Filling in the blanks

When I left off last time I had lost my first two matches. Going into the next day I tried to not put too much pressure on myself. That was hard to do since I knew that I could win my next three matches and make it to the top 24. My first match was against the top ranked player in my group, Yun-Mi Lim. I watched her play the day before and immediately I could tell that she trains and plays with Ga Young Kim. They have the same style, on and off the table. The match started out slow for me. I got down quick and made a little comeback. My big problem, scratching on the break. I scratched on the break three times. Not a good thing when you really have to capitalize on your trips to the table. I lost the match 7-4.

Now I knew I couldn't make it to the final 24. I had to focus on winning my next two matches in order to get any money back and finish at least fourth in my group. I really wasn't feeling all that great. My confidence took a huge beating and my sleep was still a little screwy. I started feeling better in the afternoon though. My body started feeling more normal and I felt more awake rather than in a fog. My next opponent was from Venezuela. I was feeling pretty confident and started out strong. Then I don't know what happened. I kind of felt overwhelmed and unfocused. I managed to hold on and win the match 7-4. Right away, I had to play another match. This was against another Taiwanese player. She looked to be pretty strong. I played alright, but I was again making silly mistakes at the end of the rack. I won the match but it was ugly. The final score was 7-5. If I would have played with only a couple mistakes rather than a countless number of mistakes, the score would have been 7-1. I waited, hoping that maybe a miracle would happen and I would make it into the final 24...no such luck. I ended my run in Taipei and came home with $500 usd. I finished 25-32nd. Hey, it's better than last!

After the matches were over, a big group of us were absolutely starving. Myself, Monica, Kelly Fisher, Val Finnie, Joanne Ashton, Allison Fisher and Kristi Carter went for Shabu Shabu again. It is definitely not an everyday meal. One thing that is in the Shabu Shabu that is pretty disgusting in my opinion is condensed duck blood. It kind of looks like tofu for those of you that are wondering, here is a picture...Joanne decided that for $10 she would be the one to try this gross stuff out. What she didn't realize before doing it, the $10 was NT not US dollars. That is equal to about a quarter. Here she is during the act and after...

I thought this was a pretty cool picture. Monica and Kelly were doing something, I'm not totally sure what, but to me it looks like the passing from one Number One to another...
After dinner we didn't really have much to do. It was already midnight or so and most of us had nothing to do at all or until around 2pm. The hotel has a bar but it closes at 11pm. Luckily there is a little store just next to the hotel. That place had to love us! A group of about 10-15 of us had a fun night of catching up, joking, competing at various things and just being plain goofy! Here is what happens when they let all of us hang out...
This is the group of us that made it to the end of the night...obviously after some fun.
The next day, the only ones left to play were Monica and Kelly. Monica had to play one of my new favorite people and players, Rubilen Amit. Kelly had to play Gerda. Monica played well and decisively won her match. Kelly and Gerda played a great match. Kelly was winning 6-1, racing to 7. She looked like the match was going to be a blowout. Sure enough, here came Gerda, creeping closer and closer. The hill-hill game went through a roller coaster of emotions. There was a safety battle, then a shot kicked in and another safety battle. Finally, Gerda got a chance to run out and took full advantage. She would go on to play Jasmin Ouschan. Here is a shot of one of the two television tables.
Gerda went on to defeat Jasmin. I didn't see the match because I was absolutely starving! Ga Young Kim drove us to the dinner party that Mr. Tu was throwing. I have to put this picture up to prove that someone out there does parallel park worse than I do. Sorry Ga Young!
Now we get to the good stuff. One of the only things that I got to do in Taiwan was the night market. There are a few different ones in Taipei. Some have only food and some have shops and food. Joanne and I went the one closest to the hotel that had shops and food. All I can say is that is a smell I don't care to ever smell again. There were so many people there along with maybe 100 different booths with food being cooked. Some of it was totally unrecognizable! There were all kinds of stray dogs running around. I wasn't brave enough to try any of the food. There is just something a little suspicious about food just sitting out in the open air and unrecognizable. Here are a few pictures to give you an example...


Joanne was brave, but not brave enough to try any of this stuff...
Snails anyone??...
My flight is boarding to Las Vegas right now so I will be back later with more pictures, the finals and my thoughts on the trip!