Shanghai

Greetings all-
I'm writing from a California, after the longest tuesday I've ever experienced. I left Beijing at 4pm today and after a 12 hour flight, I arrived at noon. Today. That's a 40 hour tuesday. Ugh. Jetlagged and exhausted, I'm going to kill a little time by recapping the weekend.

So- Shanghai was great. The tournament and party, that is. The weather was awful, hot, humid, dense, wet, sluggish, muggy... the cloud cover gave the illusion of a cloudy day, and many of us went home sun burnt.

BUT WE PLAYED ULTIMATE! And a bad day playing ultimate is better than any other day at work. I can confirm this, as I played terrible in those conditions on saturday but still wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Big Brother went 3-1 the first day in the "power pool", which was very respectable. BeiBling, the B team went 4-0 in it's "kiddiepool". We all felt good and it was time to head to the party. The theme: Conspiracy. Our costume: MONOPOLY!

I got to represent my home state...

The bus ride down was a party by itself. We had some beers and a bottle of Baijiu, literally white wine, but really, terrible, terrible grain alcohol.

Fortunately, Tao broke the bottle of Baijiu on the bus, so no one actually had to drink that rancid beverage. Tao will belittle me for publicly knocking it, but really, it is a horrible drink.

Unfortunately, he bought two more bottles when we arrived at the party. And then there was the party. Note: the pics of Chris and I and Chirona and I are from Chirona's camera.

That last picture requires a little explanation. Molly and, um, that other guy, eventually licked Joe's nipples. Not because they wanted to, but because they had to. It was the penalty for talking to Joe while he had a hotel on his property. Now, it's true that he's only wearing one green hat, which equals one house. But i wasn't going to say anything. It was hilarious and it needed to happen. And so after the party chaos, we took the inevitable bus home. Which, again, was mayhem. One should never give Joe nunchucks after midnight, especially when drinking. Conversely, one should always give me delicious noodles after midnight, especially when drinking.

Sunday frisbee was pretty great, we only had 2 games because we lost in the semifinals to the Philippines Team from Manila. They were incredible. Apparently they've been playing together for a few years but weren't anything special until now. They really hit us hard and just worked harder. Everyone of their players was very athletic, had great throws, and were really smart. Their women, all nine of them, were all some of the best i'd seen anywhere, the US included. We traded points with them for a while, but they beat us 13-8, and pretty decisive victory. They met Shanghai in the finals and this was, without a doubt, probably the most entertaining game i've ever watched. I could not believe the quality and intensity that every point had. Every play was spectacular. Shanghai won 15-13, but Manila was leading almost the entire game until 13-13.

These first three bids were between the same two guys during one point.

Rediculous game and a great weekend. We are all excited about the tournament in Manila this November. Hooray for asia ultimate!

~Kev