Daegu

Well, it was a misadventure in Daegu. I only completed 2 of my goals (drops and the drinking game). The weather was horrid. It rained the whole day and the field's were just mud puddles mixed with sand. The field still managed to be uneven. We lost our first game and I blame that on a lack of communication and cohesiveness considering we haven't played together in 3 weeks. A high point was our injured players coming back to the field which gave us a huge boost after we suffered another injury. By the end of the second game, which we won, I was soaked to the bone, my cleats were completely brown and I just wanted to find somewhere warm and out of the wind.

After the games we checked into a cheap love motel and showered up. The best feeling of the weekend was definitely putting on clean socks after my shower. The night went really well, dinner was scrumptious, and the after party at MF (My Favourite) Bar was awesome. Like I said in my last post there's a real sense of community in the realm of Ultimate and I got to talk to a stand-up guy who we beat in our second game with no animosity just jokes and compliments about the game and its conditions.

Mini-shuffleboard is a very popular game in bars in Korea along with the typical games like billiards, Foosball and darts. This is where I won a drinking game with a person from another team, and it was a pretty convincing win too, to be fair the guy on my side was neck deep in tequila at this point. We traveled home at some point in the AMs played some card games, then said some stuff that didn't make sense, and passed out.

Once we were all up and cradling our heads myself and my fellow Busanites went back to the same place we had dinner and that was a horrible choice for a number of reasons. First of all there was this collection of rugby players who were drinking like tailgaters and their smell made my hangover that much worse. Silver lining: their presence also made me realize I will have to go back home eventually and avoid the life of the lowly drunk bachelor working in Korea. The second problem was they had one guy working in the kitchen and obviously could not cook all of our food in one go. The wait was over an hour. People started cancelling their orders because they just wanted to get back home. Finally when I got my food, it was disgusting and cold. I asked for the Truck-stop special which was a little bit of everything, an then some more garbage: runny over-easy eggs, oily french toast, cold crispy bacon that could chip your teeth, dense pancakes, average toast, and plain french fries (with no vinegar!). I couldn't even eat it all. The floorboards were bending underneath my seat by the time I was too full to finish the rest. The train home was relaxing and super scenic. It really was a shame the Sunday games were cancelled because it was a beautiful day.

This trip to Daegu was pretty awful in terms of my expectations but one thing I don't take for granted is the high spirits of my captains and teammates which made this trip tons of fun. Now I'm counting the days until our next one!