Frisbee and Whisbie

The last two days of the World Games had us playing Great Britain, Chinese Taipei, and then Japan on the last morning of pool play followed by the medal rounds. So it turned out (since Australia beat Canada) that we would play Japan twice in the same day. We woke up that day with almost all of the women on Team U.S.A. coming down with a wicked cold/flu. Gwen and Chelsea were feeling particularly bad, but as soon as they stepped on the field you couldn't tell...ballers! The first game against Japan (last game in round robin) was tight, and we made some very uncharacteristic mistakes early on to lose. We were pretty fired up to see them again under the lights for the gold medal match.

We spent the rest of the day resting, eating, and massaging. I don't remember too much of the finals game, other than about every 2 minutes someone on our team would make a sick play and after about 5 of those, I was confident we were going to win. Everyone was so fired up...it was an incredible energy to feel as a team. We hung around for a few hours afterwards for the medal ceremony, to trade jerseys with other teams, sign autographs, and take pictures with fans. Dylan and Bart were especially popular because beards are a hot commodity here (not to mention their stunning good looks).






Despite being sick, we rallied and hit up a bar with the other frisbee teams and proceeded to drink too much. Mike, Alicia, Beau, and Angela took up the slack for the rest of us and stayed up until dawn riding bikes into hotels, 7-11s, and rivers. The pictures are epic.

The next day everyone that was left caught a bullet train back to Taipei and we hit up the Shilin Night Market. More drinking ensued, crazy and delicious food was ingested, and completely unecessary purchases were made. I was still trying to recover from the pig SARS, and Mike was still bragging that he wasn't going to get it. My parents met up with us the next day in Taipei and we went to the National Palace Museum. The most impressive things were absolutely tiny carvings (like intricate little boats with people in them made out of olive pits) that you can't imagine why anyone would spend their time and energy making despite being very cool to look at.

Almost everyone on the team left the next morning except for Beau, Mike and I so we headed for a cheap hostel and adventure. Mike had finally come down with whatever it was that the team had, and Beau and I were finally getting over it. This night can only be explained in pictures but it involved a lot of Vodka and Whisbie (a very shady "energy/health" drink), and Mike was wearing my jeans in a dance club by the end of the night. Adventure!









Beau left us yesterday and we caught a train to Taroko Gorge on the east side of the island and in the mountains! We arrived late at night with no place to stay, no taxi to catch (like we expected), and no good ideas left. Luckily, a man from Taipei gave us directions to walk to a local homestay about 1 km. out of town down a dark and deserted road. I was starting to stress out about having to sleep outside the train station when we arrived at the homestay. They were full for the night, but the incredible family that ran it hooked us up with an authentic dinner of eel and rice noodles, beer, and a friend in town who had a room available for the night. We taught her kids to play frisbee and left our disc with them as a token of our appreciation.

We're about to hit up a hike to a waterfall to go swimming!

More adventures to come...
C and T