#23 Attend 3 National Sporting Events of Sports You've Never Seen Before

Oh poor bucket list blog, how you've been neglected lately. I've been busy with lots of things, but the bucket list is still a priority in my life! In fact, I've got three items completed, but un-blogged... with some big plans for completing some of the larger items next year. So there'll be some more lovin' here soon!

My friend Liz's suggestion for the bucket list was to attend sporting events I'd never seen before. An interesting idea! Unfortunately, she shot me down when I suggested going to Lingerie Football...

Dancesports 

AIS Arena filled with dancers

The first event we agreed upon to go to was the National Capital Dancesports Championships. We both thought it fit very well with the theme of going to odd sporting events... even if we happened to be stretching the definition of sport a little bit.

The National Capital Dancesports Championships is an annual event held in Canberra at the Australian Institute of Sport. It's a three day event, but we only bought tickets for the last day - we wanted to see those who made it to the finals!

Oh, how we were not prepared for the sheer number of glittery dresses! As soon as we walked into the arena, over the top outfits were abundant. Seems female dancing attire is just not appropriate unless it's brightly coloured and very glittery.



Dancing's meant to be fun people!

Already we were feeling like this was a different, strange world. Women in far too much makeup led their men around like trained puppies and nobody seemed to be having fun - all around it was serious faces or fake smiles.

We made our way to our seats. I'd been under the impression that this would be a busy event, as there didn't seem to be too many seats left when I booked the tickets. The reason for this became quickly apparent - the majority of the seats around the arena had been reserved for performers and their family/support crew. We took our seats with the 14 other people who had actually purchased tickets and started to watch the show.

... And got bored.

Well, maybe that's a bit harsh. I think for the first few minutes we made some sarcastic comments such as how long the men must have trained to pull off their smiles; but before long we were pretty bored.

Here's how it goes.

First they announce the category and pairs of dancers pour onto the dancefloor. The pre-determined music starts to play and everyone starts to dance around in a circle following the moves they'd been practising for weeks. In some cases, the moves were determined by the organisers, but regardless it always seemed very static to us. After a few minutes, they play another song, then the dancers leave and another category is announced.



You have to see some dresses in motion to

fully appreciate the dazzling spectacle



I think it would have been much more fun if they'd actually had a band, but I guess they had to play the same music that everyone had been practising to. Which well, kind of defeats the purpose of dancing in my opinion. The fun of dancing is in expressing how you feel about the music. The music drives you to move in certain ways, so you move in that way. Liz being a band member and I being a (former) dancer understand that the dancers feed off the band and in turn the band feeds off the dancers to create an enjoyable energy.


Gives you a bit of an idea what the afternoon was like.
This is the latin section, the most entertaining part of the day.

 

The dresses in the latin category were far skimpier... but just as glittery

There was no enjoyable energy. It was just people moving through the motions. Too many game faces (heavily sprinkled, of course, with fake smiles), too little engagement of each other, too little FEELING. Maybe technically they were moving in skilled ways, I don't know. The dancers' disengagement resulted in our disengagement.

Things got a little more interesting when the latin category started. The dancing was more playful, the outfits more outrageous (for both the men and women, but of course particularly for the women) and the music was more enjoyable. It wasn't enough though. We'd been there three hours by that stage, which was plenty enough for us, so we went home.

 

 

Squash

Yes, this was our view of the action

A few months later we booked ourselves into another interesting looking event in Canberra - The Australian Open Squash Championships. This is another annual event in Canberra, this time taking place at the Convention Centre. The championships is big enough to encourage top ranked players from overseas to come and compete in it, so it is sad that our cricket and football dominated Australian society has no idea of the existence of this event.

But we thought we'd check it out!

We bought tickets for the men's quarter finals, which was held on a Friday night. We were pleased to see our tickets got us front row seats! Though, frankly, there wasn't really a bad seat in the house.

The Convention Centre turned into a squash arena

The setup was very clever - they'd set up a squash court in the centre of the room, which had one-way glass. So the crowd could see through whichever side of the court they needed to look through, but the back of the court appeared solid. In similar fashion, to the players it seemed as if all sides of the court were not transparent. The players could hear the crowd (but not see them) and the crowd could hear the players (and see them).



Clever cost cutting measures meant that the organisers'
kids did all the cleaning up between matches

It all made for an excellent viewing experience. The action was close and exciting. As per the requirements of this bucket list item, I'd never seen top level squash before, but it was very entertaining indeed. I enjoyed the tactics involved in trying to get the ball past your opponent and certainly admired the players' ability to track and anticipate the ball's trajectory as it bounced off the walls. At that distance too, the personalities of the players really came through... When one player started to voice his frustrations at some not-so-good decisions by the umpire, the crowd could feel his agony.

We were treated to four matches for the evening. A couple were easy straight sets victories, but a couple of the matches were very tight as well. The most popular players were the Aussie (of course), and Ramy Ashour, ranked 5th in the world and the defending champion. Ramy, in fact, went on to win the tournament two days later, and has since become the #1 player in the world.

Both Liz and I thoroughly enjoyed the Australian Open. We both commented that we would go again. Unfortunately the reason we had great seats and easy viewing was because there was not many people there... and sadly Canberra managed to kill off another interesting event on its calendar via lack of interest... because sadly I can't find any media that suggests the Australian Open will be back in 2013, so I think it has been cancelled.

Not even the positive media that a good planking can drum up could save it!

Water Skiing

Driving to work one day I noticed an interesting sign advertising "NZ vs Australia - The Bledisloe Cup of Water Skiing". I had to contact Liz. Luckily, we were both available and so agreed that water skiing would be the third sporting event we hadn't seen before.

The event was actually the Australia vs New Zealand Water Ski Championships. It has been running for a number of years as a way to develop young water skiers in Oz and NZ and 2013 was the first year it was to be held in Canberra. Indeed, the first time any international water skiing event was to be held in Canberra.

Beautiful day... Nice relaxed setting... Lovely

We met up at Liz's house on a sunny Sunday morning and rode over to Pialligo to where the event was being held on the Molonglo river. It goes without saying that it was a very nice ride and a lovely setting for a sporting event. This was a little corner of the river that nobody really knows about and as we rode up we already started to get the feeling like this was a little escape from the city (not that Canberra's the kind of city you feel you need to escape from!).



Waterskiing backwards using only one leg

We rode up behind some small sets of bleachers that had been set up to watch the river. Pockets of people sat around them enjoying a bite to eat and awaiting the next competitor. It all had a nice feeling of being like some sort of large family picnic rather than an international sporting event.

We pulled up a spot on a nice looking bleacher in time to catch the next skier. It was the slalom, in which the boat went at a constant speed through the middle of the river, while the skier had to ski between marked buoys. Luckily, there was an announcer to explain all this to us and the other viewers in a very friendly manner or we would have had no idea what was going on.

The slalom wasn't that interesting, but we'd timed it almost perfectly for the end of that segment of the day. The next event was the "tricks". This was more fun to watch. The boat moved slowly past the shore, while the skier had a 50m window to pull as many tricks as they could. Yes, there was some jumps and stuff, but most of the tricks were things like going backwards or using your foot instead of your hand to hold on. Some of the kids were absolutely amazing! ... Some of the kids fell in.



Jumper Take-Off

After the tricks was the jumping event. There'd been a big ramp sitting there all day and we were pumped to see it get some use. Interestingly, the jumping event is not about doing tricks, but rather simply a distance event - with the boat going at a constant speed for all jumpers, who could launch themselves off the ramp the furthest? ... And stay upright for the landing.



Jumper Landing

This was definitely interesting to behold. The first dozen times. After that it started to get a little monotonous, so, exhausted after a long day in the sun, Liz and I decided to go home. This was a much different feeling to going home after the Dancesports - there we felt fed up and bored. For the water skiing, we felt like we'd seen the exciting stuff, had enjoyed our day and didn't need to stay longer. Besides, as the announcer had told us, the Australians had a commanding lead - so there wasn't much tension. We certainly felt satisfied by our day though... and all for free!





Couldn't leave without an action planking shot - can you spot the skier?


Going to new sporting events was such a great idea. Thanks Liz. It was really interesting to check out new worlds and new sub-cultures. We even agreed after the water skiing that we should continue checking out unique sporting events, even though the bucket list item is technically completed now.

 

#3 Chew Betelnut

For the first international item on the list I travelled to East Timor to chew betelnut with Hannah. Of course, while I was there I spent some time travelling around and experiencing the country with Kelly.

I've been debating for a while how I would eventually write up this item. Should it be specifically about the act of chewing betelnut, or should it be more of a travel blog entry? I've decided a little bit of both, as the travelling is part of the story of the betelnut and vice versa. I could write a lot more about the travelling though, so I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

First though, many people ask me: what is betelnut? Well, chewing betelnut is an activity that is common across Southeast Asia. People wrap areca nut in a betel leaf; chew it; and then spit it out. Why? Well, it's traditional. Also, it's a stimulant; suppresses appetite and causes cancer. So yeah, it's kind of like smoking. Why do people do that?

Oh, and it turns your mouth and saliva bright red and eventually stains your teeth red too. I wonder why it hasn't made its way into our culture?

An example of the skinny roads on the edge of mountains
in Timor, with some of our fellow road users

Anyway, on to the trip: when we first arrived in Dili, we planned with Hannah that we would go to Atauro Island (just off the coast from Dili) that weekend and chew the betelnut there. In the meantime, Kelly and I decided to do a road trip to the eastern most point of Dili and go to Jaco Island.

We rented a car and set off. Immediately it was apparent why we'd had to rent a 4WD - the roads in Timor are in a terrible state. They're not particularly good to begin with and any repairs that are done are pretty shoddy... Then the rain comes and washes half the road down the mountain! There are massive potholes everywhere. In fact, it was a little scary driving - the road wasn't quite big enough for two cars, and we were on the edge of some very steep hills. Plus, the locals coming the other way thought nothing of tearing around blind corners at high speeds!

Kelly points out Jaco Island
Look at how clear the water is!

We got to Jaco Island in one piece though, after a couple of days of driving (despite Jaco only being 240km away). Amusingly, Google maps says it should take a little under 3 hours. Ha! Jaco was worth it though. The beaches were beautiful, the water perfectly clear and there was nobody else around. Plus the drive itself allowed us to peek into a bit of life in East Timor, which was interesting in itself.







Our little cabin on Atuaro Island

Once we got back to Dili from our trip out east, it was time to head to Atuaro Island. On the weekend, a lot of people from Dili catch the ferry over to Atuaro to escape the city for a few hours. It was very busy, and a slow going ride, so personally I started to get a little sea sick by the end. Once we got to Atuaro, we checked into a nice little cabin, relaxed and had a couple of beers. After a couple of hours Kelly and I headed over to the market to find some betelnut to chew that night.

But the market was closing. We walked all around and asked everyone if they had some betelnut, but everyone had sold out for the day. The ferry had packed up and gone home, so the Atuaro locals had chewed up all they hadn't sold and were ready to head home. The betelnut plan would have to be put on hold. The new plan would be to get some in Dili and chew it at Hannah's house.

Hanging out (alone) at the hostel in Hato Builico

Once we returned to Dili, Kelly and I rented another car and headed southwards to the centre of East Timor to climb Mt Ramelau - the highest mountain in East Timor. Driving was again quite tricky, but the distance was shorter so we managed it in just one day and stayed the night in the nearby town of Hato Builico. Hannah said she had gone to Hato Builico to climb the mountain just a couple of weeks earlier, during a local religious festival. When she was there it was very busy, lots of people in the hostel, lots of people climbing the mountain. However, when Kelly and I arrived it was deserted. I'm pretty sure we were the only tourists in town and it was very creepy staying in a big quiet hostel with nobody there (not even staff!).

Statue of Mary at the top of Mt Ramelau at day break

We didn't stay at the creepy hostel long though as we got up at 3:30am in order to get to the top by day break. It's the first time I've done a night climb (though it was the first time Kelly had done any climb) and it was a little bit freaky climbing up a steep mountain at night. There were definitely points were we'd walk along a little path and right next to the path the mountain would plunge into darkness and we couldn't see the bottom. Spooky!

Again, it was worth it though. The views from the top of Mt Ramelau were spectacular - we could actually see the ocean to the north and the south - so we could see across the whole of the country! For me, one of the highlights of the trip was seeing Kelly's face light up once we got to the top and she felt for the first time the joy of reaching the top of a hike.

So even though it was spooky, it was kind of nice to have the mountain to ourselves as we did the hike. Much more, um, "authentic" that way. Hannah's descriptions of people everywhere didn't make it sound like anywhere near as much of an adventure.

Just one of the amazing views from Mt Ramelau

When we got back to Hato Builico we found out that the weekly market was on that day. We thought it might be a good opportunity to scout out some betelnut, so headed on in. The market was tiny - just a few people from around the area come in to sell some items they had grown - but we had made a good call... Practically everyone was chewing betelnut!

Our guide from the mountain (our translator) and Kelly (our translator of the guide) asked some merchants if we could buy some, but they said they didn't have any. So they asked some others, but they said 'no' too. Seemed that nobody had any to sell us! Completely confused, we asked a store nearby and they said nobody would have any. I decided we had to clarify things. So I got everyone's attention and pointed to the big red stains on the ground where people had spat out the betelnut. "Ah!" They all said. Followed by some words I can only assume meant something along the lines of "you mean betelnut you stupid foreigners!".

So now we went back into the market and all of a sudden everyone had betelnut for sale (now that we were actually asking for betelnut). It was cheap too - we bought a couple of sticks and some leaves and started to head off... When we bumped into the first foreigner we'd seen outside of Dili and the first people who could speak English outside of Dili. The foreigner's guide told us that we'd got most of the ingredients we'd need - but that we needed lime powder as well. So we went back to get that. The guide then said she should get some for helping us out, which we happily obliged and she showed us how to do it (though she said she hadn't done it in six years).

She took a leaf, put a nut in the leaf and put some lime powder on it. She then wrapped up the leaf and put it in her mouth and started chewing... Looks like she thinks it's great!

Betelnut in hand Kelly and I returned to Dili for the main event. It also happened to be our last night in Timor by this stage. Hannah and her housemates cooked up dinner and then we all went out the front of her house to drink wine and chew betelnut.

Posing with five betelnut "shots" lined up and ready!

We set up the leaves, nuts and powder; just like the guide had told us, took some photos and then chowed down. Photos tell the story better than words can:

What Hannah's friends thought

It was not tasty. It was a lot more painful than tasty in fact. We each had a few rounds of nuts, chewing for as long as seemed logical, spitting it out, taking some photos... but nobody felt any fun effects. In fact, you'd have more fun just hanging out and drinking wine than getting any betelnut involved!






With our mouths turning bright red, there was only one thing left to do:

Oh, and plank, of course!

By now our mouths were very painful. Drinking hurt. Brushing our teeth hurt.

Nursing our wounds we headed to bed.

The next morning, nothing had improved. Our mouths were still very sore - it felt like a whole bunch of the inside of my tongue and cheek was burned. We had done some serious damage to ourselves. Turned out we had been a little too liberal with the lime powder and had indeed dissolved a large portion of the inside of our mouths. That's pretty much what it looked like when I bared the pain and stuck my tongue out. Talking wasn't fun, nor was eating. Guess that's my fault for flippantly consuming a substance the mafia uses to dissolve bodies! Luckily, it wasn't permanent damage (isn't the tongue meant to be one of the most resilient parts of the body?), so after a couple of weeks my mouth was back to normal.

So while I didn't really enjoy the betelnut itself, it was a good trip (thanks for coming Kelly!), and it was great to catch up with Hannah while she was living in Dili. Thanks Hannah!