Ultimate in Bangkok

The main reason from the timing of this trip, as well as choice of Bangkok as destination was the Bangkok Hat ultimate frisbee tournament (for the non-frisbee players out there, a hat tournament is one where players sign up as individuals and the tournament directors select balanced teams. So you are playing with mostly new teammates, get to make a lot of new friends, and have a tournament with a lot of parity.)
It is one of the premiere tournaments in Asia, drawing some of the best ex-pat, as well as native players from all over. I met people living in Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka, as well as Thailand, and some extra-continental travelers including Australia, USA, and the winner of the longest distance traveled award - someone who came from his station in Antarctica. Proving again that it's a small world, I also happened to meet Moose from the UCLA ultimate community; it was quite nice to unexpectedly run into a good friend from my previous life.
The tourney itself was a lot of fun. Saturday morning I had a lot of adjusting to do. I hadn't thrown a disc in four months so I had a lot of rust to shake off in addition to adjusting to the climate. It was a sunny 35C = 95F and humid the whole week I was there. Over the course of the weekend I probably threw away a pass per game due to sweat slippage, and I don't think I ever played 3 points in a row. But damn, sometimes I can forget how much I love this game in between the now rare chances I get to play it. And the level was high, on the average team of 16 there was maybe one or two inexperienced players with better disc skills and knowledge of the game, albeit less athleticism compared to the bulk of my experience at the college level.
My own team fared decently. We ended up losing by a point in the semi-finals to the eventual champs. I got the ego boost of being told by that teams captain, and top player, that I put the toughest defense on him of anyone he faced in the tournament .. I believe the word "glove" was uttered.
So it was a couple good days running around in the sun, and a couple fun nights partying with the SEAsian ultimate community. I grabbed a couple pictures from the events and will put them up on the flickr sometime soon.