About a year ago our bowling organization got so popular in Da Nang, Vietnam that we started to have a cutoff point where we wouldn't allow anyone else to participate. We have a rule that we will never put more than 3 people on each lane and the two championship lanes will only have the 2 people that are bowling for the belts. Therefore the maximum amount of people that we will accommodate is 34 and this is provided that all 12 of the lanes are actually functioning, which is unlikely.
It came out of nowhere with a bunch of new additions to the group, 2 of which found us online, and we ended up with 24 people, which is the most we have had in a while because the numbers tend to drop off in the summertime as it is brutally hot here and a lot of semi-local people move on to other areas with better temps.
Thankfully nobody else was bowling when we arrived. The staff here will kick them off the lanes if we have a ton of people but we of course do not like to do that unless we have to.
We had a ton of countries represented here in Australia, England, Ireland, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, India, Vietnam, Thailand, and Brazil. We had a whopping 6 new members this week and they had a good time so it seems as though they are going to come again next week and perhaps all the weeks after that as long as they are still in the country.
one of the people who came to play with us for the first time was a woman from Australia that has a league average of 180 back home, so she had us a bit worried because we don't actually like it when someone comes along that is much better than the rest of us. She was fun though and she had to feel the pain that is playing on a substandard lanes with house balls. Back in her home country she has 3 custom-made balls as well as a lanes that is perfectly maintained and properly oiled. Let's just say that the Lotte Mart Speed Bowl complex doesn't exactly do those things.
While we are not a proper league per se, we do come at the same time every week so the staff makes sure that the lanes are in as good of shape as they can be. On unofficial practice days that are normally every Tuesday and whatever else day someone wants to go, you can see that the situation can be much worse than it is on Thursdays when all of us go on the official day. I was there this past Tuesday and the oil situation was extremely bad: It was evident that they hadn't oiled the lanes at all that day and there was visible footprints and even hand and body prints in the lane where people had stepped over the line and even crashed and burned into the oil.
For someone that doesn't bowl with a curve this doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot because you don't take advantage of the oil like people like me with a curve but for "proper" bowlers like myself, the current Russian champion, as well as the visiting Australian with the average of 180, this lack of oil makes the lanes almost unplayable. Thankfully the lanes had been oiled just before our arrival and this was evidenced by the straight line of oil that was at the start of each lane.
In the past I have stopped everyone and made them re-oil a lane or two because of this so I think that after 4 years of us going there they have figured out that they may as well oil the lanes before we arrive because we are going to get fussy and make them do it anyway... should they decide to be lazy that morning.
My first game was an absolute disaster with me failing to convert on almost every frame and even guttering once on a full 10 pins. This is quite abnormal for me and I get very frustrated when this happens since I do, in fact, go every single week and use the same ball each time. I managed a paltry 98 points in my first game and it is quite unusual for me, a 6 time champion of the entire league, to get less than 100. I got a bit grouchy from that point forward and wasn't talking to anyone and instead focused on playing and basically ignoring everyone else. I suppose this worked because my 2nd game was dramatically better with me finishing with a 156, which was the 2nd highest score out of everyone on the day. That says more about the skill-level of the group than it does about me, because 156 is NOT a very good score.
At the end of it all everyone had a good time and the Russian champion successfully defended his championship for the 3rd week in a row. I was quite pleased that when it came time to select someone to challenge him next week that it wasn't me whose name came up. I haven't been very happy with my game lately and I didn't want to be in that position just yet. We'll get there eventually.
The rest of the day consisted of us eating food and then going to a bar where the Olympics were on and then someone sent me this picture and i thought is was fitting.
That is not Nadi, this dog is far better groomed than my dog is, but I thought it was cute anyway.
I know this is a long shot but if you are in Da Nang either visiting or living you are welcome to come and bowl with us. As you can tell from the story above being good at the sport is not at all necessary. We arrive at Lotte Mart top floor bowling alley (the only bowling alley) at 1030 and we get things started at around 11. It's a good time and it costs a mere $4. Since it is a million degrees outside every day now, there are worse things you could do with your time.