Kunming

Day 35-38


As many of you might know I have many passions in my life. One of them is Ultimate Frisbee. I started playing Ultimate about 3 years ago and I have loved the game since. It is my release from just life, plus it helps me to stay in shape. This past weekend I had the opportunity to do something that not many people can claim to do, and that is to be an international ultimate player. Now to some of you that doesn’t sound too cool or interesting, but to the rest of us, it is one of the coolest things to say that I have played a tournament in China, and I got noticed.

I left for Kunming on Friday. My flight was at 20:10, so I left at 17:40. Not many of you know this, but recently I have had horrible experiences with flying (if you want to know more, ask and I might post the story). I get to Hongqiao airport and I have no idea where to go. I can’t read any of the signs, and when I go to a desk I just get rerouted to another desk and to another. I finally get checked in and get ready to board the plane. Well I have 2 hours to kill so I pop open my book, Catch-22, get a good chunk outta it and then right in front of me a lady and her child appear. The smell is horrible. Without a warning or care, she starts to change her child’s diaper right in the middle of the seats and in public. Now my smelling ability isn’t that bad, so I can stand it, but I just can’t believe what is going on. My flight gets delayed twice and we finally board…onto a bus. We are all cramped on this little shuttle bus and like sheep we are then herded off of the bus to our plane and everyone rushes to get on the plane. Now one of the best things about flying in China is the service. First we get moist toilettes, then drinks, and then a refill and then food and then another refill and another refill. The service just doesn’t stop and it is awesome. Our meal however, not so hot: Cookies (yum), Roll (ok), Apple Crisps (tasty), cake thingy (good), Instant Matsutake (disgusting sealed packaged mushrooms), moisten gula candy (mint), and last but not least, Yi Lin dried radish (disgusting sealed packaged radish)…with a hair. After 3 hours we land and I get to the hostel, The Hump Hostel, check in and go straight to bed.
I wake up the next morning around 8:30, meet some of the other ultimate people and we head to the fields. This is a hat tournament, which basically means that the teams are in a sense put in a hat and are randomized by skill. I’m on team 1, dubbed: After the Game. The sky is clear, blue, the sun is shining, and I’m already outta breath after jogging for a minute. Kunming is in the Himalayas and is about 2000m above sea level. Everyone except the locals is sucking wind and we are all easily getting sun burnt. The day goes on, we lose our first two of three games and finally win our last game. One of the greatest feelings is to have everyone who is watching the game cheer and to just get wild after an awesome play…and I had one. (To you non-ultimate players this might get confusing, sorry). We pulled to the opposition, and I started running down the field. The disc landed about halfway between the back and front of the end zone. My man was standing just in front of the front end zone line. I baited the thrower and he ate it. He threw it to my man, and I fully layed out reaching for the disc and intercepted the disc right on the goal line. 4 inches closer, and it would have been a Callahan. The crowd went wild, and I have to admit, it felt cool. The night ended with spaghetti, with garlic bread and a spicy Caesar salad with hanging out and socializing and learning the important lesson of bringing toilet paper everywhere you go in China.

The next day we played hard but lost our qualifying match by one and then beat the team we beat yesterday. I almost had another layout Callahan, but no dice. We finished 3rd, but it’s ultimate and I had too much fun and met too many cool people to even care about scores or places.

Today I went to catch my 10:35 flight around 8:00 and went to check into the airport when the lady told me that my flight was booked for March instead of February. WHAT?!?!?!?!?! I told you I have bad experiences. It gets fixed and I board the plane all right because of my two-hour cushion. For the meal I get Fish with rice, a roll, apple crisps, packaged and sealed disgusting instant matsutake again, and packaged and sealed shalom? I get back to Hongqiao airport, catch a taxi, and he doesn’t quite know where I’m telling him to go. Excellent. It takes a little longer than it should, but he gets the job done. Well Kunming was a great trip and a great experience and I have Bangkok to look forward to in about two weeks, so stay posted.