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20 - 22 August 2010 - Red Sevens from Singapore travelled to Clark Manila, Philippines for the United Paintballers Philippines International Championship (UPPIC) 2010 and were they treated with excellent hospitality and a great paintball event. UPPIC is also Leg 2 of the PALS Series where the Red Sevens took the Division 2 Champions title during the previous leg in Pattaya, Thailand. Missing out on the semi spot with just a single game point, the Red Sevens did not qualify for Day 2 of the tournament and spent the 2nd day coaching and "pod bitching" for Team Ku. Jane, Red Sevens, discovered that it was just as tiring cleaning and filling a hundred pods brought by Team Ku with the help from Hiro, Ben, Fonjen, Arthur, Paul with special guest-pod-bitches from Indonesia, Ronnie and Hadi. Good teamwork, guys!! Participated by about 30 teams across 4 divisions with participants coming from USA, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, Iran, Indonesia and host country Philippines, this tournament is indeed an international affair. Located in a former US airbase, participants were housed in a two-storey villa with a mixture of 2 or 3 bedrooms with full kitchen facilities and a wide range of cable channels for TV surfing. Walk down the main road and be treated with wide variety of Asian food from Korean to Japanese food. To illustrate the organisers' hospitality, the villa of the team from Japan, Team Ku, was located ideally just beside the Japanese restaurant. As Khaine (Team Ku) said, "It's great! You know... sushi = japan = more sushi!" And if there is really nothing much to do, there is a 24-hour casino for all paintball players to try a hand at the roulette or the baccarat table. Each player could even double their chips with a special limited casino coupon from the organisers and casino! Well... most of the teams contributed to the Philippines economy by end of the tournament. Meals for most of the Red Sevens guys were simple fare with either BBQ chicken rice at the SM Mall which was about 15 minutes away by jeepney or instant noodles readily available at a standalone ''mama" stall within the resort. A grand meal at Holiday Inn was the best meal of the whole trip with international buffet serving Chinese, Filipino, Japanese food and an incredible dessert bar serving ice cream wrapped crepe and a full range of toppings. Being typical Singaporeans, we, of course, had to live up to the reputation and went shopping at the only booth for the event tshirts and lanyards! While scouting for sizes of the tshirts at the booth, we were haggled, in fact, more impressed than haggled, by a kid crooning Taio Cruz's latest song. He, together with a group of children, was trying to sell us bamboo-like flutes, tick-tocks, deadly-looking arrows with bows and blow-darts (in case you are wondering, we didn't buy anything of those items). When we first heard the tune, most of us were wondering who was blasting the CD of Taio Cruz! Only when we looked down, we discovered the 7-10ish year old boy singing the song! Maybe another potential youtube hit for the talented Filipino (like Charice Pempengco!)? Other than all these, we also managed to grab some photographs with the friendly guys from Global Gutz. Red Sevens wish to thank Mary Ann, Leo Sy, Mr Tony, Rick, Mark and several friends in the Philippines who had gone out of their way to make this event possible and arrange for a great stay for us all. Red Sevens would also like to thank all the referees from Asia Refs led by Mr Junaidi in refereeing this tournament, and, the PALS Committee for bringing another great event to the Asia region again! Within the team, it was also great to meet up with teammates/friends from other countries including Arthur Chang, Fonjen, Betty who had a sunny (really hot!) time taking photos and videos for the team! Looking forward to Red Sevens' next adventure already...
Words by Ben "King" and Jane "ELLE" with a quote from Khaine
Smith, Team Ku |
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Photographs contributed by Betty's camera and whoever's IPhones... |
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