It was back to Tajima, Hyogo for me on the weekend of July 1st, so I spent my Canada day playing ultimate frisbee! This was my second year to join this particular tournament, but there were a few changes this time. Last year our team was called 'Small Axe' and we played against 12 teams to take 2nd place, being ousted by the 'Kinky Trolls'. The year before that our team came in 1st, but I wasn't there to see it. Anyway this year we played against 20 teams and came once more in 2nd place. We lost out to this new, all Japanese team from Osaka who are on their way to play in some world-wide championship or something, so obviously they were pretty good. Even though we pretty much rolled over every team we played to get the the finals, they put us back in our places and rolled over us 10-3.
Like I said, the first 2 years our team was called 'Small Axe' but this year we decided to change our team name to 'Iku' and me being something of a designer, the team wisely chose me to make a team logo. However, those non-Japanese speaking people might ask: 'What is an Iku'? Iku has two meanings in Japanese, the first means simply 'go' as in 'let's go play frisbee', and the other, less known meaning is to 'come' and by that I don't mean the opposite of go, if you get my drift.... Double entendres are important in ultimate. Here's the logo, nothing fancy.

We spent the weekend camping, barbacuing, drinking, going to onsens and of course playing some good ultimate. Here are some of us having just woken up on Saturday morning. You can see Bruno setting up his stove to make coffee, Jason munching on a banana (and stockpiling gas) and me rubbing the sleep from my eyes. If you look closely you might even find Brady crawling from his tent.

Not many shots of the game action, and most of the ones I do have are pretty dull. Here's one of UK Mike handling the disc near the endzone as we steamroll our way to victory!

Saturday night was bbq time and there was enough beef, pork, chicken and veggies to feed hundreds! Good thing that because hundreds showed up. Here's Yoshio blowing his nose while Yukiko and JC pose. Meanwhile beside Bruno, a hand reaches out, but what is its destination?

Here's Jolyon um... turning on the charm with Yuki. Quick Brady, where are you!?

Lots happening here. Mike and Rob pose on the left, but where is Mike looking? Click here for a better look. On the right Jason explains something to Kerry, who listens patiently, while below Akili is deciding how best to make his move on all the Japanese guys and girls.

Here's Nara Shika Fun doing their award winning chant. Click here to see a short video.

And of course, a group picture with the amazing Iku!

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