Solo Adventure

Every city that we go to, there is always someone that pops up out of nowhere that speaks English. Today, Irene (Or it could have been Ilene. The whole R/L pronunciation thing really came into play here.) appeared. She was a very smiley woman in her early thirties. She took a few us of down to a DVD store and the selection was superb. The hot item was Robin Hood. I’m not sure what kind of shady business goes down in order to get movies on DVD that just came out in the theater, but we all wanted one. I spent about fifteen bucks and walked away with just as many DVDs. Irene/Ilene took us over to an upscale mall, which was reminiscent of Lennox in Buckhead, for you ATLiens. Another artery clogging stop at McDonalds, then we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the third and final game against the Tianjin Golden Lions. Or so we thought…

After a light pre-game meal, both teams were in the lobby waiting for the bus to pick us and take us to the next arena that was about an hour away. Tianjin loaded the bus first, while we waited in the lobby for a few of the guys to come down (a common theme throughout the trip). I could tell something was up, as Boss Man and a few random Chinese guys (Another common theme; there is always a bunch of random Chinese guys with us in every city we go to. Boss Man is connected. His nickname is close to being change to the God Father.) were going back and forth in loud Chinese tones. All the Tianjin players got off the bus and headed back to their rooms. I asked Robert what the deal was, and he said he wasn’t sure and to go back to our rooms and they would come get us when it was time to go. I needed a bit more of an explanation then that and tried to ask Catherine, and Boss Man what was going on, but failed. I felt like a little kid trying to ask his parents “why?” and only hearing, “because I said so.” Back to the room I went. Robert never questions Boss Man. He is a loyal guy. Either that, or he is deathly afraid of be whacked by the God Father, or one of his hit men.

All the guys were looking at me, their fearless leader, for answers. “I don’t know what to tell ya.” I explained to them that I was in the same boat and wasn’t sure what was going on. After sitting in my room for the next hour, I started getting real impatient and was thinking the game was probably going to be cancelled. I finally hunted Robert down and he confirmed my suspicion. There was never a reason as to why, but at this point I just wanted to get out of the hotel. I told the guys to do whatever they wanted, as I was prepared to go explore the city of Zhongshan on a solo mission. Sunwen Road West was going to be my first stop. During my timeout in my room, I researched the city a bit more and found that Zhongshan had some cool things to offer. I saw Irene, or it still could be Ilene, in the lobby of the hotel and she gave the okay to my plan. I hailed a cab and gave him my piece of paper explaining where I wanted to go. All I got back was a blank stare, followed by a bunch of Chinese mumbo-jumbo. I got back out and grabbed Irene and she explained my ambitions to the cabi, and off we went. The cab ride was surprisingly quiet (little horn was used) and I made it to my destination unscathed. Sunwen Road West had a very European vibe to it, minus all the Chinese people. The narrow cobble stone street, lined with shops, reminded me of Grafton Street, one of my favorite parts of Dublin, Ireland. I walked the street curiously, being stared at the entire time. Weaving in and out of most of the stores seeing what they all had to offer, I stumbled across a little shop that had a bunch of nice watches for sale. I was prepared to put my negotiating skills to the test. There were several Rolexes that caught my eye, who cares if they were fake, and I got the lady down from 350 Yuan to 200 Yuan. I felt pretty good about that, but I think I could have done better.

While researching Sunwen Road and the surrounding areas back at the Seasons, I noticed there was a seven-story pagoda that I really wanted to see. Built in 1608, The Fufeng Pagoda, which translated means ‘whales vagina’ (I’m kidding, it’s from Anchorman for all you non Will Farrell fans) sat at the top of a hill that overlooked the city at the adjacent Zhongshan Park. The short hike up all the stairs was more of a workout than I bargained for, especially in the southern China humidity. The short, sweaty trek was worth it though. The pagoda was all lit up and made for a nice experience. I captured a few praiseworthy pics and headed back to Sunwen Road to finish my exploration. My last stop was at a retail store called, Johnson International, where I found some nice Ray-Ban sunglasses for cheap. The girls working in the store seemed pretty stoked on me being in there and I tried some clothes that were way too small. I even did a little modeling shoot with a few of them for some good laughs, and even more peace signs. Next, I ventured out past Sunwen Road West to some bridges that were lit up like a Vegas casino and snapped a few more pictures. It was getting late so I flagged down a taxi and made my way back to the hotel. I opted for another massage in preparation for another nights sleep on a hard mattress. Tomorrow is supposed to be an off day. We’ll wait and see what surprises arise…

Another update...

Day two in Zhongshan was a very relaxing day. I woke up and had breakfast then got a work out in at the modest hotel fitness center. Being that my room at the Seasons was so nice I lounged around in it, knowing that I would have plenty of time to see the city in the next two days. I mentioned earlier that before I came to China, Robert and I would Skype often to discuss the trip, conference call with agents, secure all the players information, and handled any issues that arose regarding the trip. One time Robert, out of the blue, asked me about mattresses. Yes, like mattresses for a bed. He would ask me what brands are good, and how much they cost and things of the like. I thought it was a bit odd at the time, but after lying on numerous beds the last week or so, I can see why he was asking. Even here at the luxurious, Seasons View Executive Hotel, the mattress is very stiff, and very thin. Maybe this is why massages are so affluent in the Orient.

A huge down pour came crashing down on Zhongshan that afternoon, fearing a tsunami (not really but it was raining really hard), I decided to just hang out until it was time for dinner and to head to the second game against the Tianjin Golden Lions (my mistake on shorting them on the Golden part in the previous post.) After dinner, both teams boarded the same bus, which was extremely uncomfortable, and headed to a different gym then we play in the night before. As a coach, I hate playing teams a second time after beaten them badly, especially the night before. The players tend to come out not playing hard and just think they can loaf around and win the game whenever they want. This mindset led to a dismal first quarter, and an earful from Robert on the bench. We pulled things together and took a five-point lead to halftime. The second half we regained our dominance with some good contributions from Drew Gibson, Terry Martin, Jamal Johnson, and Justin Billingslea. Tianjin just didn’t have the same discipline that Jiangsu possessed. We ended up winning by twenty plus and the photo shoots quickly followed. The highlight of the night was seeing the refs head for the scores table immediately after the game and seeing one of them light up a smoke right there on the court while one of the others stripped his officiating jersey on the spot. I had to capture a photo of that one.

After the game we all (both teams and some random cheerleader types) jumped back on the same bus and headed back to the hotel. The cheerleaders quickly found their way to some of the guy’s seats on the bus and started speaking all the English that they could. One girl, sat next to Terry Martin and it was like a bad episode of American Idol auditions. I heard that Lee won that by, the way. Lame. I was routing for Crystal. Anyways this girl was signing her heart out the entire ride back, all the while Terry was egging her on with every note. Where was Simon Cowell when I needed him? When we got back to the hotel, there was some food waiting for us. I just couldn’t do the Chinese cuisine anymore, and I took a cab to McDonald’s. Getting around anywhere is hard, because you have to get someone that speaks English to write down where you want to go, hope that it’s right, and give it to the cab driver. I hailed a cab, showed him my piece of paper and said “McDonalds”, he obliged and we took off. Ten minutes later he pulled up to a KFC. I was so frustrated! If there was anything other than Chinese food that I didn’t want, it was K-F-freaking-C! I repeated my demand for McDonald’s and I guess he finally got it and dropped me off at Micky D’s. When we pulled up, I noticed a guy preparing a pizza delivery-like oven bag that had McDonald’s logos all over it, and getting ready to hop on his moped. I immediately thought, thank the good lord that we don’t have McDonald’s delivery in the States. Can you imagine the catastrophic nightmare that would be? Obesity would quadruple and McDonalds rehab would become necessary. The Supersize Me campaigning aside, I ordered a nugget meal, a burger, and a chocolate fudge sundae for good measure. My stomach officially hates me. Goodnight.

A new city...and McDonald's

Wow that was a lot of travel. The sleeping pills had me knocked out for most of the first bus ride. The flight to Guangzhou was fairly short and as much as I enjoyed seeing rural China, I was hoping and praying that our next destination was much more modern. During a breakfast of noodles and Chinese grape juice, Robert informed us that we would be playing a game that night. This was news to me and I swear our itinerary has taken a few turns that have blindsided me a bit. I was already thinking of a way to get the guys to look past that fact that we had a game after a nights sleep on a bus, a flight, and another bus ride. As we gathered our bags from baggage claim I could see what looked to be a legitimate highway outside, which was a good sign. As soon as we hopped on the bus there were a few gentlemen from the sports committee of Zhongshan on board, and they had bags of McDonald’s and Cokes waiting for all us. This immediately lifted the team spirit and gave us hope that this city would be a nice change of pace from what we had come from.

The ride to Zhongshan was an interesting one. There were a lot of bridges that took us over wide rivers and there were lots of big buildings scattered throughout the city. Some of the buildings began to line the highway that we were on, and as they became more visible I could tell that a lot of them were apartment buildings. Each building had stories and stories of apartment units packed on top of each other. I was overwhelmed with just how many there were. The nice paved roads were a welcome change and as we arrived in Zhongshan it was obvious that this would be the biggest city that we settled down in since our arrival in China.

Seasons View Executive Hotel, I love you, (man.) Excuse the pun, but it’s a great movie. We pulled into the Seasons View Executive Hotel and this would definitely be the nicest hotel that we’ve stayed in to date. I went to the bathroom and knew by the clean smell (and actual toilets) that we were going to be just fine. Robert explained that we were going to rest our heads at the Seasons for the next four nights. Catherine, Robert’s wife, gave me the room keys to pass out to the guys and we all made way to the third floor to drop our bags off and back down to the adjacent restaurant for a late lunch. The rooms were superb. My AC was nice and cold and the bathroom was plush, and I had a nice balcony to boot. The guys were all in suit style rooms, equipped with a kitchen, a living room, and washer machine. As we all sat down for lunch, and saw a great spread set up for us, and along with the recent news of the plush hotel rooms, you would have thought we all died and had gone to a Buddhist heaven. To make matters even better, the Celtics/Magic game was on TV; the first NBA game I’ve seen since we left the States.

After watching the C’s knock off Superman and the Magic, I took a nap in my cold, well ventilated, five-star hotel room and prepared for a game with another team from the Chinese Basketball Association. The Tianjin Lions (I think they are called the Lions) were our opponent for the next three games. We headed over to the arena and pulled up to a nice big arena. It was quite the contrast from being dropped off in an alleyway back at the Vietnam Events Center in Songtao. The gym was nice and there were huge digital screens on both ends of the court that had replay on them. Now we could see just how terrible some of the calls/no calls were. Robert said that the game would be televised on local TV. I tried to get him to have the station give us a copy of the telecast but he said they wouldn’t release the footage to anyone. Weird.

Tianjin was a lot less athletic and strong then our previous counterpart and we had our way with them on the glass. Joe Darger caught fire in the first half, hitting three straight 3’s at one point. Andres Sandoval had his best showing yet, using his speed and strength to get into the paint at will. He struggles with his decision-making at times, but when he is locked in, he is a tough cover. Our big guys, Mike McCowan, Robert Kennedy, and Justin Billingslea refuse to stay out of foul trouble so I our bigs are a revolving door of hackers. Quin Humphrey, and Mike Sloan hit a few 3’s of their own in the second half and our overall dominance continued. It was nice to have a twenty-point lead for most of the fourth quarter and we eventually took it close to thirty by the time the final buzzer sounded.

I was a bit surprised at the mobbing the fans, arena staff, and cheerleaders gave us after the game. Being that we were in a bigger city where foreigners aren’t such a rarity, I thought it would be a bit mellower as far as the fanfare was concerned. We all played the roles of superstars once again, posing, smiling, and autographing for all. Robert and Boss Man usually have no time for the post game shenanigans. It takes about five minutes before Boss Man starts barking at Robert to rally the troops to leave. A small army of Chinese soldiers (literally) escorted us to the bus for our ride back to the Seasons. I have to clear something up about all the massages. It costs about $5 for an hour long, full body massage over here. How can anyone pass that up? With that being said, Joe D, Big Mike, Drew Gibson, Terry Martin, and I all made way to the first floor to take advantage of the cheap euphoria. An hour later I headed to my room to call it a night. We play again tomorrow. Until then…

Catch-up on the last 2 games

I am getting a little behind on the blog updates so I am going to cover our last two games here. After the marathon mountain bus ride to Huayuan I decided to stay in the hotel and just relax after we had shoot around that morning. It was rainy outside and I needed a nap anyway. All the lights in the gym where turned off for our shoot around, but I didn’t mind. I’m pretty sure the floor was a vintage wooden court from the movie Hoosiers, so having the lights off kind of hind just how terrible it was. I told the guys that the other team had to deal with it too, so it was a non-issue.

The food is started to wear on me a little bit, and I can tell the guys are craving some “western” food. Everyday we get served Chinese food, which usually consists of noodles and fried rice and a variety of other things that I normally can’t make out. Most times there is chicken of some sort that I try to stick with. Then we also get the things that the hotel thinks that we, as Americans, like. Typically that is fried chicken, french fries, and watermelon. One of the guys, Jamal Johnson, said, “Man, I’m tired of the stereotypes with the food!” It was pretty funny, and I agreed.

We headed over to the arena for our fifth, and I want I thought was our final game, against the Jiangsu Dragons. Robert informed me that we played them a sixth time the next day. One thing that stood out to me during this game was the refs. For once they weren’t terrible. Check that, they were terrible but at least they were consistent on both ends. The game was very physical, and I’m pretty sure Jamal broke their back up point guards esophagus. The PG tried to set a cross screen on Jamal and he nailed the guy right in the throat with a forearm, and of course no call was made. At that point, I had a feeling we were going to win the game. We got up by double digits in the first half, and they came out a played us 2-3 zone for the rest of the game. It took us about a quarter to finally settle down and cut their zone up. Quin Humphrey, Joe Darger, and Justin Billinslea all played well, and Jamal Johnson was a beast on the offensive glass. We won by 12.

The next day we headed to Songtao to play our last game against Jiangsu. I really wanted to win the game because a win would solidify us winning this 6 game series, a lose would give us a 3-3 split. When we got to Songtao, after signing autographs at the town square, we were greeted at the hotel by the hotel staff once again. A few of the ladies had on some traditional Chinese outfits that looked extremely uncomfortable and hot, especially with the lack of ventilation most of the hotels provide. There was a girl named Selena (I love how they just pick random American sounding names and run with them) at the hotel that spoke decent English. She offered to walk around town with us and translate. Selena was well educated, and it turns out she worked for the local government and the hotel just brought her in to help translate while we were there. There were these other two ladies that were walking around with us. I asked Selena who they were, and she said they followed us from Huayuan to watch us play again. It’s good to know that groupies are a worldwide phenomenon. As we walked the streets, we saw this lady holding a baby with her arms stretched out, and the babies little wiener was just right there in plain sight and he was peeing on the street. Wasn’t ready for it.

I saw several salons around town when we were walking and I decided it was time to get my hair cut. My hair was looking pretty beat, and with it always being just hot enough to be uncomfortable, I wanted to get a trim. Selena translated what I wanted done and then the most flamboyant Asian dude ever, came to do the honors. I was a little nervous, but he had the look like he knew what he was doing so I was cool with it. That was the first time I’d ever gotten my hair cut with people posing with me and taking pictures the entire time. Mr. Flamboyant did a good job, and Selena refused to let me pay for the hair cut.

Normally when we go to a game the bus will pull up right to the arena. Not this time. We got dropped off in front of an alleyway, and I asked Robert what the deal was. He said that the bus couldn’t fit through the streets to the arena, so we had to walk to it. This only made my curiosity of what lied ahead grow even more. The narrow streets were all muddy and had a rough feel to them. We finally got to the gym and it was an old wooden structure, with really old wooden seats for about eight hundred people. The wooden structure wasn’t fully enclosed so it had an open air feel in the arena. It made the temperature inside nice, and the cigarette smoke could easily find its way out of the gym and not into our lungs. The bathroom was one of the most foul things I’ve ever seen/smelt. I’ll spare the details but it was disgusting. We had the dunk contest again before the game and I thought the rims were going to break. Luckily the rims held up and we started the game.

I was anticipating Jiangsu to play a lot of zone, but they came out in man. We cut them up, executing our offense pretty well and the guys all had it going from the outside. Jamal Johnson, who has been our best player, hit a few threes, and was scoring inside at will, getting hammered on any shot in the paint and still finishing. We had the same refs as the night before, so I knew they were going to let all but a murder go uncalled. At one point during the game I had to just look around and take everything in. I felt like I was in Vietnam in the 60’s coaching a team of American soldiers. As for Jiangsu, they couldn’t hit a shot in the first half. We were up by double figures before halftime. The second half was more of the same, and this time they did play the 2-3 zone. They made a little run at us, but we took control and won the game, and the series. Overall I was impressed with the Jiangsu Dragons. They played extremely hard, were very disciplined, and much more athletic they I thought they would be. Their coach seemed like a no nonsense guy and I could tell that he had the full respect of his players. They had one player, Liu Yahui, who I really liked. He was about 6’8 and very skilled. He could score inside and out, was great on the glass, and I don’t think he missed a free throw in the six game series. Back at the hotel after the game I had Robert translate a conversation between, Coach Xi, their head coach, and I. He was very complimentary of our team, and said they learned a lot from playing us. I told him that his team played very hard, and were very disciplined. Boss Man jumped in and said he hoped that we could continue our relationship and get Jiangsu to the states in the future, which I think would be great. It’s amazing that basketball can build relationships even with all the cultural, and language barriers that exist.

Before the game Robert informed me that we wouldn’t be staying the night in Songtao. Instead this is what we had in store: depart Songtao at midnight and a six hour bus ride to the Guiyang airport, then a hour and a half flight to the airport in Guangzhou, and finally a two hour bus ride to Zhongshan. Even thought we had just won the past three games, and the series against Jiangsu, morale was low after that news and the guys were tired, and craving some American food. I googled Zhongshan and it looks like a big city, so I assured the guys that greener pastured were ahead. I popped at few sleeping pills for the first bus ride. Zzzzzz…..

Crazy Bus Rides!

Before I came over to China I had a friend that works for the NBA ask me to describe my trip to him when I got back and describe things like the food, the basketball, the people, and the bus rides. I thought to myself…bus rides? I am assuming today is what he was talking about. We set off for our seven-hour bus ride from Dongkou to Huayuan after an early breakfast, and the journey began. We drove for about three hours winding through huge mountains and acres and acres of farmland. It was cool to see all the rice fields and seeing the local farmers out cultivating their crops. We were in the heartland of rural China and these farmers weren’t growing crops to sell, but rather to live off of. It was neat to see it first hand. The roads were flat out scary. They were only semi-paved and our bus driver was dodging potholes at what seemed like Jeff Gordon speeds. He kept passing other cars, even on sharp curves going up and down these mountain roads.

About three hours into the trip, the road conditions were a little better and we came up on a decent sized city. Robert informed that we were going to stop at the local Peak store to take some pictures and meet some sponsors. Peak is a China sports brand, similar to Nike or Adidas. They are integrating into the States and have signed a few NBA stars, Ron Artest and Jason Kidd, to shoes deals. Peak also sponsored us on this tour and gave us tons of gear. On day one Robert brought a ton of boxes to my room filled with jerseys, jump suits, polos, shoes, finger sleeves, braces of all sorts, and head bands and wrist bands. The people at the store were all very nice and they let us all pick out some more gear while we were there. We took some pictures in front of the store and then they bought us all lunch at KFC. We got the KFC to go and headed to a local Chinese restaurant that was nestled in a narrow little valley at the base of a small mountain right outside the city. There was a cool vibe at the restaurant. It looked like a little village, with straw huts and a stream running through the middle of it. The people there were all very friendly and of course all of them wanted pictures, especially two of the ‘Asian Cougar,” as one of the guys referred to them as. There was a cute little kid there that I had to get a picture with. He turned out to be my boy during this brief visit.

Now the real fun was about to begin. We made our way back through another mountain range, these were by far the biggest mountains that we’d come across. It was picturesque and I was putting my iPhone to use (the iPhone takes great pictures by the way). During my time getting lost in the picture taking, I didn’t realize that we started to head up one of the huge mountains. Please keep in mind that we were in a large charter bus this whole time. The roads were terrible by now, but there were tons of cars going up and down there same sketchy road that we were. The bus driver did a great job of winding us through the switchbacks, and dodging crazy drivers, all while not blowing out the clutch. The higher we got up the mountain, the more concerned we all become. I asked Robert if this was even safe, and he assured me that it was, and that he has been on much worse roads. He also mentioned that it was the only road that led to our next destination. Despite Robert’s assurance, I was skeptical, especially when we were on th edge on the road and nothing but hundreds of feet down were the only thing I could see. We finally made it to the top of the mountain and the views of the village below were breathtaking. It almost made the life threatening adventure worth it. The decent down wasn’t nearly as bad, except for having to dodge the locals and their oxen and work cattle that were walking down the same road.

The city of Huayuan seemed to come out of nowhere, and I was happy to finally get there. Oh yeah, the seven-hour drive ended up being a twelve-hour escapade. I would like to thank Chali 2na and Passion Pit for getting me through the last hour of that drive. Upon our arrival, we headed straight to the city square to sign a few basketballs and have the local paparazzi have there way with us. There were about 3,000 hyped up people waiting for us. It was insane. There was a line of security guards that lead us through the masses to the stage that they had prepared for us. We signed a bunch of balls in an assembly line like fashion. There were two Chinese players from the other team sign stuff as well. They started to throw out the balls to the crowd and people were absolutely going crazy for the balls. A group of about 20 charged the stage and tried to grab stuff off the table. I was positive that a riot was about to erupt but the police owned everybody that charged the stage and we all quickly made an escape back to the bus. After such a long day, I was just ready to be at the hotel. Goodnight.

Games, Autographs, and Scooters

The first matter of business in our newest city of Dongku was to stop at the local grocery store, a sponsor of the local sports committee, and sign some autographs and take a few pictures. They had a big stage set up for us and an MC that was promoting our game that night (at least that’s what I think he was saying.) They gave us some ice cream bars and the locals got their fix of staring at us while we were on stage. We headed to the hotel to get settled and to have lunch. After lunch all the guys and I headed to the Bank of China to exchange some USD into Chinese Yuan. I finally captured a little kid with his butt just hanging right out of his pants. Check the pic. I also found some really nice slacks and tie that I had to pull the trigger on.

Coming into game four, I was ready to beat Jiangsu again. They’ve been a little cocky after beating us the last two games. I was hoping the guys felt the same way I did. We when got to the arena, and I use the term arena very loosely this time, I realized that we may have been spoiled by playing in the nicest arena, thus far, for game one. The gym was very old and I knew it would be packed, loud, hot, and smoky. This gym lacked a few things, such as: a locker room, a scoreboard, a third referee, and a competent shot-clock operator. What it did have was a concrete floor, a leather couch as part of our bench that I coached the game from, and a paper flip chart to keep the score, and an actual clock at the scores table. I was actually excited to only see two officials, one less guy to screw things up.

We got off to a good start and got out to an early lead. Joe Darger finally hit his first jumper, and I was hoping that was a good omen for the night. Prior to the game, I decided to simplify the game plan offensively. We stuck to just a few plays for the whole first half, and it seemed to give us a bit more cohesion offensively. We also started to double in the post, which allowed us to get a few steals that led to easy transition baskets. At halftime time we just hung out on the bench/leather couch (since there was no locker room) and watched the local sports committee throw out stuff to the crowd. A few of the fans sitting courtside mobbed one of the guys and took about five shirts off the guy. I thought a riot was about to break out, but instead we moved right along to the second half.

The second half was more of us playing well. They made some adjustments at halftime and starting to switch a lot of our screens, which gave us a little trouble. Terry Marin carried us through the second half, really the entire game, using his athleticism to get to the basket and rise up in the lane for pull up jumpers. They, of course, made a run at us in the fourth but we had built a big enough lead to sustain it and ended up pulling out a double-digit win.

Some of the highlights/lowlights of the game were: the shot clock. They didn’t reset it about twenty times throughout the game, which drove me crazy, and trying to explain it through a translator was pissing me off even more. One of the refs caught a cramp in his calf, and the whole gym starting laughing. I felt bad for him and threw him a water bottle, thinking that he would relax and drink it and let the cramp go away. Instead, he sat down on the court and poured the water all over his leg, water dripping down his calf and down in his socks and into his shoes. I even had to laugh at that one, and the game paused for about five minutes why that whole debacle took place. It seemed like the scores table had it out for me. Besides the shot-clock screw ups, I swear they refused to give me a few of the timeouts I asked for, and it seemed impossible to get a sub in the game. My frustrations with all of this were obviously apparent, as the other teams coach came down to our bench during the middle of the game, and explained to Robert that I didn’t know the rules. Not sure if he was trying to be nice, but it mad me even more mad because he seemed to be yelling at my guy Robert. And because I knew the rules! Needless to say, I was happy to get out of that zoo with a win.

After the game we headed back to the hotel to see one of the security guards from the game and his sister there at the Dong Kou Hotel, and they offered to take out around the city. Being that we had a seven-hour bus ride the next day, and could get some sleep on the ride, I decided to take them up on the offer. I was the last one out to the parking lot and all the guys were nice enough to pile into one car and leave my only option for a ride on the back of our security guards scooter. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, in fact on the way back from the city, I decided I would drive the scooter. My first matter of business was finding the horn; from that point on I knew I would fit right in on the roads. Never that I’d be cruising on a scooter in Dongku, China with an Asian security guard on the back, saying ‘I love USA,” every two seconds. Good times. Until next time…

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….