A Family-Filled Chuseok

For ESL teachers in Korea, Chuseok is a godsend. The variable-length break falls shortly after the start of the summer semester. It has allowed Kris and I to escape from child-induced madness for a few days every year. This year, Chuseok is even sweeter. Kris’ mother Dalene and her boyfriend Dave have visited us all the way from South Africa!

Dalene and Dave arrived last week, in the middle of our final week before Chuseok. Both Kris and I were strung out from the semester and looking forward to the visit and upcoming Chuseok break. Our batteries were drained, and we couldn’t wait to recharge. They arrived on a Saturday of an Ultimate weekend. Their first taste of Korea was the glorious insanity of a ROK-U weekend. While it wasn’t Dalene’s first time in Korea, Dave must have had a peculiar first picture of foreigners in the ROK.

In the following week, Dalene and Dave had to entertain themselves during the day. Kris and I still had five more days of child-wrangling before Chuseok. They took the Seoul city tour buses, zooting about between all the tourist attractions. In the evenings, we did our best to give Dave and Dalene a taste of Korean cuisine. We have eaten more different Korean dishes in the past few days than we had in the previous few months. By day, Dalene and Dave took in the sights. By night, we devoured our way across Seoul. There was a brief interlude in the Korean eating for a surprise birthday party for me. Kris and my friends in Seoul plotted behind my back. They gathered in secret to celebrate my birthday and that of Cam, another friend in the group. Dalene and Kris even managed to make and hide a birthday cake. I was surprised, and didn’t stop smiling the whole time at the party.

Once we had served our last remaining time at school, we packed up and headed on a day hike of Manisan, on Ganghwa island. The tour was organised by Seoul Hiking. We stopped at various cultural points of interest before hiking the mountain itself. We saw a medieval fortress, neolithic rock structures, and a cultural market. Then it was time to lace up our shoes and tackle Manisan. It took us an hour or so to reach the top, slowed by Kris’ recovering leg and sightings of squirrels. At the top, there sat an ceremonial alter and various cultural implements. It was a meditative reward for our hour’s exercise. It was a delightful day trip.

Next, we set our sights on Busan. Kris and I have been to Busan many times, but most of our visits have been for Ultimate. We hadn’t visited Busan as tourists since our second month in Korea. We were excited to explore a place where we were far less familiar than Seoul.

Our first destination in Busan was BIFF square, a massive street market. Like Myeongdong in Seoul, we wandered between the food carts and storefronts. We took in the wares and eats on sale. The selection rivaled that of Myeongdong, particularly in the food department. We ate Turkish kebabs and rolled ice cream, and bought more than we probably should have.

Our next major highlight was Gamcheon Culture Village. A large suburb in the hills on the edge of Busan, Gamcheon is a hub of shops and artists. It is famous for being mostly comprised of small, single-storey houses. This is in contrast to other areas, where houses are rare but apartment complexes litter the land. We thoroughly enjoyed walking among the colourful houses. We read stories of the area’s history and marveled at the artwork displayed in the streets.

Our last two days in Busan were mostly spent in the Haeundae area. The only major excursion not in this area was to Busan Tower, the beautiful building featured at the top of this piece. In Haeundae, we first visited Busan Aquarium, where we saw, amongst many other marvels, otters being fed. Kris squealed in delight at their cuteness. After leaving the aquarium, we walked the streets once more. We explored the hills on the edge of Haeundae’s famous beach. Then, we lazed about on the beach, reading books and taking in the beauty of the area. It was a good way to refresh our bodies after the running around that we had done in the previous few days.

Dalene and Dave’s time in Korea is drawing to a close. They leave on Friday afternoon, leaving only one more full day to show them what Korea’s got. Kris and I adore having family visit, as showing them what we love about Korea reminds us as well. Our hearts will be heavy when we say goodbye to them, but we will treasure the memories of the things we saw when we were all together. We will go forward refreshed and ready to face the months ahead.

Brisk Disk on Busan’s Beach

My body is aching. Kristen has trouble walking on one of her calves. Our weekend passed by in a blur of sand, disks, and a couple of drinks at The Wolfhound. The culprit? Our first Ultimate event of the new year – the small-in-size-yet-large-in-fun Angel Hat tournament.

When we signed up for the tournament in the first few weeks of winter, we were afraid that it would be plagued by cold so severe that our muscles would seize up. Or worse, fall off of our bodies, frostbitten. Upon our arrival in Busan, our fears proved to be founded on a grain of truth. It was freezing. But we were still incredibly excited to play Ultimate again. For myself, it had been many months since I had stepped onto an actual Ultimate field and thrown the disk towards an end zone. Kris had gone to some training in Daejon in January, but I was too lazy. This laziness came back to bite me over the weekend, as I saw how unfit I had become through months of sloth and good eating.

The eighteen or so people who participated all had a wonderful time. The majority of the games were played 4v4 or 5v5 on small fields. It was a good way to practice our short game and ruin several socks by running in them on the sand. After the first day’s play, my team, Iris, emerged undefeated, defeating all of the other three teams in the competition.

Some say we were stacked with skilled players. No inquests were launched into the truth of this, however.

Following the day’s play, we spread out and searched for our lodgings. We freshened up and headed to The Wolfhound, a favourite haunt for Ultimate players in Busan. We ate nachos, drank beer (and South African wine to Kris’ extreme joy and eventual detriment), and were rather merry. At one point, one of our number disappeared. We found him later, but he didn’t quite make it back to our accommodation.

The next morning, play was distinctly more sober than the majority of us had been the previous evening. What would have been a layout on the first day was a ‘yeah, no, that can just hit the ground’ on the second day. When the tournament was all said and done, myself and the rest of Iris emerged as the only undefeated team.

However, the goal of Angel Hat was not victory, but pure, unbridled fun playing the game that we love. In this respect, everyone who participated was a winner. Each team had at least one player who had played little or no Ultimate beforehand (except for Iris. We weren’t stacked, we swear!). The game is always growing, always pulling more in. It may be a cult, but it’s a fun one.

When we rode the two subways, KTX, and bus home, we slept and smiled at the merriment we had enjoyed. With the practice of playing on the beach, we will be more than ready for the next season of ROK-U and all of the other exciting tournaments coming up. Here’s to another year of Ultimate!

Victory! and other stories: ROK-U Game Week 2

Our amazing ROK-U team, Cheonwon, managed to win our first game of the season. Our weekend started rusty. There was a brief break for varying levels of drunken revelry and a stay at an amazing hostel. Then the sweet taste of victory washed over us. Our final game may have the been tainted by administrative hijinks, but nothing could take away the feeling of success that we all felt at pulling together as a team.

The games this weeks were held in Busan, the coastal city that we initially wanted to be placed in, and fell in love with over Kristen’s birthday weekend. For the second time this year, we played on sand, and for the second time this year, it was hard on our bodies. Our team had never played on sand together, and it showed in our games on the first day of play. We were rusty. We were slow. We were uncoordinated, and miscommunication abounded. Our first game epitomised these flaws, and was a demoralising loss to one of the better teams in the league.

Nevertheless, we avoided falling into a negative mental state as a result of the loss. We acknowledged that the game had happened, noted some mistakes to be worked on, and proceeded to the next game, against a team native to Busan. While we lost once more, it was a much tighter affair, with our noble Cheonwons only going down 4-8. It was in this game that we first showed signs that we could win a game on the sandy beaches of Busan.

Once our second game was completed, our games for Saturday were finished, and we had the rest of the afternoon and evening to our own, before we would head to the arranged ROK-U party at the local Irish pub, The Wolfhound. Our team took the time to visit our accommodation for the evening, a local hostel named COOOOL Guesthouse. They most certainly lived up to their name – the space was very well-designed, open, clean, and, frankly, cool. We put our kit down, had quick (or, in the case of some ladies, not so quick) showers, and headed out for a team dinner. We ate our fill, took some photos, and left for The Wolfhound.

This was my first taste of an Ultimate party in Korea, and I must say that it was a great night. Even though I was not drunk, I had more fun than most of the drunk people there. It was wonderful to see large portions of the teams in a social setting, as opposed to on the field. I played darts, I danced, I walked around in a onesie once more. The theme was pyjama party, and my actual sleeping clothes (or lack thereof) would not really be safe or pleasant for the general public to see. After Kris and I had had our fill of merriment, we left, lay down in our bunk bed, and slept soundly.

We arose in the mid-morning, with our first game of the day only at 1 p.m. Our wonderful host at COOOOL had prepared a scrumptious breakfast of egg and cheese on toast, complete with condiments and French pressed coffee. Where nothing more than a loaf of ordinary bread, some jam, and instant coffee in a tub would have sufficed, COOOOL went the extra mile. When we return to Busan, we will most certainly be returning to COOOOL. We then packed our things and said goodbye to our lovely host, heading to the beach to support the other teams/spy on them for their weaknesses.

One of the teams that we had our eyes on were the team that we would be playing next, Feel. Unlike most of the other teams in the league, they seemed to be less than perfectly organised, similar to our own level. We were cautiously optimistic that we could give them a tough game. We could maybe even win. In our pre-game pep talk, everyone was ready, and had a fire in their eyes that had not been there in the first game on Saturday. We knew that we started to really come together as a team in the second game of Saturday’s play, and if we played at that level, we could show the other teams what we could truly do.

The first half began well. We managed to score a couple of quick points, leading the game for the first time of any game in the season up until that point. After our initial burst of scoring, the game slowed down, and we began trading points back and forth. However, once we scored our sixth point, the half ended. The score was 6-2 to us. There were many smiles in our half-time huddle, but behind those smiles lay weary eyes and beads of sweat – we had run hard in the first half, and we were all tired. This tiredness showed in the first part of the second half. We became complacent, and Feel capitalised on this, scoring three quick points of their own to bring the score 6-5. At this point, hard cap was called. This meant that the game would end after the next point was scored, unless the game ended in a tie. My body was quite broken, and I spent this crucial time on the sideline, cheering for my team. Both teams played scrappily, a combination of exhaustion and in-game stress leading to a host of throws going awry. After this one point lasted ten minutes, the fastest cutter on Feel managed to break away from his mark and catch a lofty pass in the end zone, bringing the scoreline even again, and forcing the game into the Universal Point. Whoever scored the next point in the game would win it.

If the hard cap point was a marathon, the Universal Point was a supermarathon. Even with fresh legs on the field after the hard cap, the game had been long, and we all were wrecked. Instead of trying to work the disc up the field with short passes, both teams fired long-range passes, hoping to catch one of their respective cutters in the end zone and end the game quickly. They did not succeed. The point went on for twenty minutes. Fast cuts and interplay changed to ambling and desperation. And then we managed to get the disc deep in the Feel half. I made eye contact with our handler, Jotham. We both knew what had to happen. I faked a cut, beat my mark, and bolted for the left-hand side of the end zone. Jotham floated a beautiful pass, slightly beyond my reach. I leapt into the air. I caught it. We had won. It is the proudest moment in my Ultimate career up until this point.

Our next game, which had been rescheduled to a later time, was less positive. Many players on our team had booked train tickets to and from Busan weeks in advance, using the earlier timetable, where our final game took place one hour earlier than it ended up doing. Consequently, almost half of our players left in order to not miss their trains. Our last game was a rout.

Not even the frustration of losing awfully due largely do to administration could wipe the smile off of my face though. I had scored the winning point for my team in the most dramatic fashion. I felt like a king. Even now, sleep creeping in on my senses like black mist, I think back to that moment and smile. Sure, I may have fulfilled my role rather well at that moment. But without my team, I would not have been in that position. And in the moment that I scored, there was nothing in our team’s mind of but the glory of winning our first game, the joy of overcoming everything put in front of us. I helped do that.