Australian Uni Games 2009 and Gold Coast, Queensland

Still recuperating from vacationing mode and more late nights than I've had in a long time. The summary was a lot of food, a lot of lazing around, beach, late nights (as mentioned), jokes and hijinks. And kendo of course.

We left Sydney on a windy evening, so a lot of the flights were delayed and arrived at the YHA at about midnight, leaving only enough time to head down the beach to look at the stars. The first couple of days were warm, slightly windy and including beaching, grocery shopping and large meals at the hostel, where I'm sure that other backpackers looked askance at us for using all the pots!

The whole shinai weigh-in was interesting as it was all new to me. We ran into a girl from the UMacquarie team, who had been left to carry all the team's shinai by herself, poor thing. We stopped to lend a hand.

Rested up for competition day and then it arrived, with everyone up at 5:30! Still after sunrise, but not by much. A bit hectic getting out the door, but we caught our bus and then the coach, for the competition venue. Arrived early so we got plenty of time for reconnaissance of the venue, eyeing the competition, checking out the draw and bemoaning the very hard floor.

My first comp. My Kyu Individual pool matches were over really quickly. Too nervous and both competitors were fast. One of them ended up being a green and gold player. Everyone I talk to seems to remember their first shiai matches, but personally, it was too fast for me to even remember. It was really interesting to watch the other matches though.

Women's Individual. Didn't feel nervous going in and I won the first match through hansoku, as I forced my opponent to step backwards out of the court - that was premeditated as she was so close to the edge and I just wanted to go forwards. There are a lot of things I need to work on though. Including stamina as I was too tired to maintain energy in the second match which followed immediately after.

The other girls from our club did really well and it was enjoyable to watch everyone play. I have always gotten more excited about watching other people play and compete than I do about myself. This occurred in the team matches. I did have a pretty good match in mine, but our team did poorly overall in the Kyu Team event (albeit against the eventual winners), so that was because the pressure was off for me to play with any objective other than for fun.

The Dan Team matches were really exciting though, especially when our team had thought it was all over and got called up for the third-place match. There was a mad scramble as they put their bogu back on. Whether it was because our opponents had been playng pretty roughly all day and thus making themselves disliked by everyone, or just because of the charisma of some our players ;D, practically all the other universities ended up rooting for us, very loudly. Really exciting stuff!

Afterwards we all had to celebrate, so after returning to the hostel and showers, we headed next door for some well-deserved steaks. Also stopped by the liquor store for some drinks which were mostly consumed back at the hostel, with some interesting observations about people after drinking.

The following days were pretty lazy, with people leaving and the rest of us chilling at the beach mainly, eating up the rest of our food, taking advantage of the nearby fish market, etc. We did take a brief visit to the casino, where some people lost money, while others had a bit of luck. Another first for me, so I just watched. A bunch of us returned early and ended up playing card games, betting first push-ups, squats and other assorted physical exercises - which was highly amusing and a lot healthier than playing for drinks or money. This actually continued during the following afternoon.

As whole, it was an interesting vacation; got to know people a lot better (like who is most ticklish ^____^), played kendo and learnt a lot, got a tan, lost weight (well I did anyway despite the amount of food I ate >.<) and generally had lots of fun. Bit of a shame to return from a 30 degree sun-filled day to 17 degrees of rain, but all good things come to an end they tell us. We'll have to pick it right back up where we left off next time.