By Chris Wang
CNA, WITH STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, Sep 29, 2010, Page 19
Liu is an uncommonly dedicated sports fan, even by basketball junkie standards. She quit her job and visited 33 European cities in 63 days from March to May to watch professional basketball games in person.
??I love the swishing sound of a basketball going through the net. And I??m uncomfortable if I don??t play basketball for two or three days,?? said Liu, who started playing basketball in the fifth grade when she attended an international school in Beijing.
Already familiar with the American basketball scene, including the professional NBA and the college game, Liu said her passion for the sport took her to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean to explore an area she was less familiar.
Liu quit her job at an international trading company and started to map out her plan to visit as many European teams and leagues as possible.
Helped by the many friends she made while volunteering at various local sporting events, including the Jones Cup basketball tournament, the Kaohsiung World Games and the Taipei Deaflympics, Liu arranged about 70 percent of her itinerary before departing on what she called ??A Basketball Dream ?X Ballin?? Europe.??
The basketball-loving girl, who majored in applied chemistry at Taiwan??s National Chiao Tung University, began her basketball pilgrimage by attending a Swiss professional league game in Geneva less than 24 hours after arriving there.
In the following two months, the journey took Liu to numerous cities in eight countries ?X Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Greece.
In all, Liu attended 25 games and watched 50 teams play in various European domestic leagues, as well as the Eurocup Finals and the Euroleague Final Four ?X both top-tier European basketball competitions.
Liu estimated that, on average, she slept less than three hours a night during her stay in Europe and visited as many as three cities in a day.
After the two-month trip, she spent three months in Beijing working as an intern at NBA China and returned to Taiwan for one day before resuming her travels.
This time she visited Turkey for the 2010 FIBA Men??s World Championship and attended all of the tournament??s games, while getting to see her favorite player ?X Rudy Fernandez of Spain ?X play in person.
To save money during her European travels, Liu said she spent all but one night staying at friends?? places and ended up spending only around NT$200,000 on the trip.
??Most of my budget was spent on transportation ?X flight tickets, train tickets and bus fares,?? Liu said.
She also had to overcome ??the unthinkable?? in Europe, such as a French railway strike and the disruption of European air traffic by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland that left European skies filled with an impenetrable ash.
Newspapers in Serbia and Greece gave extensive coverage to her ambitious trip, Liu said. She was also interviewed by FIBA during the World Championship.
Liu recalled that her parents expressed concern about the trip when she first brought up the idea, but her father finally gave the go-ahead because ??he didn??t want me to miss the opportunity to realize my dream.??
Her European trek has not brought her dream to an end. If anything, it was only the beginning of loftier ambitions, including a return to Europe for next year??s European Championship, which will be held in Lithuania next summer.
Liu??s dream now extends beyond watching basketball games.
??I want to be involved in and initiate basketball-related non-government organization projects which inspire children and the underprivileged through the sport,?? said Liu, who described herself as being broke and is looking for a job to support her future plans.
??Basketball has been the inspiration to lift myself out of bed every morning since I was 13. I hope that the sport ?X and my journey ?X would be an inspiration for other people as well,?? she said.
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