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13. PNWR & Pre-Expressiyon
Somewhere between EP4 and Expressiyon, I took the time to catch up on what I missed from other contests around the world. One contest in particular was Vietnam Nationals 2023. Sitta reminded me a few times that the new champion is underrated and I should check it out. The new champion being Bao Lam Nguyen.
No doubt, I was interested in sponsoring a Vietnam player – however, I didn’t want to rush into the decision, as we already had a relatively large team of eight with no product. Most importantly, I had never been to Vietnam and didn’t understand how their scene was. I would often hear about politics and drama in Vietnam, which I did not want to be involved in.
Similarly, I didn’t feel comfortable approaching players that the team or I hadn’t met before. So, I held off on making any decisions about sponsoring anyone for now. I was still very keen on Vietnam but needed to understand more and see the growth of the players I was interested in. Sponsorships aren’t that straightforward either — there are many areas to vet, and sponsoring players who have never tried our yo-yos is also risky.
I was actually interested in three players and had to select one – but as this blog is written a year later, you would know I eventually went with Lam.
PNWR
For some reason, insomnia decided to kick in two days before flying off to Expressiyon. I was exhausted the night before flying and was pretty sure I could fall asleep – and that’s when I noticed the PNWR stream having issues. Bear in mind this was at about 3 a.m. Malaysia time.
Reddit, YouTube, and Discord were raging about the production issues, where the main stream was extremely pixelated with frequent crashes and audio problems. As 1A prelims were ongoing, the folks at home were getting more triggered as their favorite players were about to go up. There was an eager audience, but there was no way to watch it.
That’s when I had the idea to call Zafran, who was at the event, and told him we HAD to livestream PNWR. Zafran didn’t answer at first, but after a few calls, it went through. I handed the IG account over to Zafran, and he went live! It was a nice moment, as we were able to reach a new audience outside of SEA.
An hour later, PNWR sorted out their stream and we ended our live.
Zafran also said it would be good to film some short clips of players trying the "insomnia 7068 proto" and, at the same time, get their feedback on it. Thank you again to everyone who participated in this.
So now we’re at about 7 a.m. my time, and clips were coming in from Zafran. I had the choice to try and get some sleep before the flight to Jakarta or edit the video. I thought the video came out pretty good, for a human being awake for over 40 hours at that point.
If you scroll down far enough, the video is on our IG under “Seattle Playtest.
Road to Expressiyon
It wasn’t my first time in Indonesia, as I had traveled there for holidays and also BIYO13 (Bali International Yo-Yo Open 2013). The plan was to land, head to the hotel, and KO until Expressiyon the next day.
As we exited the terminal, I bumped into the one and only Jonathan Sittangang, who was waiting for Polo – who was also on the same flight as Sitta; they were landing an hour apart from my arrival. Even though Sitta and I were staying in the same hotel, I actually told him before the flight that I was too tired and would just see him later in the day lol.
Jon offered to buy me a coffee and said we should just chat a bit since we didn’t get to talk much at EP4. In hindsight, I think he just didn’t want to wait alone at the airport haha.
A long hour passed, and the Thais arrived. Jon said most of the boys were meeting up later for dinner and that we should join, as Kevin Hendrata would also be there. I said I’d think about it, and we went on our ways.
During the cab ride to the hotel, Sitta and I just caught up and spoke about a lot of shit. I asked him if he was ready for the contest, and he said, “No boss, but free flight ticket so it’s ok.” For those who don’t know Sitta, he’s also a bit of a yapper. Not as bad as Marcus or Karthik, but still yaps a bit.
I looked at the driver’s navigation, and we were about an hour away from the hotel.
Here’s where I was reintroduced to Jakarta traffic. About an hour later of chatting with Sitta, I looked back at the navigation, and we were now 90 minutes away??? The fuck? How did we travel back in time??
I was raging a little and started complaining to Sitta about the traffic. Sitta then gave me a lecture about how much worse the traffic is in Bangkok, Thailand. I think it’s a Southeast Asian thing where we compare our countries’ drivers and traffic. As I’ve been to Thailand at least eight times, I told him no way. Sitta then told me to stop being a bitch.
I remember leaving the airport at 4pm. and reaching the hotel close to 7pm.
This is when I told myself there was no way in hell I’d meet the boys or leave the hotel for the rest of this trip haha. Thankfully, the hotel we booked was only 3 km from the venue.
So we checked in, and I told Sitta bye, see you tomorrow. I ordered room service for dinner and tried to sleep. For the price we paid, hotel was really nice!
Unfortunately, I was only able to clock in about two hours of sleep that night.
To be continued…