The Adventures of Lstan: Shanghai Ultimate Tournament 2011

This weekend I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to play with the Korean Ultimate Nation Team for a tournament in Shanghai, China (not to mention my first time at an international competition!). Teams from all over Asia attended to join in for a jam packed weekend of ultimate.

Korean Ultimate National Team 2011

The weekend started early Saturday morning when I flew out with two teammates to meet up with the rest of the teams on the field. In an unfortunate turn of events, one of my teammates was refused entry into China and promptly deported because he arrived without a visa (Thank goodness I had just rush ordered my Chinese visa a week earlier, and after an insane amount of stressing out, received my passport back 12 hours before my flight).

Saturday was a blur- we arrived just as the first game of the morning ended, so by the time we got to the field we had missed the first game, where we lost against M.I.T (Taiwan.. maybe?)

We played 3 more games that day:

Korea vs Shiok (Singapore)
Korea vs Bora (Phillipines)
Korea vs HuWa (Shanghai)

...and we won all of them! Each game was really tough, with points being traded throughout for close finishes.

Saturday night was the official party, but I was so tired from the day that I could barely keep my head up. That night I slept like a rock.

On Sunday morning we got up at 8:00am to get ready for our first game. Game was against Singapore. Spent the first half pretty matched, going into the half with them in the lead. The second half we evened the scores and went on to secure the win. On to the semi finals!

For our last game, we played against a tough team from Beijing. First half we finished trailing by a couple of points, but unfortunately ran out of steam in the second half of the game for a disappointing loss. Beijing went on to win the tournament, beating out Manila in the finals. We ended up tied for 3rd with Boracay (the team which we beat on Saturday). Hooray!

After that was all finished, we drank, danced, traded jerseys, and nursed sore legs. Another great tournament weekend full of stiff competition, friendly people, and great memories!