Met the nicest people from the Taiwan paintball scene with superb company, a superb tournament and superb hospitality. The photographs from the previous entry says it all, a wonderful weekend. Spent most of the time travelling from KL to Taipei, from Taipei to Taichung, from Taichung to Kao Hsiung, travel travel travel...but hey, I am not complaining simply because the travelling group was fun to be with. Khaine from Team Ku always got something up his sleeves...talking about girls, looking at girls, admiring about girls. Look at those roaming eyes!!! Team Ku is no stranger to the regional tournament scene, a regular of the PALS series, a regular of the World Cup events, we have seen them in action, we have greeted them during events but this is the closest we got to them since knowing them.
As Dye sponsored teams, Red Sevens and Ku is somewhat similar in some ways: 1) we have "ang mo" playing in our team, 2) we have a female player in the team (Elle and Michiko), 3) we are always short of people to play. But when it comes to paintball skills, we are no where near them. But that's besides the point, the point is....through this tournament, we have foster an excellent relationship with one another. It does help that we have very good friends in Taiwan who were able to bridge our language barrier.
Allow me to introduce our 3 "foreign imports" of the tournament:
1) Arthur Chang - Just 3 letters to describe this guy, "ABC". Looks chinese, speaks chinese...but when you hear him speaks English, you know he is an American, strong accent. Wonderful guy who hosted Ku and us at his place, cooked (well his maids actually...) us nice porkchops, bought us nice bubble tea and helped us to oversee lots of logistics and adminstrative issues both on and off the field. If there is one thing that we have learnt from this trip, it will be adopting Arthur's ability to plan for game strategies and game lineup. Can you imagine waking up at 5 am to type the team's lineup so that everyone is aware of when they are playing? For that...you get an "A" grade.
2) Fonjen - Pronounced as "Kite" in mandarin. Initially, I thought what a good nick... but it turns out that "Kite" is his real name. So lame... Anyway, this is the second time I have seen this guy. The first time was from the Ollie Lang clinic in Taiwan. If I can remember correctly, I did not speak to him back then...but hell I should! This is one of the most approachable guy... Talk to him about anything in the world and he will surely share his own personal views. But that is not the most amazing this about this guy... when I attended Gary Shows Hybrid Paintball Clinic 2 years ago, there is this famous saying from him "Always have 2 of everything when you are competing" The idea is to always have a spare equipment, just in case the primary one is faulty or having what we always call "a paintball period", one minute it is working and the next minute it goes faulty.
Fonjen not only has 2 of everything...he has TONS of everything. When I mean by that, this is just a list of things he brought to APIT: 10 squeeges, 5 markers, 7 HPA tanks, 2 harnesses, 70 pods. That's basically the equipment needed for a 5 man team! But that is just the beginning, he has in total more than 40 over markers and 80 over barrels...He is the army!
3) Pony - Dubbed as one of the best front player in Taiwan. Pony plays for Team Shocker in Taiwan. When I first heard that Pony will be playing with us, I was very excited because the last time I saw him snapshoot, it was thinking "Does he ever gets tired?". At the age of 37, Pony doesnt look anywhere near his age...fast he can be, versatile he is... I was playing his back during the tourney and in all the games that we played, I will surely asked him at the starting frame "Pony, where are you going?"...and he always reply..."It depends". Can you imagine backing someone who has no intended direction? That's how versatile he is...one minute, he is playing as a back player, and the next, you will see him in the dorito... it was a challenge for me to play his back as I am always on a lookout of where he is. Pony gave me his Shocker jersey at the end of the tourney...it was a good gesture and I certainly look forward to playing with him again.
So there you go, 3 of our "foreign imports"... Respect!
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