Jeju Pictures (Part 1)

View of the Ocean from the Hotel

Dinner, Pre-Rubix Chaos

Kevin doing what he does best

Post-changing Orange Fashion Show

Shanghai Seven

Throwing Action ShotPost-tournament Team Photo

- Jon

Heavy is the head that eats the crayons...

(One of my favorite quotes from the most recent 30 Rock episode)

It's been an eventful week or so. I've been a bit behind on the writing, but I'll try to just keep plugging along.

This past Sunday was one of my favorite days in Shanghai. Things started out in the morning with a cooking lesson from Phil's Mom. Emma and I subwayed over to Line 3 and met Phil at the train station. After a short walk through the pleasant early summer weather, we arrived at Phil's house and started cooking immediately. We all hung out in the kitchen while Phil's Mom began cooking. She taught us how to many tons of amazing Chinese dishes (hong shao niu rou, some crazy tofu wheat gluten thing, delicious monster shrimps, yummy lima-like beans). Emma was taking notes on the process and I was scribbling down all sorts of nonsense in Chinese. It was actually a pretty hilarious conversation to follow. I'd ask for the Chinese name for some sort of mushroom and Phil's Dad would tell me and then I'd write down the characters and ask some other question. Phil'd Dad would respond in Chinese (and sometimes Shanghainese) and I'd try to keep up with the conversation (Phil would back me up with English translations whenever necessary). It was a lot of fun just sitting in the kitchen and chatting! The meal itself was also amazing and Phil's parents were amazing hosts! Emma and I are going to invite them all over some time for a big Italian dinner. Everybody wins :)

After this glorious Chinese feast/cooking lesson we all made our way over to the Century Park fields for a 4-hour frisbee fest. Teams from Nanjing and Ningbo joined us for a 5-team friendly round robin. The weather was perfect and it was great to run around. Nothing like a little sunny frisbee after lunch :) It was awesome to have so many people from the Nanjing and Ningbo areas join us too. Their teams are really making progress and rapidly developing skills. It's great to see!

A good day isn't complete without a trip to the Dong Bei Ren restaurant for some cheap eats and cold beer. The food service was a bit slow (we arrived at 8pm which is too late apparently), but there was plenty of beer and lots of fun drinking games were played. My favorites involved overlapping hands slapping the table and counting games (which are surprisingly difficult when not played in your native language...)

All in all, a very successful day!

- Jon

Jeju: Part II (Frisbee)

There were all sorts of horror stories regarding the Jeju weather. Before we left for Jeju, veterans of the tournament told me stories of 35 mph winds in years past (wind is the bane of a frisbee player's existence). Luckily, the sun was shining and the skies were calm from Saturday morning until the end of the tournament. In fact, I don't think I could have asked for better weather. It was glorious!

I've been to tons of frisbee tournaments in a handful of countries and Jeju stands out in my mind as one of my favorites. The whole tournament is organized by the local Korean government and they cover all expenses for the weekend. They also provide shuttles from the hotel to the fields, delicious Korean lunches (kimchi be damned), and even provide alcohol and food at the party. The games were played on fields that were used when South Korea hosted the World Cup. It's actually kind of unbelieveable. Frisbee players aren't used to getting that kind of official sanction or support.

The tournament facilities and organization were top-notch, but there was a lot of other great things about this tournament. I like the idea behind Gnarly 9's tournaments. (For the non-frisbee players out there: Gnarly 9's are tournaments where each team is limited to 9 players. These tournaments place a special emphasis on endurance and team chemistry.) 9's tournaments force teams to come together and play as a unit. It is a great way to develop team chemistry on the field and I thought that our team did a great job of that this weekend. It was also pretty sweet to play a greater variety of teams. We played teams from China, Korea, and Japan. There was even a team from Guam at the tournament! The frisbee scene in Shanghai is great, but its really nice to see the whole international frisbee community in action.

I don't want to go on too long about the tournament because its over and done with now, but I feel like I should give the readers some sort of report so here goes... The first day consisted of 4 pool play games. We played a Japanese team and 2 tough Korean teams (during one of the Korean games I caught a forearm to the face while marking a huck giving me a nice black eye) and Beijing. Things were pretty messy in the first game, but we rolled to an easy victory (11-2 or so). The next game started off badly with the Korean team getting ahead of us, but at 4-2 we started hitting out stride and didn't look back. I think it was good for our team to go down a bit early in the tournament because it forced us to figure things out offensively (and prompted our effective to switch to vert stack). We ended that game and the next one with decisive victories at 11-6 before playing Beijing. This was a fun game to play in because it contrasted the differing styles of the two Chinese teams. Beijing is full of smaller guys (who have very good throws) and the Shanghai team is full of big runners (who can't throw to save their lives). We set the tone early in this game with some pretty aggressive D and lots of big hucks and rolled to an 11-6 win. It was a satisfying victory! On Sunday we finished up pool play against a team from Jeju Island and then faced Evil HuWa (Shanghai's second team) in the quarterfinals. It was fun to play both of those teams, but the best game of the day came in the semis against a very good Japanese team. I don't remember too many details from this game, but I do remember that both teams played really well. The IKU team took half around 7-5, but we stormed back in the second half to take the game around 13-11. It was a great comeback and I enjoyed the game immensely. Unfortunately, we met a much fresher Korean team in the finals and fell to them 13-7 or so (I cramped up at 4-4 in this game). On a whole, it was a great weekend for frisbee :)

Pictures will follow shortly. I'm still going through the 4398we849854789 pictures taken by Kevin!

- Jon

Tianjin Continued

Post award ceremony, our exhausted Shanghai Hobo/Baijiu heroes jumped on the Beijing bus and joined all tournament participants at a restaurant. We parked ourselves at a big corner table, started eating lots of delicious Chinese food, and opened up a crate of free beer (thank god for sponsorship). The food was amazing and the beer flowed like...beer. No more than 15 minutes go by before we are informed by the Beijing players next to our table that we are being involved in a game. I like to call this game - drink the beer. Anyways, the idea is that any time a cap is thrown into your glass you are obliged to drink. Basically, this means that a veritable hail of caps are being flung back and forth between tables and lots of beer is being consumed. The recipe for a good party :)

I don't want to get into many more details for the night, except to list these highlights:

1) Watching Burrowes and Phil drink in the beer frisbee race. Who knew a 120 lb man could drink so much?
2) Joe being hilarious and ridiculous. I also believe he showed a group of girls his PA.
3) All the MVPs being told to take their shirts off to accept their awards. Jeff's band-aid enhanced nipples were particularly hilarious.

After all of this nonsense, we jumped back on the party bus and headed to Beijing. I don't remember too much from the bus except that I had a great time and left almost all of my belongings on the bus (luckily, they were recovered by Beijing players)...

More Beijing adventures to follow soon...

- Jon
P.S. To read more about Tianjin or Asian Ultimate in general check out Tao's blog (one of many) at http://china-ultimate.blogspot.com/search/label/Tianjin%20tournament

Tianjin Madness

I'm back in Shanghai now after an eventful weekend. I'm going to break things up into pieces (mostly because I'm too lazy to write it all out at once). Things kicked off on Friday night when I met up with 6 other silly Shanghai frisbee players in the train station... We packed into our overnight train and we were off! The train ride to Tianjin was pretty uneventful. Mostly it consisted of us trying to play cards in the dining car and being told that we weren't allowed... Who does that?

After a relatively tame night, our train arrived arrived in Tianjin at 6am. We were disgorged into what can only be described as a smoggy haze enveloping the entire city of Tianjin. The pollution was incredible. There was no sunrise or sunset - just reddish, hazy dawn and dusk. We enjoyed some of Mr. Li's Beef Noodles at the train station and trekked over to the fields (stopping in a park on the way to play hackeysack/badminton with old people.) It was ridiculous how many old people were out and about at the crack of dawn. Why do old people wake up so early? After a couple of distractions and a police officer running over, blowing his whistle, and giving us the "time-out" hand signal (trying to get us to stop playing catch), we made it to an industrial park. I mean industrial in every sense of the word. This park brought images of Soviet-era bloc countries and Detroit put together...

The tournament itself was pretty sweet! We picked up two girls from Beijing - Larke and Lauren (who were awesome) and played 5 games with our 9 players. We didn't play particularly well, but we had a blast playing together. We managed to eke out a victory in the finals (although none of us really know how) and were rewarded with a big trophy and gaudy official certificates from the local government. Ah, China :)

Next issue - Tianjin party and bus to Beijing...

- Jon

“This place is like Dr. Seuss’s worst nightmare."

This weekend a small group of frisbee players got together to celebrate our Team Blue fall league victory. The fall league victory wasn't really a big deal at all - we just wanted a good excuse to hang out together after frisbee was over... We all met up at Erich's (a Swedish professional disc golfer) house, chatted, drank some beers, and admired his apartment. He had an impressive bachelor pad laid out. Simple and elegant design, huge bed, jacuzzi in the bathroom, and a refridgerator filled with drinks and not a piece of food in sight. At some point, Geoff got a text from one of his friends who works at a club and was offering us each 5 free drinks. Now, I'd hang out just about anywhere if there were free drinks involved in the deal, so I was happy to pile into a cab and head over to JJ2 Lounge (or something like that). We picked up a couple of more friends here and walked into the club and it was like entering an alternate universe. I've never been in a club like this before. There was smoke swirling around the whole place, bizarre spotlights flashing all over the place, music blasting, a scantily clad dread-locked singer dancing around (and being drooled on by about 10 guys). JJ2 lounge defies description - words really can't do this place justice. The best description I could muster when I entered was turning to Robin and saying "This place looks like space." Not my best work, but funny nonetheless.

- Jon

In a minute...

Remember that PBS pre-commercial bizarre 15-second bit that went, “In a minute! In a minute! In a minute! In a minute!” ?? Letting us know that we only had to wait a (relative) minute before enjoying more Big Bird, or whatever…Anyone? Well, anyway, this post will be (should be) just as flashy: a sort of drive-by updating.

Hong Kong: Some of the weekend was pretty sweet. We all rocked out at the party, winning the prize for best group performance, and we also took in all the bright colors and drunken odors at the nearby carnival ala’ Mardi Gras. However, I was a little too ambitious: I played a bit of Ultimate and I paid the price. My back went out again, not even half way through the 2nd game. Turns out I’m not invincible. Blast! I was pretty pissed at myself for making the decision to play in the first place, and at not being able to play, and at being in stupidly horrid pain. Blah. I’m going to start seeing a Pilates/Physical Therapy expert in Shanghai, so initiative is (finally) being taken.

Halloween: Remember Halloween back in elementary school, dressing up as witches and vampires, trick-or-treating, and having a day of games and candy at school?? Awesome right? Well, when the table has turned, it becomes a royal pain of a freak show to provide the shenanigans that both kids want and teachers expect. It’s like each class is in competition to see how many stupid orange pumpkins she can hang up (which has completely killed our supply of orange paper, I’ll tell you that much). At first I was a little bitter, but I ended up getting into it. We played pin the hat on the witch, musical chairs, and mummy wrap. I even dressed up…I even made part of my costume (note the ears…and the hidden tail made of sewn cloth with a hanger and paper stuffed inside).

My cat-alicious self with some of my little munchkin wizards, witches, monkeys, skeletons, and fellow felines.

The basis for "Pin the Hat/Broom End/Feet on the Witch" that I drew. What a hideous monster I've created!

Mummy Wrap: The Pumpkin girl and the Scarecrow doing a scarily good job of mummifying their classmates.

I ended up having a great time, and came away with a sackful of candy. Bonus! Plus, later that evening we all went out (minus students…) to get free beer courtesy of our sweet costumes. Oh, the benefits of being a lao wai…

Election: HOLY MOLY!!! I am so f&*#ing glad that Obama won! I mean, this doesn’t instantly solve all of America’s or the world’s problems, but it’s surely a step in the right direction. I read an article from The Onion that my brother, Paul, brought to my attention, entitled Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress. It makes a pretty interesting, and painfully clear, point of how we can’t seem to get out of the habit of waiting until the shit really hits the fan and we’re all covered in the gross shit that we’ve, until now, tried to dump on the world…before even thinking of switching gears. Apparently, “42 percent of voters said that the nation's financial woes had finally become frightening enough to eclipse such concerns as gay marriage, while 30 percent said that the relentless body count in Iraq was at last harrowing enough to outweigh long ideological debates over abortion.” All I have to say is, puh-leez. Some Americans have - thankfully - momentarily pulled their heads out of their asses to make what in my mind was the right vote…I just hope now that the movement toward change doesn’t sacrifice “small” causes like gay marriage and women’s reproductive rights (the passing of Prop 8, banning gay marriage in California, already sends alarming shivers through my veins).

Furthermore, as Paul cautiously points out: Of course, even though Obama "kicked ass" in the election, and the "people have spoken," the vote was still something like a 52-48% split. This country is so weird. I’m with ya. America is freakin’ weird. Hopefully Obama can rally up the nation to help us really see and believe in the potential awesomeness that America has. I love ya, bro!

Over and out.
Em

P.S. Not quite drive-by in-a-minute updating…sorry…the intent was there. ☺

Vegas meets China

Hong Kong is a special place. I was only there for a weekend and I spent the vast majority of that time playing frisbee, but the little I did see shocked and intrigued me. HK seemed like a city of contradictions and odd juxtapositions. Everywhere I looked there was opulence (BMWs, mansions, Louis Vuitton (sp?) stores, etc...) and there was squalor (beggars, ghettos, etc...) When we first arrived in Hong Kong I was taken aback by the bright lights and the Vegas-like atmosphere of Kowloon. The diversity of Hong Kong's streets was a shock for the system as well. I've adjusted to Suzhou (and China in general) which is an incredibly homogenous place. I'm not sure what the actual demographics are, but everybody here is Asian (no surprise, really). This is not true in Hong Kong. There were tons of people of all different races and from all different countries walking around the streets drinking, eating, and socializing. It was like NYC. Anyways, I wish I had been able to spend more time in Hong Kong, but I'm sure that I will return to explore it later...

Here are a couple pictures from the weekend:

O-line (Sherry, Nutt, Sam, me, Robin, Sara, Jono)

Joann, Robin, and our cabbie on the way back from the fields

Emma helping me prepare my costume on the subway (who knows what I'm doing...)

The tournament was a blast. We lost to a team from the Phillipines in the semis. Our team's performance varied from nearly perfect to downright sloppy. There were definitely some flashes of brilliance and I think a lot of hope for the future. The tournament party was pretty fun too :) Highlights include a lot of couch dancing (hard to describe), Double Dragon skit, and eating a HUGE pile of McD fries in the middle of the night!

- Jon

Oh no, oh no, oh no, OH YEAH!

We recently came up with a great name for our summer league team - The Great Bluedini. We named it after the Kool-Aid flavor:


This means that we get to do one of my favorite frisbee cheers! We all gather in a circle and 3 people yell "Oh no!!!" one after the other and then we all yell together "OH YEAH!!!" It always reminds me of the Kool Aid guy busting through the wall and it makes me happy. Here is a video of the inspiration for this cheer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbaHoN3glwU&feature=related

- Jon

Ultimate Art

I was recently asked to design the Shanghai jerseys for this fall's League season, which was pretty awesome (a little stressful because it was last-minute, but a wonderful excuse to get drawing again). I posted all the sketches that were both liked-but-rejected and liked-and-accepted on my other blog that I use mostly for posting my artwork: emmasmaldino.blogspot.com.
So you should check it out and let me know what you think...comments on this blog or the other one work just fine.

Thanks!
- Em

We talkin' bout practice?

As many of you know, I can't survive without frisbee. I've spent the past two months wandering around Southeast Asia and I think that every time there was a frisbee game within 100 miles I was there. Naturally, I did a little research about frisbee here in Suzhou and found that the closest game was in Shanghai on Monday nights. With this goal in mind, Emma and I planned a short visit to the "big city" (Suzhou with its measly population of almost 6 million is considered a podunk town in these parts...) Making it from Suzhou to Shanghai necessitated mastering the Chinese train system. This is no small undertaking. Chinese train stations are bursting at the seams. They are overflowing with humanity. It's like entering a Dropkick Murphies concert in full blast... (Sidenote: why is it that tiny little ladies here have no problem elbowing me out of the way? One day I will get angry and crush one...) Anyways, here's a picture of the train station in Shanghai:


Shanghai was sweet. It was really weird to be in such a cosmopolitan city. At this point, I feel like I've adjusted to being seen as an outsider, but there are lots of Westerners in Shanghai. In fact, we saw more "waiguoren" in 10 minutes in Shanghai than we'd seen all week in Suzhou. Anyways, Shanghai is super-modern and kind of reminded me of NYC except imagine it being twice as big and having a lot more Chinese people... Here's a nice picture of the scenery in Pudong (check out the haze):


Ok, so we stayed with Charlotte (from Swat) in Shanghai and she was an amazing host. She brought us to a bunch of her favorite restaurants (I can still taste that beef soup in my dreams!), taught us lots of Chinese, and was an all-around great guide to the city. Thanks!

I'm obviously writing too much at this point, but I still have to tell you about the highlights from our trip:

1) Frisbee. We played in the Workers' Stadium from 8pm - 10pm in the pouring (acid) rain and had a blast. It was amazing to run around and play frisbee! We also got to meet lots of cool people and make a bunch of new friends :)

2) Buying tickets. Charlotte told us that one of her friends had recently watched an Olympic soccer match at the stadium, so we thought that we'd try to get tickets. We went to the stadium and started chatting with a scalper ("huangniu" in Chinese which translates to "yellow cow" - still waiting to hear why...) Anyways, we were about to buy tickets from the scalper when some other guy runs over grabs the scalper's tickets and drags him off by the collar. The scalper starts fighting back and his girlfriend even joins in and starts defending her boyfriend with her umbrella. It was quite a scene! Within 3 minutes, no less than 50 policemen arrived on the scene (this is not an exaggeration). The police response time and show of force were unprecedented. I can only imagine what happens when there is a protest... Anyways, exciting.


3) Nigeria vs. Belgium. OLYMPIC SOCCER SEMI-FINAL!!!! It was amazing! The seats were good, the soccer was great, and it was flat-out amazing to be at an Olympic event. Nigeria crushed Belgium 4-1 and it was sweet! Jai-yo!

Ok, that's it for now. I hope you're all doing well! Let me know what you think of the blog, what you want to hear more about, etc...

- Jon