We both slept very well.  Once awake and showered it was time for a full buffet breakfast.  Jon came by and picked us up around 10.30 to make a start on the day.

Because they had never seen Indoor Cricket nets before, Brett spent most of the day directing the Chinese labourers on how to put them up.  I spent the day finalising configuration of the system, and getting everything working from a Datascore perspective.  It went fairly smoothly – a couple of hiccups, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Jon left me to do my thing, which makes life so easy – he was there when I needed to ask him something, but he wasn’t asking questions every 5 minutes.

It was a fairly hot day, but luckily the computers were in the air conditioned office.  So I had the luxury area.  It was very muggy whenever I left the office though!  Around 6.00 we had done all we could, and it was time to leave.  We were dropped off at the hotel to have a shower and freshen up, and Jon went home.  At around 7.30 we got in a cab, gave the phone to the driver (with Jon on the other end) so he knew where to take us.

It was about a 30 minute cab ride to Jon’s place.  He got in, and we drove a bit further, to the restaurant he had booked for us.  So a 45 minute taxi trip, covering 25km came to RMB 114 – less than $20!

Dinner was at a Bejing Duck restaurant.  It was fantastic!  They brought the full, cooked, duck to our table, cut it up in front of us, and all we had to do was wrap it in the pancakes.  It was delicious!  We had a few other nibbles as well, and then the rest of the duck came out in a soup for us.  Surprisingly the restaurant was quite empty.  By the end we were the only people in there, and this was about 10.00 at night!  Jon took a phone call from his partner that picked us up from the airport – checking that we were happy, enjoying dinner, etc.  He was very concerned that we were being looked after.  Luckily Jon was a good buffer – knew not to be overwhelming, but also look after us well.

After dinner we caught a taxi to an Irish-themed sports bar, which a mate of Jon’s is the manager of.  James joined us for a few drinks, and before we knew it, everybody else had left there too.  We were told last drinks and that we were being kicked out a number of times, and then we realised it was 4.00 in the morning!  So we got in a taxi and did the 40 minute trip back to the hotel (dropping Jon off on the way).  The sun was coming up by the time we got back.  We weren’t up for long before calling it a night.

Time for another new place… another new Datascore installation, with some adventure.

Brett and I caught a plane to Singapore, leaving about 12.30am this morning.  I think it is the worst service I have received on Singapore Airlines.  It took them over an hour to get food to us (and we were the front row of the section), and they wouldn’t serve a drink before the meal.  I managed to get a little bit of sleep before landing in Singapore about 6.00 local time.

We had a cooked breakfast at Singapore Airport, and killed the 2 hours, before hoping our plane to Shanghai.  I was asleep very soon after sitting down, and skipped breakfast.  So an hour in to the flight, I was feeling quite rested, and ready to watch a couple of movies.  Eventually we finished the flight and landed in Shanghai.

Immigration was nothing like we expected.  I was prepared for it to be a long, slow process.  To our surprise, it was quite efficient!  Because we got money out before going through, we were probably the last from our flight, and somebody was already standing there with our bags and signage sitting on a trolley!  We went through the “Nothing To Declare” line, and nobody even looked at us, let alone stopped us!  So there we were, now just looking for a sign with our names on it.

Jon, our host was running late.  We called him after we didn’t see him there, and he was just parking the car.  So 10 minutes later, we met him and said G’day.  He’s South African, but has lived in China for over 11 years, so speaks very fluently.  The person who drove him, one of the investors, didn’t speak any English other than Hello, so it was a 3 way conversation from the airport to the hotel.

Our room wasn’t ready so we left our bags at reception, and were taken to the stadium to see what we were in for.  Well, it wasn’t a surprise – there were no nets up, but the carpet was down.  And at least the TV was up.  We could see that it was going to be a successful stadium, and had a lot of potential.  Jon was very motivated and great to deal with.

After a look around, we caught a taxi to the shopping centre, so I could buy a laptop for them.  I had opted to buy one here, rather than in Australia, because, let’s face it, it *must* be cheaper in China.  Well, boy was I in for a surprise!  A low end laptop was ~AU$600!  I managed to get the price down a bit, so we bought it there, rather than waste the night looking for a cheaper place.  We then went to a sports bar for dinner and drinks.  Because of the area of town we were in, there were no authentic Chinese places, so we ended up at a “TGI Fridays” -type of place.  It wasn’t too bad, but not what I originally had in mind.

After dinner we went back to the hotel, and spent the next hour or so setting up the laptop.  It had been a long day though, so I went to bed around midnight local time.