The Adventure Continues

Today we headed back to the airport in Nanjing and boarded a flight to the Huanna Changsha airport, and them jumped on a bus to Shaodong. The bus traveled through a lot of cool, plush, green mountains. There were little houses and fertile farmland tucked in the small valleys that the road weaved through. Once we exited the freeway, honking the entire way, we entered the city of Shaodong. At first sight, the city looked a little rough due to the old buildings and just stuff everywhere. We headed to the Jin Li Hua Grand Hotel. It was about twenty stories high and looked like a nice hotel. They rolled out the red carpet for us, literally. They wanted me to walk in first where I was greeted by a huge bouquet of flowers and applause as I graciously walked down the red carpet. From that point on I knew this would be a interesting two day stay in Shaodong,

Instead of eating lunch at the hotel, Robert gave us all a per diem and the hotel staff called a few cabs for us, and we took off for Dico’s, the Chinese version of KFC. The cab ride was an experience worthy of a small essay in and of itself. The sceenrey on the side roads we were on, was reminiscent of a scene from Slugdog Millionaire., with old buildings crammed in on narrow streets and people all over the place. The cab hauling Mike Sloan, Joe Darger,, Big Mike, and me couldn’t handle the weight and the back right tire about went flat half way through the short ride. The cabi pulled over and threw us in another taxi that almost got us in a head on collision right in front of our destination, Dico’s.

Dico’s turned out to be an absolute madhouse. There was about a hundred people lining the big windows of the place just staring, and taking pictures of us as we ate. There was one older guy wearing a sport coat, topped off with an army helmet that was having the time of his life watching us. It was pretty amusing just to watch him, watch us. As we left Dico’s, there were about twenty little kids outside of the restaurant doing a chicken dance of some sort, lead by a few of Dico’s finest.

All ten players, and I, then meandered through the streets of Shaodong, with our own entourage following our every step. My camera was out of batteries but I’ll try to get some pictures from the guys. This was a horrible time not to have my camera! We found one side street that was lined with meat and produce for sale. The smell was terrible, and I almost threw up several times. One guy had an entire cow leg hanging from his makeshift shop. It was hanging by the hoof that still had dirt on it, and hair still right over the hoof. Next was a lady butchering live fish and she had a few lives chickens in a coup too. We all threw some yuan together to see her kill the chicken in front of us. It wasn’t a barbaric as it sounds, because we found a lady that had a few kids with her and tried to explain to her that we were buying the chicken for her. At this point, we had a huge crowd of people around this little lady killing the chicken. The execution was pretty hardcore, as she slit the chickens throat and turned it upside down to drain all the blood, and then let it flail around until it was pretty much dead, and finished it off in a tub of boiling water. Crazy.

From that point on some of the guys split up and I continued on with one of the groups. We saw some people playing badminton (with no net) on the streets and I stopped to have a few swings and show of my skills from my Middle Georgia College intramural badminton championship days, circa 2002. We ran into a little girl, named Jane, who was very bright, and spoke good English. She helped us find a DVD store and answered all of our questions. She ended up staying with some of the guys for the next few hours translating everything for them. Joe Darger, Andres Sandoval and I found a store selling all of kinds of Louis Vuton bags. Dre scored a few nice bags, while Joe and I found a spa and took advantage of another cheap massage, this time a facial/head massage. Glorious.

It was dark by this point and all the guys were back at the hotel were they had dinner. Joe and I got back too later for dinner at the hotel so we hang out for a while, then tried our hand at a late night hunt for food. We walked to a store that we saw earlier that had the word ‘pizza’ on it, but it was closed. We found a girl that spoke a little English and she hailed us a cab and explained to the driver where to take us, to satisfy our need for American food. Wondering where we were headed, we found ourselves being dropped off back at Dico’s once again. This time it was closed. I settled for an ice cream cone I found at a little shop and we took another cab back to the Grand Hotel.

Game day. We had a shoot around at the arena and tried to get a little more organized as a team. The arena itself was a bit old and sat about 3,000. I knew it would be a loud, and hot atomsphere for our game. The guys were sharp in shoot around and I was feeling good leaving the arena. Before we left we took some pictures with the sponsor of the local sports committee, which was a drinking water company. They threw us some water bottles and we smiled for the camera. The water bottles said a bunch of stuff in Chinese on them, and in small English writing it said Savageness Water. I hoped we played like savages in our game.

A few meals, and some more exploring of the city followed the shoot around along with Robert and Boss Man inviting me into Boss Man’s room for an earful on what we needed to do to win the game. They pointed out the obvious of not turning the ball over, and setting more scores. I shook my head in agreence with all that was said and left the room feeling anxious for the game to start.

Both teams jumped in the same bus and headed over the arena together. Think of a word with a meaning of just under chaos, and that is what it was when we arrived to arena. There were people everywhere, loud music, and cops. Both team walked into the arena, being adored like they were Kobe, and Yao. Once we got the locker room, there were window that the blinds didn’t cover all the way, and there were people trying their hardest to peak around the blinds and into the locker room. One of the on lookers was the little girl Jane that we were with the day before. I went outside and got her and her friend in the game, passing all the security guards and letting me them know they were with me. The guys headed out to warm up while I stayed in the locker room, to finish preparing for the game. I switched up the starting line up a bit, and thought about ways to help us win the game.

Both teams started the game out with the dunk contest and got the capacity crowd going. The on lookers, cheered between each drag of their cigarettes, and with each drag, the cloud of smoke in the gym grew bigger and bigger. There were two guys some right behind our bench and I had to get Robert to put them out. The funny thing is, there are no smoking signs throughout the gym. The first half was tight all the way through, and both teams looked a little sloppy. We took a two-point lead to halftime.

I can’t really say enough about how terrible the officiating is. David Archer warned me that the refs would try to keep the games close, and would blatantly screw us, but I really didn’t believe him. I do now. I try not to get too mad about it, but the competitiveness in me thinks otherwise. I finally had enough of it and I was trying my hardest to get a technical from about mid-way through the third until the end of the game. I wanted to get the players fired up and have them take out the terrible officiating on the other team. I’m pretty sure I was on the court, dang near at half court the whole second half and they still would “T” me up. The terrible calls aside, we didn’t play well in the third and were down eleven to start the fourth quarter. Poor Joe Darger hasn’t made a jumper since we left American soil. I am starting to wonder if he’s going to go 0 for China from 3.

The guys finally locked it up on defense and got us back in striking distance with a few minuets left to play. We cut it down to 2 points with about 30 seconds left to play. We got a huge defensive stop on the ensuing possession and Mike Sloan took an ill-advised early 3 in transition, and we had to foul. They hit both free throws, and sent us down 4 with 16 seconds left. I called a timeout and and drew up a play that we’ve won a few late games with during my time with the Flash. I’m not sure how you can mess up a play out of a timeout, but we did. Jamal Johnson ending up getting a decent look from 3, but came up short due to the fact that he got tackled him he shot it. They got the loose ball and we fouled. Meanwhile, I absolutely lost it on the ref and finally got the “T” that I wanted about 20 minutes prior.

We’ve lost two games in a row, and I am not too thrilled. Back to the hotel for some Chinese food and an earful from Robert. Until tomorrow….