All right, basically only my brother will get that subject line reference (and even he might have forgotten by now), but I figure by this point I have made enough obscure references that it's pretty much par for the course, so I hope that I can be excused.
This particular missive does not concern automobile racing (as the subject may or may not suggest); no the meat of the matter lies in a far different sort of competition, one that I am a bit overdue in elaborating on. I am of course talking about the Saikai City 3rd Annual Table Tennis Tournament. I would also like to note that Saikai City has only existed for about three years.
So it was that the Oshima Club piled into three cars rolled out at 8am on a Sunday morning to make our way to the hallowed battleground that would bear witness to this, Saikai's Day of Reckoning. We arrived at Seihi Town's Tulip Arena a short time later and surveyed the field.
I don't know about everyone else, but I was certainly impressed by the set-up. There were a dozen tables set up inside of what looked like a basketball gym, although for the life of me I couldn't find where the hoops had gone too. They certainly weren't hanging from the ceiling. We warmed up a little, and then everyone started to get ready for the main event. I knew that my comrades were serious, but even I was surprised when many of them pulled off their windbreakers to reveal jersey's with either complementary or matching colors. It was on like Voltron baby.
Obviously I lost my first match.
Oh, my second one too, knocking me out in the first round and pretty out of any ping pong until after lunch, though I didn't realize that I would have more opportunities to play later. That doesn't mean that I had nothing to do though, as the loser keeps score for the next match, and I had plenty of my friends' matches to watch.
Unfortunately they all pretty much lost too, even the crazy old sensei who is wicked good. Eh?! Two of our guys did redeem our club though, making it through the first round, with one even going on to finish third overall. Still though, it was kind of nuts.
It gets even better when one takes into account our opponents. While there were a few local clubs in attendance, as well as maybe one or two high school and college teams, the vast majority of competitors there were junior high school students. Let me tell you, these kids were freaking wicked. You'd have to practice two or three hours a day for at least a year or two to get that good, preferably with a coach. Oh, well, I guess they do, which maybe explains it a little, but still, just wicked good.
The only thing that kind of got to me were a few of the kids that were just bad sports yelling "yes" or "good" in Japanese after every point and stuff like that. There was one girl in particular who had possibly the most annoyingly high-pitched voice that I have yet heard, so that no matter where I was it reached me. Even more unfortunately, she used it to say yell "lucky" or "don't mind" any time her opponent, or her friends' opponents, got a point. Oh man.
That was a minor thing though, and overall the day was glorious, even though my random junior high partner and I lost in the first doubles round and I got whomped by all the old man in the "large ball" round robin tournament. When I started the day I set two goals: win a game and no shutouts. Well, in doubles we did win our first game of the match, but let's just say it was pretty tough going keeping up with that second goal in large ball.
Of course afterwards Oshima Club all got together for a big dinner party. I love my Oshima Club. Rock!
On (another) completely unrelated note (this is becoming an odd habit), you should go watch this little video that my Aunt Kirsten sent me. It's about this group of guys that drove this crappy little plastic Eastern European communist-era cars across half the world to raise money for orphans in Cambodia. Check it out:
trabant trek on cnn
still full of ping pong love for the foreseeable future,
-greg.
ps: holy craaaap that was long, sorry.
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