Shanghai China Day 2

Well, I figured it's time for me to actually talk about ultimate now.

The tournament seemed to be relatively well run and organized. One note I'd like to make about my experiences with Asian Ultimate Frisbee tournaments: they are significantly more expensive than American tournaments. You may wonder, "why are they so much more expensive in Asia if Asia is SO much cheaper than the States?" Well the answer, my friend, is double-sided.

1. Cost of field space. In the U.S. generally speaking, it is not terribly difficult to find space for 5, 10, 15, or ever 20 teams to play. There are, of course exceptions to this rule: NYC, LA, etc. But most average college campuses have enough field space to host at least 8 teams, often many more (see: College Southerns, UF's Florida Winter Classic, and NCState's wolfpack, all usually held on campus and hosting between 10 and 36 teams). In Asia, any city that is easily accesible by air (a necessity as ultimate in asia is still relatively small and hasn't penetrated beyond the largest, ex-pat laden cities throughout most of Asia) has almost now green space whatsoever. Look at Seoul for example: our team can barely find a space big enough for a single field twice per week for our practices and our small 4-team league.

2. Amenities. At a standard U.S. tournament, you will receive maybe 6-8 games, depending on performance, bagels in the morning with peanut butter, water at the fields, and one party Saturday night which consists of x number of kegs. At a standard Asian tournament you will receive a disc (and often a swag bag like I did at Bangkok hatter and Jeju-- t-shirts, water bottle, stickers, lotion, sunscreen, power powders, etc), bagels/peanut butter in the morning, a lunch on Saturday and Sunday (always quite tasty and plenty filling), Dinner on Saturday, a registration party Friday night, water during play, 6-8 games, a tournament party Saturday night (typically with all you can drink beer... sometimes more, see later Shanghai), and beer up the ass during the day at the fields. All in all, the extra 20-40 dollars I pay for the tournament fee covers every last penny I might spend at the tournament and thereby helps me to actually save money instead of spend it.

bekah and I sure are glad we didn't have to worry about food

Anyways, Shanghai was well run. The fields were nice, albeit cut a bit short and therefore a bit dead-ish and scratchy. We had 4 games on Saturday. We played Singapore Disc Knights first. We won 11-7 or so. Then we played Shanghai-B, which we won 11-1. Then we played Hong Kong, our first true test, where we won in a hard fought game 11-8 or 9. Then we played the Philippines, Sunken Pleasure.

A note about ultimate in the Philippines: Manila has probably the single best ultimate scene in Asia. The sport is exploding in popularity due to various celebrities (news anchors, models, actors) playing the sport competitively. One girl who plays for the Team Philippines is sponsored by Nike, which is possibly the tightest thing ever. Another guy is an actor and lives in a mansion on the side of an inactive volcano. Additionally, almost all the people who play in Manila are Filipinos, which is impressive as the majority of the Asian ultimate community is ex-pat.

The Philippines team was good. They were REALLY REALLY fast. We played this team in Manila in November and got wrecked because they were so much faster. However, this year our team was greatly improved, with all of our best players present, and we won the game 11-7 or so.

Because we won our pool, we got a first-round bye the next morning, which was awesome.

Saturday night we went to the party extremely briefly because it kind of sucked. However, it should be noted that each team received two bottles of liquor (vodka and whiskey). Plus unlimited beer. Our team didn't really use hardly any of our supply. Instead, we went out and walked around a bit through the fancy shopping district near the party. Chanel, Coach, Ferragamo, Fendi. I was in 7th heaven. I just wanted to buy everything.

Shanghai China Day 1

Today was my first full day back in Korea after my too-short trip to China.

Frankly before going, I wasn't all that excited about going to China. I've never really been that interested in going, but now, having gone, I'd like to go back. Besides, everything is so cheap that why not?

Anyways, to recount my time:

Friday: I left school early and took the bus to the airport. Got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Me and another guy on my team were on the same flight. Our flight was about 20 minutes earlier than almost everyone else in our group who had gotten a group ticket booked. So, we went through security after agreeing to meet near the baggage claim at Shanghai's Pudong Airport. The flight was just under three hours, which Mike and I spent talking about a whole slew of things. We arrived at the airport, and went through security without any hassle. Mike bought some bourbon at the duty-free shop, and we sat down by the immigration counters and waited for our friends. After checking the boards we saw that two different flights from seoul/incheon (in addition to our own) had landed. We figured the one after ours had to be the right flight, so we waited and waited. Still no friends. After continuing to wait nearly an hour, we were severely confused. Where are our friends? Did they collectively miss the flight? HOW? We finally asked someone at an information booth (which was incredibly difficult to find, by the way), and then we discovered that there were in fact two terminals, each with domestic and international flights, which is completely counter-intuitive and annoying. We had figured that they had left, but went to terminal two to try to figure out. There was no sign of our team so a woman helped us get into a taxi which took us to our hotel.

Now, at the hotel, the Jinjiang Inn, there was a nice gentleman who spoke only a very little English. We indicated that we were with the Korean frisbee team and would like to check-in to our rooms. The clerk kindly asked us for the password. "Password?" I asked, "I don't have a password." He looked bewildered as he asked incredulously, "you don't have a password?" Now hopefully my frisbee team hadn't already checked in and left Mike and I stranded by making up a password that I didn't know. "KUPA" I said hopefully, thinking maybe they had chosen the name of our ultimate association. The clerk just looked at me in disbelief.

We asked to call a contact we had at the Shanghai tournament. Upon calling, I said to him, "the front desk clerk is asking for a password." The TD replied, "Password? What password? Just say Korean frisbee" which we had already done twice. He asked to speak to the desk clerk. They spoke in Chinese for a short time and he was put back on the phone with me. "Password? I thought you said password! Sorry. Just give them your password and you'll be fine." Wait, excuse me? Did I misunderstand? Is this gentleman telling me to give them the password that I already told him I don't have? What the hell? "I don't have a password." I reply calmly. "YOU DON'T HAVE A PASSWORD?" he asks in shock. At this point I began to wonder if I had mysteriously entered some kind of fourth dimension of three stooges whose on first routine. "No, I don't have a password, how can I get my room?" I ask nervously. "Well, if you don't have your password, you'll have to go to the police station." he said. "THE POLICE STATION??" I practically yell into the receiver. Mike, in the

HELLLLL YES!

SHANGHAI TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS!!

대한민국!!

Holy crap, it's so exciting.

Details to come tomorrow. Maybe pictures (not from the tournament).