Tuesday-Thursday

Lesson to bloggers/travelers: write about your experiences frequently and soon after the event. You may think no one cares about the stupid stuff you do, but you will care and want to remember those things down the road, because honestly you will forget things. This is only two weeks later and I'm trying to remember what I did midweek that week.

Tuesday I woke up and took Myongfa to the airport bus. She was very appreciative of my help and called me from Japan to say thanks. She was cool to hang out with. We talked about what its like being ethnic Korean and living in Japan. We talked about the differences in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese culture/lifestyles and we talked about ultimate. She helped out with Dream Cup in Japan so she got to see Sockeye and Fury visit their. Ultimate is huge in Japan.

After that it was raining so I kind of just kicked it in a web bar for a while. I watched some music videos, facebooked, added friends that I met at the tournament etc. I bummed around at Jim's and decided to go meet Joe for Thai food near his house. The food was good, but a mistake. I went to pickup that night, and after a few points of 4v4 make it take it on a small turf field, my stomach was burning and I was in some pain. Oh well. We went to a joint across the street for food/beer. Most of us including me were just on the beer side of that deal which caused Sandy to leave when she found out most of us weren't eating. Weird. Jim ordered a monstrous plate of stir fry, you could hear it sizzling from the other room. 

Wednesday I forget what I did during the day but that night I travelled out to WuDaoKou and met Lincoln, Camilla, and some of Lincoln's classmates for hotpot. I'm not a big fan of hotpot. Numerous reasons: you have to order a ton of food because it kind of shrinks when you cook it and it takes forever to eat and fill up at all, Lincoln's friends ordered a bunch of weird foods, like tongues, necks, stomachs, etc., and one time I was eating hotpot and I splashed a bunch of the oil on my shorts and it left a stain forever. But it tastes good. At this place it was really expensive, about 90 RMB or $12 a person. The beer was too expensive (20 kuai!) so we didn't order any. So we rallied back at the patio out front of the BLCU dorm, Lincoln and I loaded his backpack up with 12 beers for 30 kuai from the local produce store, and proceeded to sit with his classmates and drink a bunch. We drank a lot in fact, it was mostly Lincold and I, but I think the classmate that went to "uni" in London put down his fair share. Two female classmates showed up, one was Mary Ann, a Hong Kong Chinese girl from UMichigan. She will never read this blog so I will say that she was quite cute. 

On Thursday I woke up late and decided to go for a swim. There is a pool across the street from Jim's apartment. I paid my money and was about to get in the pool when the lifeguard yelled at me and said I needed a swimming cap. So I had to buy a swimming cap right there for 10 RMB. I swam for a while. On my way out of the pool I met up with Meg. I changed clothes and we went shopping. 

I told Meg that I wanted to buy a pair of khaki shorts. So she claims she knows the exact place to go. She takes me to this shopping plaza full of stores full of real funky punk rockerish fashionable clothes, like a lot of teens and young adult Chinese are wearing these days. Not my thing. I told Meg that I wanted to look like a 40 year old playing golf. So she takes me to this mall across the street. Its a real upscale but lacking any customers place, full of stores full of of quite pricey clothes. Italian kind of stuff that I've never heard of. Not my thing. I told Meg that I wanted to go to a place that a poor person would go to, or someplace that a working person would go to to get a straight up pair of shorts. Alas no luck.

So we ventured off for dinner to this street full of restaurants. Outside of one place this waiter was vocally advertising his restaurant to people passing by. He saw me and said "We have English menu". I decided that after countless Chinese people had complimented me on my quite poor Chinese abilities, I would finally return the favor. I told him that "your English is very good!". He flashed an embarrassed smile and we continued on. We ended up at this place that Meg claimed she had been to, called 串吧, Chuan Ba, which translates to Kebob Bar. Lots of things on sticks. We ate a lot lamb, some chicken, a few oysters, and a pot full of crayfish. It was good. 

It was late so we took a cab to my part of town where we said goodbye. Meg was leaving for her hometown on Friday for the Dragon Boat holiday, so I wouldn't see her again.

Party, Sunday of Nationals and some more

Doc, Lincoln, Aaron and I got on the bus headed for the tournament hotel Saturday afternoon. We got there, spent a while arguing with a hei che driver and found another one to take us to these public showers. We showered and rolled over to the tournament dinner; two restaurants next to each other. One was a classic Chinese place, the other was a Xinjiang place. After sitting down at the empty Chinese place, we realized the action was over at the Xinjiang place, where, naturally, Air Kazak and our Beijing friends had already started the festivities. Xinjiang food is great anyways.

Tao and Joe were trying to out-chug each other, the waitress was filling our beer steins with 90% foam, Tao and Joe were singing loudly, and the roasted lamb was good and spicy. Doc ate the one vegetable dish and left. Lincoln and I were putting down decent amounts of beer. We ate our fill and wandered outside to the large area in front of the two restaurants. Everyone was energetically socializing both outside and in the Chinese restaurant, which had filled up. 

I don't remember the order of events but they contained: me talking with tipsy Chinese girls from the various Chinese teams, I was surprised at their enthusiasm for drinking, Joe jokingly breaking a bottle of Yanjing on a table and threatening a Shanghai player, who was quite intimidated, lots of people playing lots of flip cup, and one Chinese girl who had already drank too much and spilled her guts, back for more and acting extremely wasted but belligerently waving her arms everywhere trying to acquire more alcohol while her friends held her down. It was one of the more ridiculous drunken acts I've seen, honestly. (On Sunday she was sitting on the sideline with a wet towel over the back of her head). Anyways, I think we maxed our tab and Jason paid in straight cash. Jim told me not to wait around for him, he would take care of himself that night ;). It appeared that Joe was quite drunk so I got him in a cab with Zahlen and some other folks headed to bars and got us dropped off at Jim's place. Joe was unintelligible and Zahlen kept slapping him to get him to tell us where he lived. Thats why I decided to take him to Jim's.

Joe and I passed out on Jim's couches (assuming Jim would sleep in his bed that night). I woke up and started getting ready and woke Joe up to some classic Outkast from Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. Joe was feeling good so we rolled out. After the tournament we all bussed to Krowe's Nest Pizza at Gongti. The pizza came out intermittently, but when it did there was a feeding frenzy to get slices, and it was some good pizza. I talked with Nut from Bangkok for a bit and listened to Chip tell some story. 

Myongfa, a Korean girl from Japan who played with Big Brother, came home with Jim and I because she needed a place to stay. Since she doesn't speak Chinese, I was her tour guide the next day.  We went to Temple of Heaven Park and walked around. That place was nice. The temples were basically like all the others I'd seen, but the park was real quiet until the Korean high schoolers on a field trip showed up, and I honestly think the air was better because of all the trees in there. So we had a peaceful walk and talk. We ventured to Wangfujing in search of some food. I was hoping to find some better noodle soup, but oh well. Myongfa met with Jim and I departed, off to the coffee shop to meet Laura and Wang Ran.

We ate at a Xinjiang restaurant (it never gets old). Laura is actually from Xinjiang (she's Han Chinese though). And this night would be goodbye for us, she had to head home the next day for her cousin's wedding. She is going to do a master's program at a university in Sweden for two years. We talked about that and I tried to help her with her visa paperwork. I hung out for a while, but was at a loss for words. It was kind of sad because all three of us acknowledged that we didn't know when we would see each other again given our plans/obligations for the next few years. I like the both of them, and have especially liked Laura but nothing romantic ever came about. (I needed a wingman). I told them that I was able to see them again twice after saying goodbye so far, so I'm sure we will meet again. Maybe Laura will come visit from Sweden? Anyways, I gave Laura and Wang Ran a kiss on the cheek and rode a cab home. 

China Nationals 2008

I woke up Saturday morning after consuming a fair amount of beer the night before, but luckily I had stopped by the 7-11 on the way home and picked up a 2 Liter of water and it was by my bed. When my alarm went off the coin flipped the right way and I felt ready to roll. Jim and I hit the road and it took us a while to get to the fields. We talked on the subway and it turns out his dad did NROTC and was a sub nuke guy. 

We got to the fields and they were on a sod farm and the grass was the best I'd seen in Beijing, let alone in my entire spring season that year. People started slowly arriving at the fields because some were just arriving in Beijing that morning. When all of the teams had assembled it was interesting. There were the usual expat teams that I had grown accustomed to playing in Asia. Beijing Big Brother was broken into two squads, Big Brother Ugly Trolls and Big Brother Hot 'n Sexy. I was on the sexy team. Then there was Shanghai, who had also split into two squads. There was another new team from Beijing, all of Chinese people, some local, some foreign.  

Then there were a bunch of Chinese teams from various universities that had been introduced to ultimate within the past two years. These teams were composed of lots of students, ranging from completely inexperienced girls or guys wearing casual pants and sneakers to athletic dudes with throws. Of note were Tianjin Speed, a team from the Tianjin Sports University and Air Kazak, a team composed of Kazak and Afghan looking dudes from the minorities university in Beijing.  

Playing against the Chinese teams was interesting. The girls seemed to outnumber the guys, and they would sit at one end of the field during the game (as opposed to on the sidelines). They didn't seem to be that into the game, but would occasionally start very loud and enthusiastic cheers (Tianjin jia you!). And after some points, one of the girls would go off the field exhausted and another one would take her place. I tried telling them that if they sat on the sidelines they could see the game better and get more involved in the game. They seemed to acknowledge the idea but didn't act on it. Oh well. I was however, building some decent popularity amongst various females just for talking to them and throwing with them.

I'll talk about the tournament party in my next post. Sunday:

Of note though were the Tianjin Speed and Air Kazak teams, who would face off in the finals of the Nationals portion of the tournament. Saturday was just a round robin to get every team 4 games against a mix of expat and Chinese teams. Then on Sunday they split off the Chinese teams for their own bracket to determine a National Champion. Air Kazak were the reigning champs after the inaugural Natties last year. My team had played both teams on Saturday, and both were surprisingly athletic and some of the players had decent throws. We easily handled both due to having tons more experience. And its not like we aren't athletic.  

Anyways, the finals. I predicted Air Kazak would win due to a size advantage and what seemed to be a decent offense when we played them. They would send the 2 girls to the other endzone making it 5 on 5, then they would run a lot of mid range shorty cuts and move the disc very quickly. Air Kazak started the game on a strong note and quickly gained a commanding lead and it looked like it was going to be a blowout. The Tianjin team was very aggressive, too aggressive for their throwing ability and Air Kazak capitalized off many turnovers.  

Going into half I rooted for Tianjin just to see a good game. And come back they did. They strung off a bunch of breaks in a row to tie the game and go up a few. At this point it looked like they would continue all the way and take the game. The play was interesting to watch, it was a step above typical intramural ultimate because they had better throws, but they still are extremely risky with their throws and rush everything. So its fast play with lots of turnovers. Good for spectators! Anyways, Air Kazak stopped the bleeding and starting scoring a few in a row to tie the game up. All in all it came to 12-12 with a hard cap at 13, Universe Point! If I remember correctly, Tianjin almost scored for the win, but turned it over in a rush. Then Air Kazak marched down the field and threw for what they thought was a score and started celebrating.  

But I was down there by the endzone and the receiver was obviously straddling the out of bounds line. The Tianjin team started objecting to him being OB, and I told them that if they thought he was out they needed to call him out. So they did and Zahlen (kind of acting as an observer) set them straight and gave Tianjin the disc on the goal line going the other way. Fortune did not favor them however, as within 1 or 2 throws they turned it over very close to their goal, and Air Kazak picked it up immediately and threw a quick score for the win and to retain their national title. They were ecstatic and Tianjin Speed was quite heartbroken and sort of emotional. But hey, they have good players and losing sucks, you just have to remember that feeling and use it to motivate you to work hard enough to win next year.

So yeah, China Nationals was cool. It was cool seeing so many new players and the progress they've made. It was cool seeing "Ultimate in 10 Simple Rules" from the UPA printed on a big poster in Chinese. And it was cool seeing all these Chinese teams rocking fly Five Ultimate jerseys that Zahlen donated to all of them. And it was cool playing with my friends from a few years ago and with new people. They all commented that I had improved a ton. I told them that all I do at home is play ultimate.

Visiting Friends

So I woke up at noon on Thursday because I was real tired from the day before. I called up Meg and went and ate lunch with her. This meal was really good and it reminded how good real Chinese food is. We ordered one of my favorite dishes; gan bian dou jiao/ gan bian siji dou. Its green beans fried with pork and lots of peppers and spices. Its real good. After that I basically went to meet two other girls on the other side of the city for dinner. Laura and Wang Ran were good friends of mine and we used to hang out a lot. We met for Dai food, the Dai are a minority in southern China, Yunnan province. I really love that food as well, its got a unique taste and is very spicy. After that we hung out at a friend of their's coffeeshop. On Friday I met back up with Laura and we watched Ironman in a theater. After that we met Wang Ran for dinner at a Xinjiang restaurant. Xinjiang is at the far western edge of China. Basically California if Beijing is New York. Native Xinjiang folk are of the Uighur race and look more like Afghans and Kazaks than Chinese. They are Muslim, and their food is composed of lots of spicy lamb and fried bread. Again, it is one of my cuisines of choice. Again, we went and hung out at the friend's cafe, this time one of their guy friends was there and we encouraged each other to drink a lot of beer. On Saturday is the China Open aka China Nationals. I'm pretty excited to play and it should be fun.

The Return of the G

Yeah so I came back to China. I was looking at my summer and decided I
wanted to go to Beijing but had to wait until my NROTC cruise was
assigned to decide. I found out that would be June 21 - July 18. I
have to be back in Charlottesville in early August for O-Week so that
ruled out any possibility of seeing the Olympics, and I decided I
should definitely go play Wildwood with the boys in late July. So that
left the next few weeks until Devon's graduation to do something.

So I pulled the trigger on a round trip ticket to Beijing from
Richmond, made a fake reservation at the Swissotel in Beijing for 12
days and waited nervously as I overnight Fedexed my passport and visa
application to DC for some travel company to get me a Chinese visa.

I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with myself for the 13
days in Beijing. Would I stay in Beijing the whole time? All I knew
was that there was pickup on Wednesday night when I showed up, and the
China Open ultimate frisbee tournament would be that weekend. I told a
few Chinese female friends that I was coming, so I would have to
figure out how to split my time between them.

I'm going to write this as if I'm still there and its Wednesday night.

The flight was uneventful. Watched Charlie Wilson's War, listened to
my iPod, read Ultimate Tactics & Techniques. I arrived at the airport
and made it through immigration! All nervousness relieved (my passport
had no visa pages left, luckily they will stamp on the amendments
page) , I was in China. And at the baggage claim my bag was there!
Better than last time! A girl named Meg met me at the airport. I had
had a sort of romantic 1 month long relationship with Meg after she
asked for my number on the subway. She was a little too dramatic and
obsessed with love for me, but I've talked with her casually online
for a while so I figured I'd tell her that I was coming to China.

I told her I was meeting people to play ultimate that night, so she
was disappointed I wouldn't eat dinner with her. We rode the airport
bus into the city and split up. On the ride I didn't really have much
to say and it felt really awkward. The two issues aren't related, but
I started to wonder what I was doing in China. I just dropped a ton of
money to come hang out in a city for less than two weeks. Anyway, we
parted and I told her I'd get in touch with her later. At this point I
had no Chinese SIM card and walking alone on the street, so it wasn't
until I bought a new SIM card and got in touch with Jim Kirchhoff that
I felt like I was going to have a good week and not wander the streets
alone.

Jim was meeting folks to play disc golf (frolf) at Chaoyang park
before pickup. I took a taxi there, bought some beers to show up with,
and found Jim with some folks and was warmly welcomed back to Beijing.
Jim was with Char, Joe, and Tao. They were impressed that I would just
take a 2 week vacation to Beijing. We played some frolf, Jim and Joe
were slowly/quickly getting drunk as we played, and it made for some
good entertainment for the Chinese at the park as well.

Sandy Wang, a Chinese girl, another friend from the Beijing Ultimate
old guard (aka folks I knew in 2005), picked us up in her car and took
us to pickup. We played pickup at a turf soccer complex in the city,
it had a bunch of small 5v5 soccer turfs. Zahlen Titcomb and Jason Cox
were there. Pickup was fun, I got really excited for the upcoming
China Nationals tournament. Afterwards we walked to a restaurant and
ate Korean Bibimbop and of course drank beers. Some things never
change and those meals after ultimate were my favorite times of my
2005-2006 China endeavor. I went back to Jim's apartment where I was
going to be staying and then proceeded to sleep until noon. I was
tired and had been up for about 30 hours.