Paintball

Paintball - a very expensive and painful sport but we did have fun. Brian organized a trip to Chaos Paintball at Charlotte last Saturday. It is only about 25 minutes away from Lansing, near a housing area, with 6 fields.
When we first got there, we each get a paintball gun filled with compressed air, carried in a gas tank. This makes the gun very heavy and as time goes by, it becomes quite a challenge to carry the gun and aim. We were also provided with a bag of 500 'bullets'. The paintball is made of vegetable oil and food coloring, protected within a gelatin coating. While the impact of being hit from a distance that hurts the most, when the gelatin coating burst upon contact with skin surface, it can also cause scratches. The 'bullets goes into the white bottle attached to the top of the gun as in the photo above. In addition to that, we were also given 2 containers for more bullets to be refilled when in the field. The containers are attached to a waist belt, which is another challenge if you have to crawl on the ground when avoiding the opponent.

The first field we played at is the 'Hyperball Field'. It is basically a flat greenland, with plastic materials set up as places to hide. Each team starts from one end of the field and we have to try to eliminate everyone in the opponent team. In the first two game, Ping was the last survivor in Ping's team and had to surrender both times because Ping have no idea where the remaining opponents are and Ping was ambushed!!! When Ping first entered the 'battle-field', it wasn't that scary because it was more exciting. It was almost the end of the first game when someone kept shooting towards Ping and the sound of the 'bullets' coming at you is 恐怖 (terrorizing?...scary).
The second field we played at is much harder - an open field. There is barely any place to hide unless you are in the ditch, which can be pretty dangerous because when the opponent come running from the top, you have no where to hide. Another way is to stay flat on the ground but that also reduces your own visibility of who is going where and the big picture is lost.

This is definitely a 'gia lui lai ho lang sae' (use money to be shot). But it was lots of fun! Fortunately, Ping did not get any direct shot. Got a few scratches and 'or chae' from crawling on the ground and running from one hiding place to another. For those who got hit, it does look scary because it is a huge 'or chae' and looks like the Lyme disease Bull's eye rash symptom.