look at and were fairly unique and different from what I’m used to seeing in museums in the United States.
Here is a collection of photographs I took of the building, exhibits, and gift shops:
I mentioned this a few times in previous blog posts, but the reason I was still around Los Angeles County, even though I hate it and avoid it as much as I can, is because I had an international flight scheduled out of Los Angeles International Airport. My home airport of Harry Reid International Airport in the Las Vegas Valley has great coverage for many destinations, but for the particular route I was flying, LAX worked a bit better.
Yes, that does indeed sound like a pretty random place, especially for someone like me who generally stays within the United States and doesn’t travel internationally much, but there is a reason for going to Hà Nội in particular—my company Tempo’s video game The Bazaar is having its very first community-run in-person esports event at PK Gaming’s facility in the Ngoại Giao Đoàn neighborhood.
However, I’m not going for work, per se. Even though it’s my company’s game, I’m basically attending the event as a tourist (and then also being a tourist in other areas of Hà Nội while I’m there). I work on the corporate side of Tempo and pretty much never directly touch the development of The Bazaar itself, and have gone as far as to have never even played a single round of The Bazaar before, so I am quite literally just going into this as simply a spectator.
With that being said, coordinating this trip to overlap with an event for The Bazaar made the trip feel more meaningful, as opposed to arbitrarily picking a completely random city and country in Asia to visit for no underlying reason. Thus, late last night, I made my way over to LAX for my very long travel day.
(As you will immediately notice, yes, I did indeed fly business class for these flights. However, to be clear, I paid out-of-pocket for my business class ticket. Before anyone asks, no, I am not going on luxury trips and expensing it to Tempo. The company’s revenue is being reinvested back into further development of The Bazaar and is not being used to sponsor my premium travel itineraries.)
My night started at the Tom Bradley International Terminal with a smooth and uneventful check-in process due to having no checked baggage and being an enrollee of TSA PreCheck. After making my way airside, I navigated my way to the Star Alliance Lounge, the designated lounge for EVA Air due to EVA not having a dedicated lounge at LAX.
This lounge had an outdoor area with fire pits and a nice view of the tarmac. As far as I can recall, I think this is the one and only lounge I’ve ever been in that had an outdoor portion where you could get some fresh outside air.
The lounge also had a balcony area that overlooked the rest of the TBIT. This basically captures my favorite part about this lounge—it had so many different kinds of environments (even including a dim theater room) that pretty much anyone could have a comfortable time at the lounge, no matter what their preferences are.
I opted to relax in the balcony area while eating some food and people-watching.
The convenient thing about being in a Star Alliance lounge while flying on a Star Alliance airline was that they did announcements for Star Alliance flights, including one for mine. Once boarding time was imminent, they notified the lounge-goers that it was now time to start heading to the boarding gate.
After getting my travel visa verified and embarking the Boeing 777-300ER, I walked over to my seat, 11K. I picked this seat because it’s the last seat in the corner of the business class cabin, and there is usually a curtain that separates the business class and premium economy cabins, so seats 11A and 11K end up being the most private seats on the aircraft.
To make things even more private for me on this flight, I got lucky enough that all three seats adjacent to mine were empty.
While the flight attendants were preparing passenger meals, we were given a hot towel, beverage, and snack to keep us occupied while we wait. For my drink, I asked for a Coca-Cola Zero Sugar.
My flight attendant, whose name is Josie, came back with a can from the “Share a Coke with” series that had “Josie 麻吉麻” printed on the front. I’m not sure if this was a remarkable coincidence or not, but if it was intentionally arranged so that your Coca-Cola can has the name of your flight attendant on it, that’s some pretty impressive attention to detail.
For my appetizer, I received a lobster salad. The lobster was fresh, there was a satisfying ratio of seafood to vegetables, and everything was covered in a delicious sauce that had a perfect balance of spiciness and sweetness.
My main entrée was Chilean sea bass covered in a butter sauce and with a side of truffle gnocchi, asparagus, and tomatoes. The fish was extremely tender and flaky, and was comparable to something I’d find at a high-end seafood restaurant.
As a refresher, I got a small fruit plate containing cantaloupe, orange, and grapes.
Dessert was a lemon tart atop a berry sauce. This was the least remarkable part of the meal, as it just tasted like a generic pastry, but I still enjoyed it.
Shortly after meal service was over, they cleared everyone’s tables and dimmed the lights so we could go to sleep. The ceiling was illuminated with small lights resembling a starry night sky, which was a nice touch.
The lie-flat seat wasn’t the most comfortable I’ve ever felt, but they offered a mattress pad which was very helpful, and was still more than enough for a good night’s rest. I actually managed to get a nearly full eight hours of sleep, which I wasn’t expecting.
With just a couple hours left in the flight, the flight attendants started breakfast service. Josie brought me a cup of coffee with brown sugar to try and help me wake up (even though caffeine doesn’t affect me) (but I did not tell her that and just enjoyed the caffè latte).
For breakfast, I had Chinese plain congee with a side of cold delicatessens, black beans, pan-fried egg with shrimp, and braised pork ribs.
This was probably my all-time favorite airline meal. It wasn’t as delicious as the Chilean sea bass from earlier, but for some reason, this congee tasted very nostalgic, which is really funny, because I never had Chinese-style congee as a kid (my parents are Korean, not Chinese). This was an incredibly cozy-feeling meal, and it made me feel warm inside, not just from the warmth of the congee, but also from the sense of comfort that this flavor profile mysteriously brought to me.
For dessert, I received another fruit plate, this time with a bit more artistic presentation.
We soon flew over Taipei and approached the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
After deplaning, I made my way over to the Oriental Club Lounge to wait out my layover until the second leg of my trip.
I wanted to be very cautious and not accidentally leave airside so I wouldn’t have to go through security again, and in my diligence, I happened to inadvertently avoid the area I needed to traverse through to get to the lounge. It was fine though; I walked two big circles around the airport for no reason, but at least I got my exercise in after the nearly 13-hour flight from Los Angeles.
The Oriental Club Lounge is apparently an award-winning lounge. It wasn’t the most impressive lounge I’ve ever seen, but it was definitely much better than average. I was very full by this point (and knew I had another in-flight meal coming up), so I opted not to get any food; instead, I just sipped on some Coca-Cola Zero throughout my stay in order to maintain my hydration.
With about 40 minutes to go until departure, I made my way to gate B7 to board my connecting flight. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a boarding delay, so I had to stand there for about half an hour in the unusually high heat and humidity.
Eventually, we made it on the plane, which was another Boeing 777-300ER. We had a different painting hung up at the front of the business class cabin on this aircraft, which made me curious how many people there are out there who travel on EVA Air so frequently that they keep track of which paintings they’ve seen and collect photographs of them as if they’re trading cards.
Here’s a view of TPE out my window. My plane didn’t have any special livery, but the plane parked at the neighboring gate had some Sanrio characters on it.
Not long after take-off, meal service began. As our appetizer, we received a shrimp cocktail.
For my main entrée, I picked Chef Huang Ching-Biao’s steamed pork ribs with chestnuts and vegetables atop fried Cantonese noodles. On the side, I had a piece of garlic bread. The pork ribs were unbelievably tender and took “melt in your mouth” and “fall right off the bone” to a whole new level.
This was just as delicious as the Chilean sea bass, and the three meals that I had on EVA Air landed squarely as the top three best in-flight meals I’ve ever had.
For dessert, I got another lemon tart, but this one was slightly different. Again, this tasted pretty close to a generic well-made pastry.
For my beverage, I ordered a non-alcoholic drink from their “mocktail” menu—a pineapple, cranberry, and ginger ale cocktail.
After finishing all my food, I reclined back, put in my earbuds, listened to music, and relaxed for the remainder of the flight.
After a little over three hours on board, we touched down at Nội Bài International Airport. Upon landing and deplaning, I stood in line to get through immigrations, which was smooth and uneventful. When passing through customs, I stood in the “goods to declare” line so that I could disclose the vitamins and supplements I had brought with me, but after sending my backpack and luggage through an x-ray machine, the customs officer waved me through without further questioning.
I am now at my hotel and concluded the longest travel day I’ve ever had in my life. If you include the time I spent ridesharing to LAX, waiting in the lounge, flying to TPE, waiting in the lounge some more, flying to HAN, standing in line, and ridesharing to my hotel, my overall total travel time clocked in at right around 26 hours.
That sounds like an excruciatingly long time, and I probably normally would have been completely exhausted, but upgrading myself to business class was absolutely worth it and made the day much easier. Thanks to the nice lounges and immaculate in-flight service on EVA Air, everything was made far more comfortable, and I feel well enough that I don’t think I will even need a rest and recovery day before getting started with my Hà Nội adventures.
One of my friends is in the Los Angeles area for a trip, and during her visit, she wanted to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers play against the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium during Hello Kitty Night. I also happen to be in Los Angeles County right now in preparation for an upcoming international trip departing from LAX, so I agreed to go along and watch some baseball.
She really wanted the limited-quantity Hello Kitty co-branded merchandise that they give to attendees, so much so that she wanted to show up and get in line early. I did not think they would run out of merch packs, but I had never been to one of these special nights where they give out gifts; I didn’t want to be wrong and lead her astray, so I agreed to accompany her to the stadium a few hours before the game.
With that being said, I didn’t want to just be there unreasonably early and do nothing, so I suggested that we do a stadium tour while we wait for the game to start. She agreed and added on a game day pre-game tour. Usually, I end up being the one to arrange travel itineraries and event logistics because I tend to be the most well-traveled, but for Hello Kitty Night at Dodger Stadium, I entrusted her to organize everything. (Yes, I am mentioning this as a form of foreshadowing.)
When you purchase tickets to an event, there is usually information on the confirmation page, or at the very least, a “know before you go” email that is sent afterwards so you have a general idea of what to expect during the event. These informational emails usually include tips on how early to arrive, where to enter the event, and a map of the venue, among other things. I was not forwarded any of this information, even after asking a few times. The only thing she forwarded me was a receipt for the purchase so she could ask me to pay her back for my portion of the tickets (which I found to be ridiculous because I cover her portion of tickets, meals, and other costs of activities we do together an overwhelming majority of the time, so it is silly that she could not pay for something this one singular time… but that’s beside the point).
Yesterday at around 3 PM PDT, I called a Lyft to take us to Dodger Stadium. Again, note that I have no information about what’s going on. I looked on the Lyft app and noticed that the only drop-off spots I was able to pick were near Gate A. However, apparently they moved the rideshare drop-off location to Gate B (and the entrance to the pre-game tour was near Lots F and G, which were very close to Gate B). If I had known this ahead of time, I would’ve just asked our driver to drop us off street-side near Gate B, but instead, we were dropped off at Gate A and had to walk.
Fortunately, I pulled up Google Maps and noticed that there was a side street that took us straight to Gate B, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I said we should take that shortcut. However, she insisted that it did not have access to Gate B and that we have to walk all the way around. After a ⅔-mile (~1-kilometer) trek through the heat and direct sunlight, we made it to the entrance of Gate B (and promptly discovered that taking my suggested shortcut would have indeed worked just fine).
At this point, we spent another 15 minutes or so walking from checkpoint to checkpoint trying to figure out where to actually enter for the pre-game tour. I was dripping sweat, basically had just given up on everything, and was following her around with half my brain in hibernation as to not continue overheating. Eventually, we found the entrance (which was disclosed in the informational guide) (the same one I did not have a copy of).
Our tour was scheduled to start at 4 PM PDT. However, in typical Los Angeles fashion, the tour doesn’t actually start at 4 PM. I later found out that the suggested arrival time for a 4 PM tour was at 4 PM, but they expect everyone to be late, so as to not cause people to miss their tours, they instead use a first-come first-served grouping system for everyone that gets you on the next available tour. Us arriving at 3:50 PM meant that we were there in time to be included in a group that started at 4:20 PM.
There was no waiting room, no water, no snacks, and even no concessions available for purchase yet. What there was plenty of, though, was heat, on the hot day. At least I was able to wait in the shade this time.
The tour eventually started, and we were taken to the northeastern side of the stadium near the outfield. The tour guide explained some history about the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dodger Stadium while we were able to watch the players prepare for the day’s game.
By this point, fans were already lining up to enter the stadium. Apparently there was a ticket add-on just to be able to enter the stadium early (even without a pre-game tour). The game wasn’t scheduled to start for another almost 3 hours at that point, so I found this to be somewhat mind-boggling.
After seeing the outfield, we looped around the back and into the indoor section of the stadium.
After seeing what was basically a bunch of baseball-related art hung up in hallways, we popped out right behind home plate and were able to watch the players warm up some more, but this time from a different angle.
After several minutes, we were brought into a room that had a bunch of trophies and awards on display.
We were then led out a floor that had a bunch of baseball memorabilia. From this, I learned that the Dodgers were originally from Brooklyn. Apparently this area is accessible to the public, so being able to see these was not exclusive to the paid tour.
After seeing the indoor section, we were brought back outside and up near the outfield again. On this path, I saw this graffiti-style mural painted on one of the concrete walls.
To conclude the one-hour tour, we were brought back to where we started on the upper-most floor of the northeast deck overlooking the outfield. By this point, the players had swapped and it was now the visiting team that was warming up.
The tour was absolutely not worth it whatsoever. The only thing that I think you get special access to is the room with the trophies and awards; otherwise, I believe a majority of what we saw was already viewable by and accessible to the general public anyway. Keep in mind that the stadium is just an open building, so once you actually get into the building, it feels like you can sort of just walk around wherever you want.
By this point, the lines were getting substantially longer. However, there were still about two hours left until the game started.
There was a cabinet of bobbleheads near the entrance to the indoor section of the stadium; here is one of Vin Scully, a former commentator for the Dodgers.
In order to get the full baseball stadium experience, I decided to buy some stadium food. I decided to get two regular hot dogs and a small soft drink, which came out to US$23.01. My friend said she wanted to walk around a bit and check for some other food options, so we temporarily parted ways. I grabbed my hot dogs and drink and tried to find a place to eat.
There are no tables or eating areas in the stadium (which I guess makes sense, because that wouldn’t be an optimal use of the space). I tried to sit down somewhere so I could eat, but every time I sat down, a stadium employee would come up to me and ask to see my ticket to ensure that I had purchased the use of that seat. I kept on trying to sit down in seats that were not mine, so I kept getting turned away.
So you might be wondering at this point, why didn’t I just go straight to my own seat? Well, including not receiving any information about the tour or game, my friend also did not send me a copy of my ticket. The tickets were in her digital wallet, and I literally had not seen them, so I didn’t even know where my seat was. I texted her letting her know that she had doomed me, but she did not respond for a little while, so I was just standing in the hallway awkwardly holding two hot dogs and a drink for several minutes.
When I did finally get a copy of my ticket and the location of my seat, I found out that they were booked way in the back, apparently in the “nose bleed” section. This involved going on a literal hike up many flights of stairs (still with my two hot dogs and drink in hand) to get to my seat.
I eventually made it to my seat and unwrapped my hot dogs, just to discover that they had about half the girth that I was expecting. Considering the quite small volume of the hot dogs, I finished them fairly quickly and was left sitting there for another hour and a half before the game was scheduled to start. I pulled out my phone to reply to emails and messages during the wait.
Here are some photographs (with maximum optical zoom on my camera, and then further cropped pre-export) of the field.
A bit before they started playing, they did some pre-game activities, such as calling in a bunch of Hello Kitty fans and running a round of trivia.
Eventually, Hello Kitty came out to throw the first pitch.
Once the game started, I got a little bored and went to get some more food.
After walking shoulder-to-shoulder in hallway congestion and standing in a line for what I believe was around half an hour, I finally purchased an all-beef hot dog, garlic fries in a helmet-shaped souvenir bowl, and a large soft drink in a souvenir cup for US$37.86. I didn’t actually want any of the souvenir items, but those versions of those items were the only ones they had available at that particular concession booth, and I didn’t want to wait in a new line all over again.
Apparently the Dodgers were doing quite well, including a back-to-back home run (or something close to it). The crowd was very frequently very excited.
Around the sixth inning, I decided to get some dessert. I headed back out into the concession area, only to discover that everyone else (including on every other floor of the stadium) had the same idea that I did. The shortest line I could find to a dessert concession was about 300 people long. I ate a grand total of zero dessert, though I guess that’s fine, because I had already spent US$60.87 on food so far anyway.
My friend wanted to leave early as to not get stuck in the traffic and congestion of people exiting the stadium after the game, so we departed during the seventh inning.
This was my first time ever going to a baseball stadium on a general admission ticket, and it was an absolutely miserable experience. I genuinely cannot comprehend how people manage to not go insane in this environment. Dodger Stadium is not built to accommodate even half the attendees as the number of seats available in the stadium.
I later looked up the cost of getting a suite or other private area at Dodger Stadium to watch the baseball game and discovered that it was fairly affordable—far cheaper than what you’d expect at a stadium or venue in Las Vegas where I’m used to. Of course, in order to split the cost and make the price reasonable, you would have to put in the extra effort to gather up a group of friends to share the suite with you, but I’d rather do that and watch the game with 10-20 other friends rather than tens of thousands of sweaty, smelly strangers. On top of that, suites come with some decent-looking catering options where I could’ve literally gotten an entire tasting menu for only a few dollars more than how much I paid for my hot dogs, fries, and drinks (with no refills).
If you know me, you probably know that I am very flexible and somewhat indifferent person, and although I have certain strong preferences, I am generally adaptable to most situations. Thus, for me to reach this level of frustration, you know that things had to be mismanaged pretty badly—both on our side and on the venue’s side.
If you are a huge baseball fan, extremely patient, and on a very tight budget, then this might make sense for you. However, at least for me (and I am fully aware that I probably sound extremely spoiled right now), this was a mildly torturous experience. To be clear, I don’t regret having gone one time just to have the first-hand understanding of what it’s like. But in the future, I will most likely never watch a sporting event in general admission again, or at least, not in a stadium as inefficient and unaccommodating as one in Los Angeles.
This all happened yesterday, and somehow, I still feel dehydrated.
