Ni Hao from Taiwan!!!

Luckily, I can't sleep past 6 a.m. so I've got some time to finally make a quick post. So far our time here has been amazing. Mike and I flew through Tokyo to Taipei, where we met up with the team on the night of the 15th. On the 16th, we hit a few quick spots in Taipei including the worlds tallest building, Taipei 101, which rises 509 meters and 101 stories from the urban jungle of Taipei. By then, almost the whole team was together, so we caught a bullet train down to Kaohsiung to catch the opening ceremonies and meet up with Cate, Deb, and Bart. Mike is here as a WFDF (World Flying Disc Federation) official, so even though he has to do some officiating work during the games, it's been amazing because he's been able to come to everything with us.

The opening ceremonies were incredible. Walking into a sold out stadium of almost 40,000 people was intense to say the least. I think I developed a few hundred more smile wrinkles that night. They had a very cool program that we unfortunately didn't get to see because we were being herded under the stadium to wait for our entrance. The countries came out in alphabetical order in the athlete procession, were treated to some entertainment from a handfull of international singing sensations (including Yellow Tiger, who did an interesting rendition of Freddy Mercury's "We are the Champions"), the president of Taiwan declared the games officially open, and then there was an incredible fireworks show.

Other than an hour and a half practice every day, we've been: eating a lot at our sweet catering center and around town; checking out some of the other sports including Dragon Boat racing (we watched the U.S. Dragon Boat racing team intensely battle it out with Germany...Dragon Boat drama!), beach handball, softball, and fistball; renting bikes and getting lost (adventure!); singing kareoke (our team bus has kareoke!); having impromptu dance parties; learning a bit of local language and culture; meeting other athletes from other sports and countries; getting our bodies tuned up; and just hanging out together and attempting to soak it all in.

It is super hot here, mainly because of the 95% humidity. Also, there was a typhoon coming our way that luckily diverted towards Hong Kong, but we've been getting both the wind and the rain from it over the last two days. Should make the games today extra fun to watch for the fans.

We're having a great time together off the field, and I'm confident that that will translate to the field today when we take on Australia at 11:30 a.m. and then Canada tonight at 7:00 p.m. under the lights. I'm thinking of you all back home...love and miss you all! Mike's working 4 games today, including our Australia game, so it will be nice to have him so close, even though he won't be able to talk to us.

Cara and Mike

p.s. Pictures will be up as soon as I can find a connection fast enough. For now, check out www.upa.org for some awesome picture mantages and videos of what we've been up to.