We had an early wakeup and then on the bus for 6:30AM. Brown bag breakfast of yogurt (which we don't eat), a cucumber and cheese sandwich , banana and water. Thank god for pop tarts brought from home.
1.5 hour bus ride from Zhangjiagang to SHanghai was pretty uneventful. Rules of the road are almost nonexistent here though. You see some interesting things on the road. We took a flight from Shanghai to Zhengzhou which was an hour and a half and then had a 2.5 hour bus ride through some of the most boring terrain ever. It was nice and lush and green but boring. The people here waste no space. Every bit of available space is used to grow something.
We arrived here in Jinyuan and it is much smaller than the other cities. Haven't had a chance to explore yet but we might tomorrow. Soon after we arrived tonight we had our first team meal here. It was quite good. I was a bit concerned because of the size of the city but they did a good job. Nothing too crazy and they even had "sweet fried potatoes". French fries with candy sprinkles! I tried egg and corn soup which was very good and sampled a number of local dishes. The most impressive thing I saw was a chef take a ball of flour and within 30 seconds had long pasta noodles in his hand like vermicelli and they made fresh soup with them for the players. It was impressive. The room was also decorated in an Olympic style with an incredible watermelon carving of one of the Olympic mascots. Needs to be seen to be fully appreciated.
After supper the coaches watched video of our last game and tried to find some positives to work on for tomorrow's game. There were some but we have our hands full getting ready for the game. They will be looking to smash us again as their final tuneup so it may not be pretty. We'll put together a game plan and go to work though. We gotta play the game so we might as well compete and give them whatever we can.
So now I am off to prep some video for the athletes and try to get some rest. We have a full day tomorrow and then the trip from hell the next day. About 3.5 hours on a bus and 16 on a plane. Can't wait for all that fun.
Canada is on the horizon and the journey is almost complete. Many stories to tell.
Coach
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