From February 24th to June 7th of the year 2013 of our Lord, I was traveling from place to place, be it South Africa, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Australia, Japan or others. It was obviously an incredible trip, if one that lasted too long. To be honest, when I reached Japan in Mid-May, I was starting to feel a bit homesick. What got me out of that home-sickness, which happened in Australia in April as well, was the fact that the US playoffs had started, some small connection back to home.
I'll bring up my time in Japan the most for two reasons. First, becuase when I was there, it was the 2nd and 3rd round in the various playoffs, be it the Spurs six-game win over the Warriors, the Kings and Sharks seven-game battle (before their more memorable battle the next year), the culmination of a Blackhawks dynasty, or the seven-game slog that was Heat-v-Pacers, in the prime of the Pacers, a run, a generation ago when they could run David West and Roy Hibbert on the court at the same time and be effective.
Going back to the trip, I won't talk about the details - I did that for a 90-part diary that covered the 105 days of that trip - but instead talk about my ancillary feelings of being that far away from home for so long, with only sports and TV to connect me back to what I left behind. This was a world before Twitter (not technically, but even in 2013, it was nowhere as prevalent a service as it is now), a world before streaming and reddit and so many other things that make the world feel smaller. However, it was a world with WiFi, if anything WiFi was more avaiable to the public in Vietnam and Co in 2013, being in evrery restaurant and hostel. I torrented the shit out of my favorite shows - still being How I Met Your Mother, Happy Endings and the like.
To talk about Torrenting, it was on that trip I binged the first two seasons of Game of Thrones, catching up in time to watch the 3rd season as it ended when I returned home. This was a lifetime ago. That said, I think I watched The Wire three times over on that trip, mostly while it played in the background as I slept.
Sports was also a way to stay connected. I left on this trip three weeks to the day that the Ravens, under Joe Flacco's MVP-watch, won Super Bowl XLVII, a dramatic win over Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers. The first thing that happened on my trip was the 2013 March Madness, an interesting tournament that featured some great games, the rise of Wichita State, and Louisville's almost preordained title. I was in Penang, Malaysia, when Michigan somehow beat Kansas in the Sweet 16 in OT. I was in Bangalore when Louisville won the title, streaming on ESPN America (ironically, ESPN's international arm) at XX-am, overnight. \
Then, as I left for Australia on April 25th, it became the NHL and NBA playoffs that kept me going. The time difference actually worked perfectly, with these games happening in my morning, waking up to an American surprise. What was interesting was in Australia, the local restaurants and bars actually broadcasted the NHL playoffs. I distinctly remember watching a Wild-Blackhawks 2013 first round game on a bar TV while having brunch/breakfast in Cairns, Australia.
The 2013 NHL Playoffs were an intersting one, coming on the heels of a lockout shortened season. The Blackhawks were amazing. The Kings were the dominant defending champs. I remember listening to Marek vs. Wyshynski (RIP) in Japan previewing that titanic Western Conference Playoffs.
Of course, at the same time, was an interesting NBA playoffs, one so long ago that the Knicks were the #2 seed in the East, with Jason Kidd as a starting point guard. Yes, that happened this decade. I remember being in Japan, eating sushi, when I found out the Pacers beat the Knicks, a result that Zach Lowe had predicted for many weeks on his Lowe Post Podcast - at that time still uynder the Grantland Umbrella.
\
Somehow, the Wifi was good enough to watch some of these games. I remember watching live on my computer LeBron hitting a walk-off game winner against the Pacers in Game 1. I remember watching Patrick Kane's hat-trick series-winning goal against the Kings. I remember so much, flighted memories among the many days upon days of touring lands far away.
The world may follow soccer, but no country exports their sports better than the US. On my trip, I grew a love for Aussie Rules Football, but when that ended, on Aussie TV, it showed basketball and hockey. In Japan, they showed basketball interspliced with MLB baseball. In India,, Sony Six, a channel that normally showed just cricket, stopped showing test matches every now and then to show NBA Playoffs, including the lalst year Kobe's team would be in the playoffs, a series Kobe missed and the Spurs won easily in four.
When I left on my trip, it was during the darkest period of the sports calendar, that period after NFL ends, where NBA/NHL/College-BBall is at its low point in the regular season, but before I knew it, the regualr seasons were ending and the playoffs beginning. I guess I do wish I could have just ignored them, and focused on the trip at hand, but if anything, being able to follow these events that I would be deep into had I been home, was what kept me sane.
I'm sure there are some people that may think "Why couldn't you just ignore the playoffs/the shows, and just escape?" and while that may sound great, it is still idyllic. At 21/22 years, there is a sense of loneliness that will set in when traveling the world, in Asia, thousands of miles from home, disconnected from friends, from family, from normalcy; sports gave that back to me, for however fleeting, be it the moment I checked ESPN in the morning, or listed to a podcast while taking the Jueno Train in Tokyo.
In the end, I got home the day Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic in the 2013 French Open in five dramatic sets, and the Spurs beat the Heat in Game 1 of the 2013 Finals, a series in which they would ultimately lose. It was a grand return to that normalcy, but I do wonder what would happen if I cut myself off cold turkey, if I returned 3.5 months later without having any clue what happened in the interim? In the end, I couldn't do that, because when you are lost amongst the Da Lat hills, or petting the Nara deer, sometimes sports is what tethers you back to home.
I'll bring up my time in Japan the most for two reasons. First, becuase when I was there, it was the 2nd and 3rd round in the various playoffs, be it the Spurs six-game win over the Warriors, the Kings and Sharks seven-game battle (before their more memorable battle the next year), the culmination of a Blackhawks dynasty, or the seven-game slog that was Heat-v-Pacers, in the prime of the Pacers, a run, a generation ago when they could run David West and Roy Hibbert on the court at the same time and be effective.
Going back to the trip, I won't talk about the details - I did that for a 90-part diary that covered the 105 days of that trip - but instead talk about my ancillary feelings of being that far away from home for so long, with only sports and TV to connect me back to what I left behind. This was a world before Twitter (not technically, but even in 2013, it was nowhere as prevalent a service as it is now), a world before streaming and reddit and so many other things that make the world feel smaller. However, it was a world with WiFi, if anything WiFi was more avaiable to the public in Vietnam and Co in 2013, being in evrery restaurant and hostel. I torrented the shit out of my favorite shows - still being How I Met Your Mother, Happy Endings and the like.
To talk about Torrenting, it was on that trip I binged the first two seasons of Game of Thrones, catching up in time to watch the 3rd season as it ended when I returned home. This was a lifetime ago. That said, I think I watched The Wire three times over on that trip, mostly while it played in the background as I slept.
Sports was also a way to stay connected. I left on this trip three weeks to the day that the Ravens, under Joe Flacco's MVP-watch, won Super Bowl XLVII, a dramatic win over Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers. The first thing that happened on my trip was the 2013 March Madness, an interesting tournament that featured some great games, the rise of Wichita State, and Louisville's almost preordained title. I was in Penang, Malaysia, when Michigan somehow beat Kansas in the Sweet 16 in OT. I was in Bangalore when Louisville won the title, streaming on ESPN America (ironically, ESPN's international arm) at XX-am, overnight. \
Then, as I left for Australia on April 25th, it became the NHL and NBA playoffs that kept me going. The time difference actually worked perfectly, with these games happening in my morning, waking up to an American surprise. What was interesting was in Australia, the local restaurants and bars actually broadcasted the NHL playoffs. I distinctly remember watching a Wild-Blackhawks 2013 first round game on a bar TV while having brunch/breakfast in Cairns, Australia.
The 2013 NHL Playoffs were an intersting one, coming on the heels of a lockout shortened season. The Blackhawks were amazing. The Kings were the dominant defending champs. I remember listening to Marek vs. Wyshynski (RIP) in Japan previewing that titanic Western Conference Playoffs.
Of course, at the same time, was an interesting NBA playoffs, one so long ago that the Knicks were the #2 seed in the East, with Jason Kidd as a starting point guard. Yes, that happened this decade. I remember being in Japan, eating sushi, when I found out the Pacers beat the Knicks, a result that Zach Lowe had predicted for many weeks on his Lowe Post Podcast - at that time still uynder the Grantland Umbrella.
\
Somehow, the Wifi was good enough to watch some of these games. I remember watching live on my computer LeBron hitting a walk-off game winner against the Pacers in Game 1. I remember watching Patrick Kane's hat-trick series-winning goal against the Kings. I remember so much, flighted memories among the many days upon days of touring lands far away.
The world may follow soccer, but no country exports their sports better than the US. On my trip, I grew a love for Aussie Rules Football, but when that ended, on Aussie TV, it showed basketball and hockey. In Japan, they showed basketball interspliced with MLB baseball. In India,, Sony Six, a channel that normally showed just cricket, stopped showing test matches every now and then to show NBA Playoffs, including the lalst year Kobe's team would be in the playoffs, a series Kobe missed and the Spurs won easily in four.
When I left on my trip, it was during the darkest period of the sports calendar, that period after NFL ends, where NBA/NHL/College-BBall is at its low point in the regular season, but before I knew it, the regualr seasons were ending and the playoffs beginning. I guess I do wish I could have just ignored them, and focused on the trip at hand, but if anything, being able to follow these events that I would be deep into had I been home, was what kept me sane.
I'm sure there are some people that may think "Why couldn't you just ignore the playoffs/the shows, and just escape?" and while that may sound great, it is still idyllic. At 21/22 years, there is a sense of loneliness that will set in when traveling the world, in Asia, thousands of miles from home, disconnected from friends, from family, from normalcy; sports gave that back to me, for however fleeting, be it the moment I checked ESPN in the morning, or listed to a podcast while taking the Jueno Train in Tokyo.
In the end, I got home the day Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic in the 2013 French Open in five dramatic sets, and the Spurs beat the Heat in Game 1 of the 2013 Finals, a series in which they would ultimately lose. It was a grand return to that normalcy, but I do wonder what would happen if I cut myself off cold turkey, if I returned 3.5 months later without having any clue what happened in the interim? In the end, I couldn't do that, because when you are lost amongst the Da Lat hills, or petting the Nara deer, sometimes sports is what tethers you back to home.
