Kristina Valjas: Korea 2.0

Jamie and I just got back from competing in 2 Korean exhibition tournaments occurring over 10 days (August 16-25). There were teams from Spain, Norway, Czech, Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand and Korea.
The first tournament was in Busan.

First Venue

The way the first tournament was organized was a little bit strange... The organizers only wanted 6 teams playing, 2 of them being Korean teams, so they drew seeds out of a hat for the remaining international teams. The thing was, there were 4 available spots and 7 teams hoping to play. We were lucky enough to draw a spot in the tournament. But Norway, Spain and China weren't so lucky. They had to sit this one out. Good thing we pulled a lucky ticket, because we ended up winning the first tournament! It felt really good to stand on top of that podium.

Immediately after the finals, we were supplied with Big Macs for lunch and herded on to a coach bus that was to take us to the next venue. Little did we know, it was going to be an 8 hour bus ride! That was fun....

When we finally got to Gyeongpo Beach, we had a day off before the second tournament started. This location was actually pretty cool, there was a boardwalk along the beach that we walked to get from our hotel to centre court. This tournament was set up in a double-elimination format. We went undefeated all the way to semis, where we lost Spain. Later on, we beat Norway to take the bronze.

This was such a fun experience, we got to play some great competitive volleyball and make new friends. I hope we get a chance to participate in these tournaments next year... even if that means it will be Jamie's 7th trip to Korea!