Once I got back to New Taipei City, the preparation for “operation return home” was imminent. I did all of my laundry, and packed everything I wasn’t planning on wearing in the next week into a giant suitcase that I had lugged up the stairs last year. I rolled each item of clothing individually in an effort to pack with maximum spacial efficiency. This was the week that Universiade, essentially the Olympics for college athletes, would be taking over all of Taipei’s sporting arenas. I had seen the advertisements for this event all over the city for a year now, but it didn’t occur to me that I’d be here for it or that I could get tickets.

While I was visiting Mark, he had mentioned that the USA Women’s basketball team was University of Maryland’s women’s team. He helped me get tickets at a Seven Eleven kiosk. The tickets were incredibly cheap, about $8 for a full day of matches. The tickets I got to watch Maryland also admitted me to all of the other men’s and women’s matches scheduled at that gymnasium throughout the day.

The first game I saw Maryland play was against Poland, and they crushed. It wasn’t even close. It was pretty hilarious watching the Polish coach yell and scream in Polish as the Terps scored baskets.

Team USA warms up for their match against Poland

Poland was no match for the Terrapins

Team USA shoots a free throw

The range of sports offered by Universiade included obscure sports (at least obscure by American standards) that I had never seen live before. Sports like archery, speed skating, judo, and taekwondo were on the list of events you could get tickets for. Unfortunately, volleyball is incredibly popular in Taiwan, so by the time I thought to get tickets for that they were sold out.

Tammy and I set our alarms extra early on the day of the Japan vs. Taiwan men’s volleyball match as a last ditch effort to snatch one of the small percentage of tickets they save for day-of. The line was so unbelievably long. Every time we turned a corner, there was a new stretch of people waiting— no end in sight. People at the beginning of the line had even camped out in tents the night before. We stood in line for at least two hours before a staff member came by, announcing that it would be impossible to get a ticket at our place in line. (Every person in front of us could get up to four tickets, and even if every person got one, we still wouldn’t get a ticket. That’s how long it was.) Standing in this line is also where I found out Taylor’s new album would come out on November 10, so that was probably the best part of the line experience. Tammy and I headed out to where we needed to go for the day, leaving our spot in line as extra-hopeful people stayed behind us.

One small section of the never-ending line

That night, I went to the World Religions Museum with Matt, which was fun. They had elaborate models of places of worship from all over the world, as well as headphones and interactive, animated video games to learn about the various religions. But back to Universiade…

In total, I got three basketball tickets to fill my days that could have been spent packing. Over the three days I saw women’s teams from the United States, Chile, Hungary, Sweden, Australia, and the Czech Republic, and men’s teams from Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, Argentina, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, and Taipei.

An athlete from the Romanian men’s team shoots during practice

People packed the stands for Taipei’s match against Mexico. It was way fuller than any other match that day by at least ten times. That match was also super close (90-88), so I was glad I stayed for it. Not to mention, Taipei won.

The Taipei men’s team warms up in front of a packed crowd

A clip from the Taipei vs. Mexico match:

Another fan favorite was the South Korean men’s team. A girl at the front of the stands was totally fan-girling over one of the players, screaming every time he was nearby and taking photos with an expensive-looking camera lens.

Maryland also beat the Czech Republic pretty handily in the next round, but lost against the Aussies in their third match. Luckily, my bet against Stan for tacos was on the Czech Republic game. One cool part about Maryland representing Team USA was that I met a lot of other Maryland fans in the audience, even the parents of several players. One of them gave me an “M” patch when I told them I was a former student. I thought Maryland’s athletes would be more interested as to why there was a white girl watching them in Asia when I said “good luck” to them from the stands, but they didn’t care at all. They just said thanks and turned back around.

The terps fell to the Aussies 76-69 in a quarterfinal match

The other sport I was able to get tickets for was tennis, which I went to for two days. Some of the players, namely the Taiwanese players, were actually on the professional circuit, but had taken the required number of credit hours to be able to compete in this “university” event. The Taiwanese Chang sisters who won the Taiwan Open were there and won first place in Women’s Doubles. There was also a professional Taiwanese men’s singles player, Jason Jung, who ended up taking first place as well. The matches were exciting, albeit hot because the stadium was outdoors. Luckily most of the seats were in the shade, but it was still hot.

My friends and I didn’t see the medal matches, but we did get to see all of those Taiwanese players in their earlier matches. It was so cool that in this last week or so of free time I had (in which I only planned to pack and get ready for my trip), there was this awesome, all-day, everyday event going on with live sports all over the city. It was the perfect way to spend my afternoons. Packing would have never taken that long anyway…