First, an interesting note about the communist aspect of China: All blogging websites are blocked, but I guess this found a loophole. I was trying to figure out why it is that I can post on the blog, but not actually see it, and that is apparently the reason. China as a nation blocks almost any website address with the word "blog" in it as well as livejournal, myspace, and similar sites, though luckily facebook isn't blocked! So I apologize if anything doesn't look great on the blog cause I actually can't see it myself until I return to the states.
Ultimate here is AMAZING. I found my way to the McDonalds we were meeting at, and immediately struck up conversation with some guys from Oberlin who know Keith (our coach last year) and some other people, all of whom were extremely impressed that I'd arrived less than 24 hours prior and was already out to play. One of the guys I met, Gabe, graduated Brown in '03, so we had a lot to talk about, though he only played ultimate there his first two years, so he barely knew anyone I know. Another one of the guys, Kevin, kinda explained everything about Beijing Ultimate to me and introduced me to everyone. He also immediately asked me to come play with their team in Shanghai next weekend. This was really exciting, as I've been reading all their posts about Shanghai for the last couple of weeks.
(Warning...about to use some Ultimate terms many of you may not understand) We were playing a mini-hat tournament where teams are attempted to be made fairly based on skill levels 1-3. There were about 30-40 people there, which is awesome, and we had four teams. All 4 teams finished 1-1 after the first two games, so it was pretty fair. My team had four women, myself and another who are pretty good and well-versed in the game, and then two girls who'd never played before. One was Chinese, didn't really speak English, and showed up in khaki capris and a t-shirt, and the other was American, relatively athletic, and wearing exercise clothes. The other good girl on my team hurt herself after the 2nd point, and the Chinese girl had a hard time keeping up cause she wasn't in great shape, so we ended up vaguely playing savage most of the time, and I soon after started handling almost every point with two of the guys. The biggest issue I had was that noone was running any real offense, so I didn't really know where to go half the time. Later on, we started running horizontal stacks, and I was handling, so it wasn't too bad. My other issue was that about halfway through the first game, which correlated to about 4pm (4am there), jet lag suddenly hit me, and unfortunately that doesn't go well with playing savage ultimate. I got a second wind by the third game though and was fine.
After the tournament, 20 of us went out to dinner, and food kinda just kept coming, but in the end, it was only 25 kuai (about $4). That's including the 20 500ml beers we went through. I guess I chose the wrong seat cause I ended up being the one collecting everyone's money to pay, though most of you will probably read that and be like "of course you were!" They joked that it was part of my initiation. One relieving thing about all of this is that a lot of these people speak way less Chinese than I do, and they survive living here. After dinner, I got to go shower in Susannah's apartment that Andi's staying in, which felt amazing compared to my shower here.
Tomorrow, Andi and I are going to the Summer Palace, which is supposed to be gorgeous, and then I start work on Tuesday (contrary to what i was told before I left). Friday afternoon, I'm flying down to Shanghai to play in the tournament.
It's almost 2am, so I guess I should get used to going to sleep. Happy Father's day to Grandpa and Dad, and sorry I didn't get a chance to call you.
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