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.