One afternoon I went down to the beach to grab a beer and look out on the sea and do some thinking about my life. Some- thing I had been doing in some form or another pretty much every day since I’d left, almost 4 months by then, and when I sat down I found that I had nothing left to think about or resolve. It was as if I had finished. It had never occurred to me that you had to set aside time to absorb every- thing you experience in life. I really missed not having anything to think about, it was so enjoyable, almost euphoric and now it was gone. Of course that was a good thing because I realized I had made my peace with everything that had bothered or upset me in my life up to that point. The person who was entirely to blame for me being in- creasingly unhappy for the last 5 years was me. In time I would learn to forgive myself as well. The untangling process had ended. Break. After 2 weeks it was time to leave so
I took the taxi in to town, caught a 3 1/2 hour ferry to Surrtanti, Thailand and waited for 7 hours for my train that left at 1:23 am. I boarded a very nice train at 1:30 am and went to my sleeper. We arrived in Butterworth, Malaysia
where I jumped on a Bus to Kuala Lumpur for a 5+ hour drive. As we drove in to the city I got my first glimpse of the Petronas Towers the tallest buildings in the world (but still not as tall as the CN Tower in To- ronto). I found a cool backpackers hotel in China Town where I finally had a chance to rest for a bit. Looking at my watch I real- ized I had been traveling for 36 hours. The next day I traveled to the Petronas
Towers to go up to the sky bridge that links them together at the 41st and 42nd floors of the 88 floor towers. I was also pleased to find a world class concert hall in there so I bought a ticket for the afternoon show and was treated to the world class Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and they also had a jaw dropping guest violinist, Cho-Liang Lin, performing with them as well. After 2 days there I took a bus to Sin-
gapore where I was able to meet up with a few people from Singapore Ultimate. I played pick-up with them on the Tuesday
40
and the Thursday after which we went out for beer and dumplings. Then it was time to fly to Sydney
where I was offered a place to stay by my friend Alana whom I had been travel- ing with in Nepal. Her friend Ian was kind enough to put up with me for a week. He lives right in Bondi Beach which was great even in the winter. By that time my website had grown
quite popular among the Ultimate commu- nity and among the numerous kind letters I had received from many people around the world I started to get invitations from people asking me to come out and play with their league. In Sydney I
was able to play Ultimate in their Monday League, Tuesday Men’s Hat League, a Wednesday practice game for “Feral” the Open team going to Worlds in Hawaii, and Saturday pick-up. I also got to watch the 2 Women’s teams going to Ha- waii as well, 7 Green Bottles, and Freya. I then flew into Christchurch, New
Zealand which is a lovely small city that caters to the traveler. It is incredible there. First off the Airport Shuttle took me right to the front door of where I was staying, there are travel centers everywhere which do all of your bookings for free. Also the ex- change rate is amazing; 1 US dollar equals 2 NZ dollars. I don’t know why more peo- ple don’t go there from North America. I spent a few weeks on the South Is-
land visiting Queenstown where I was able to do some skiing in July at Coronet Peak and do an unbelievable 134M (440 feet) bungee jump from a cable car suspended over the Nevis Canyon. You can’t describe an 8 second free fall going 128 Kmh (80 Mph). It’s in the South Pacific movie if you want to see it. The best day in New Zealand was
the day I left from Dunedin to take a tour of the Otago Peninsula to see the sea life. It was so incredible to see Albatross with
9 foot wingspans and Sea Lions and Fur Seals right in front of you lying on the beach. I couldn’t believe we actually got to see Penguins in the wild, what a sight. That was the best day of my whole trip. That’s in the movie too if you want to check it out. After a week of touring Auckland on
the North Island it was time to journey to Hawaii, the site of the World Ultimate Club Championships (WUCC). 120 teams from 24 countries and 2,350 Ultimate players. I was so excited, after 5 months of being away from my friends I was about to be surrounded by count- less teams from around the world that I had played with including my own Toronto team “Aged to Perfection”. Little did I know I was about to meet a fair number of people who had come to know me through my website.
Arriving in Waikiki, Hawaii I made
my way to our cool little hotel and reac- quainted myself with all my friends and teammates. I was so excited to find my skateboard there which my good friend Dean had agreed to bring with him. The next afternoon we attended the opening ceremonies for WUCC which was quite a cool experience seeing all the players in one place. Later at the party under the stars I would be asked by several people if I was the guy making all those videos while I was traveling. I had long conversations with people about various movies or tour- naments we had both been to. The tournament was being held at The
Waipio Soccer Complex which was right beside the inner part of Pearl Harbor that was home to a lot of moth balled war ships. One could not ignore the irony of play- ing there against Japanese teams like “The Buzz Bullets” or “The Big Bombers”, some- thing I tried to convey in my Hawaii movie. We were treated to perfect weather
everyday and a perfect unchanging wind that blew exactly perpendicular to all 31 fields as they all coincidently pointed the same way.
Ultimate Canada Magazine —
www.canadianultimate.com
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