From: wohler@sapwdf.UUCP (Bill Wohler)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.disc
Subject: 6th wfdfugc trip report
Date: 28 Aug 92 15:56:38 GMT
Reply-To: Bill Wohler <wohler@sap-ag.de>
Organization: SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany


  here are some of the highlights of the week at the World Flying Disk
  Federation's '92 Ultimate and Guts Championships in Utsunomiya,
  Japan.  it's long, but i hope you enjoy it anyway.  you should read
  it as you would the "red badge of courage" by reading the first
  sentence of every paragraph, but unlike the "red badge of courage",
  you can read the whole paragraph if you find it interesting. ;-)

  
  it was a long flight with a short layover in seoul.  i arrived in
  tokyo and stood in long customs lines, and then waited forever to
  pick up my rail pass.  because of this i missed the train i wanted
  into tokyo city and as a result had to make many more connections,
  so that it became so late that the trains stopped running before i
  got to my destination, the hatsudai train station, so i had to take
  a taxi the rest of the way.

  it was about 12:30 at night.  i had arranged with david birnbaum, a
  player on the american open team who had moved to tokyo a few months
  before, that i would call him when i arrived, about 11:00.  he moved
  that day and had a beeper instead of a telephone, but no matter.
  unfortunately, his beeper wasn't working and he never showed.  later
  he told me that he had come looking for me at 10:30, 11:00 and
  11:30.  at 2:00 it was too late to find alternative sleeping
  arrangements so i rolled up under a tree across the street from the
  train station with a couple of other homeless people.

  i arrived at my hotel in utsunomiya the next day and got breakfast
  and took a shower.  i was then hit by the first onslaught of
  japanese hospitality.  the hotel was run by a family and it was just
  large enough to accommodate the members of our small team.  just
  about the whole family took me sightseeing in and around utsonomiya
  over the course of the next two days.  they paid for everything.

  the hotel owner's daughters introduced me to their english teacher,
  an american.  he showed me a bar called the samarai, and i showed it
  to my team, the english and the australians and by the end of the
  week, it was everyone's favorite bar.

  they had a great deal--for 1300 yen ($8?), you could drink all the
  beer you wanted.  we found the japanese extremely friendly and could
  always engage in a conversation with the folks at neighboring
  tables, mostly with hands and gestures as their english was only
  marginally better than our japanese.  one time we got mixed up with
  some japanese businessmen and they poured saki down our throats with
  great gusto.  three of the men, who lived in tokyo, attempted to
  leave, but were blocked by an extremely large member of the american
  guts team by the name of buck--known to all as bucki-san--who
  performed the sumo wrestler foot stamping routine and shook his head
  no, waves of fat on his face shaking side to side.  everybody was
  rolling on the ground in laughter until they raised their glasses of
  beer and sake and shouted out "kampai!"  bucki-san, a good sport
  despite his intimidating looks, let the businessmen out before they
  got worried.

  there was a dark side--on one night, i heard that some frisbee
  players got out of control and took bottles of whisky from the bar.
  these folks were not showing spirit of the game.  others wore their
  shoes in the no-shoes section of the bar and others left without
  paying.  in the latter case, i can imagine that it wasn't so much
  bad manners as a lack of communication, and a method of paying that
  broke down with such a large group.  as a result, they closed the
  bar the rest of the time we were in town.  that was the only blemish
  on an otherwise super week.

  the japanese, always keen on ceremony, threw a fantastic opening
  ceremony which was led off by a large elementary school band.  they
  played typical japanese music with drums, bells and organs.  it
  reminded me a lot of kitaro.  they played perfectly and with a lot
  of emotion.  everybody simultaneously rose to a standing ovation
  when the last note died out.  during the closing ceremony, they
  presented the world's largest frisbee (3 meters in diameter) to the
  hosts of the next worlds in '94 which will be held in colchester,
  england.  the builder threw the frisbee an unremarkable 10 feet.
  was it discraft or was it wham-o?

  the japanese masters team threw a party for the other masters teams
  at a local disco called the "big apple."  the americans and the
  japanese were clever enough to bring members of their women's teams.
  we germans didn't have any women so we bought a lot of beer for the
  others instead.  loud music and different languages proved for
  conversations with toasts, smiles and waving hands.  wild dancing
  ensued.  then a local high school band started playing some pretty
  cool punk music, but they didn't have a bass, so an american on the
  japanese team grabbed a bass out of the back and joined in.  later,
  the bartender took over on lead guitar and members of the crowd
  jumped in on vocals.  then they played the blues, and i jumped up
  and sung my version of the frisbee blues.  i figured i had to do
  some version of karaoke (ie. bad singing) while i was there.  the
  full experience.  it was not your normal night at the disco.

  on saturday, the night before the finals, we experienced the town's
  annual firework show which had been postponed one week to accomodate
  the frisbee championships.  the players were provided a japanese
  barbeque and plenty to eat and drink and later entertainment
  consisted of lasers and fireworks that went on for two hours.  upon
  conclusion we piled into the busses which couldn't move for over
  an hour on account of the traffic.  we were on a bus with the
  english and we sung loudly to pass the time while the folks from the
  taiwan team were trying to rock their bus over.  they got, by the
  way, the spirit of the game award, and deserved it.  they were a
  delight!

  the spirit in the masters league was also outstanding.  i was
  worried that at such a large and prestigious tournament that
  competition would dampen some of the spirit, but we all played hard
  and had a super time together.  not a single bad call was made, nor
  was a call contested the entire week.  i learned a lot and enjoyed
  watching everybody go ho!

Bill Wohler <wohler@sap-ag.de> <sapwdf!wohler>
Heidelberg Red Barons Ultimate Frisbee Team
Newsgroups: rec.sport.disc