Jeju Trip report

I just got back from a long weekend on Jeju island, the sub-tropical "Hawaii of Korea" It is a beautifully contoured volcanic island about 2hrs car ride in circumference about a 1hr plane ride from Busan. The purpose of the trip was another frisbee tournament, and this one was the awesome. Quite possibly the best tournament I've ever been to.

Everything was taken care of: The $50 tournament fee included two nights in a reasonable hotel with buffet breakfast and shuttle to the fields. The fields were the practice fields from the World Cup, and they were magnificent. So immaculate you would mistake them for astroturf from a distance, yet lush and with a hint of morning dew. Catered lunch; then dinner/party at a local bar. The free dinner was the best western style food I've had in Korea, and the kegs were free and flowing.

The frisbee itself was also of a high quality. This tournament attracts mostly hard-core players as the 22 teams are roster capped at 9 players each. The all-star team from Seoul played some inspired ultimate to beat 3 time defending champions from Shanghai in the finals. The Semi-finalists were rounded out by Beijing, and a team from Tokyo who beat us in the quarterfinals.

My team can lay some claim to being the 2nd best from Korea and 5th in the tourney. Considering the 4 korean teams who made the quarter-finals, we beat the team from Deajeon. But that team had a close game with the champs (10-8 loss) compared to the 4th team who lost 11-0.

I felt like I had my share of highlights and was really happy with my play and with my team. The only lowlights were Hightower pulling a hamstring, and me getting kicked in the ear during a dive. Oh yeah, and forgetting to charge my camera battery, that was also a lowlight. Sorry, and I'll try to get some pictures from somewhere else.

I took a day off for Monday wanting to explore the nature of the island. While the weather was pretty much perfect all weekend, on sunday night a huge storm blew in. It actually shut down the airport for most of Monday, and closed the mountain trails as well. So everyone stayed inside. We went to a sauna / spa which is a great way to beat a hangover. Also I got to speak a lot of Korean with some of the native players.
That night we ate at an Indian resaurant. It was fantasic. Then we went to a microbrewery, why do they only have this on the island? it was some really delicious beer. I hope my own batch of homebrew comes out half as good (only a couple weeks to wait!)

Game by game log:
11-2 win vs. Kuru
the #2 team from Japan could not match our skill or athleticism. We got a few handblocks and a few unforced turnovers, and won almost all of the 50-50's in the air, including the last one which I pulled down for the game winner.
11-6 loss to Shanghai
We had our chances early agains the defending champs but just made too many mistakes. They had a few players faster than any of us and were able to pull away with an unstoppable deep game.
11-5 loss to Bejing
Our worst game of the weekend. We were actually ahead 5-4 before falling apart. Sean got injured in the game, and we were just dropping discs and losing heart as this game wore on. Bejing was really nice off the field, and fun at the party, but poor spirited on the field making and arguing calls constantly; maybe it is on purpose to get us into a bad mojo: if so, for shame
11-5 win vs. Jeju-fury
The Jeju A-team was really fun to play against especially after Bejing. All nice guys. They had several very athletic, but inexperienced players. So they had some ridiculous highlights, but ultimately too many mistakes to be a serious threat. We played very conservatively on offense taking easy short throws all the way up the field.
Sunday
10-8 win vs. Deajeon
Our best game of the tourney. Tight, smart defense, good decisions on offense. Even our least experienced player (it was her first tournament ever!) learned how to find the spots against their zone D and scored a couple pivotal points.
11-2 loss to IKU
We actually were up 2-0 before Tokyo put their foot down. The game didn't feel as lopsided as the score. They played zone the whole game and we would pretty consistently make to within 10 yards of the endzone before making a blunder. They were very fast with good throws and didn't give us a lot of second chances. They went on to lose in a very entertaing comeback win by Shanghai in the Semis.