2016 May 25
My morning starts later than I had hoped, I am still kicking
myself for not being in the lobby when the bus left at 5 am. Breakfast. Pack.
Load up. We are on the way to Huangshi. Rain and gloom welcome us as we hit the
road. There isn’t much to see out the windows and the bus is significantly
quieter than it has been. We are currently a shuttle service for the referees
and their wives. The guys half-jokingly mumble about not getting calls last night
for the price of shuttle service. We pull into a huge railroad station a little
more than 4 hours later.
Our train is scheduled for 2:15 pm. There is plenty of time
to get something at McDonald’s (America’s favorite restaurant, lol) and hit the
head. All luggage is carried on. Our seats are together, unlike an airplane,
and off we go on China’s bullet train. It looks fast parked. Sleek and long,
with a pointed nose. My first thought was the movie, Snow Piercer. There is
plenty of legroom and I get a window seat. That is good for me because I do not
like moving every time someone wants to gets up. The train goes from zero to
wow quickly. There is a digital display of the current time and date and
temperature and speed. 304 kg/h. That is Indy 500 fast. I take some vids looking
out the window, but the weather isn’t cooperating. Things close to the train
are just a blur, things far are obstructed by fog. Occasionally, a train passes
us going the opposite direction. I can feel the woosh. It’s like a wind crossing
a bridge or passing a semi-truck. There are two stops and we cover over 500 kg
in less than an hour and a half. We arrive at our destination station, Wuhan.
We meander through the station and find our bus and drive to the hotel. Ninety
minutes later we arrive.
The town is sprawling, clearly a working town, and my
expectations for this hotel dwindle with each passing block. On our travels, we
have seen houses of all types: huge, homey, humble, and hovel. There are clearly
delineated sections, with little occasion of exception. Nice is nice. Bad is
really bad. Visually speaking. It’s possible that people who live the simplest
lifestyle are the happiest. All I know is, traveling makes me appreciate my
status as an American and all the privileges it provides. By 6 pm, we are all
booked into the rooms and on our way to the dining hall. The hotel is nice.
Nicer than the drive up would imply. It is brand new, the elevator buttons
shine like they just peeled off the thin protective plastic cover.
We are greeted at the restaurant by employees wearing cowboy
hats and brown vests with fringe. They look like Woody from Toy Story costumes.
I walk in and say, “Howdy.” To which, I get zero reply. I quickly drop the
Chinese version of what’s up, it sounds like KNEE-HOW, and they smile and wave
me toward the buffet. And what a buffet it is. They are going all out to
impress us. There is quite an assortment from fish to octopus, to breads and
steamers full of entrees. A guy in a tall chef’s hat is hand preparing pan
seared steak, chicken, and fish. Plenty of desserts and soda. Even hand dipped
ice cream. The guys are chowing down and saying how the next team we play has
no chance now that we are eating like kings. I didn’t bring up that we were
undefeated on less than diverse foods for fear of creating an agitated attitude. I really
don’t care why they feel invincible, I like it.
In the cooler with the soda is beer. Just one kind, but it
is cold and included with the meal. This is both good and bad. Good, that while
we have the night off everyone can relax. Bad, that not everyone drinks beer
with dinner like I do. One meal, one beer. I catch a lot of flak from my family
for that, but it works for me. Mr. Gao is quite concerned that players and beer
is a bad mix. Initially he tries to prohibit it, but ultimately allows it. I do
not take a beer. I tell the players to
act professionally. This is not the first time I have told them, and not the
last time they need to hear it. Everything here is a job interview.
Because of the rain, I don’t think anyone is going to walk
around tonight. I go to my room to read and blog and watch soccer. Yes, soccer.
One channel on each hotel cable system plays sports. I recently kinda watched a
few hours of badminton as I worked through my afternoon pregame routine. (Don’t
judge. Badminton is more compelling than you may imagine.) It wasn’t long
before I was nodding off, so I laid down and tried to sleep. A phone call, a
text message in a group, replies to that group message: every time I got close
to asleep something brought me back to reality. The bed feels like something
the Flintstones would have. Every hotel has had very firm beds. When I say very
firm, I mean a sheet on just a box spring at home would be about the same.
Tossing, turning, interruptions made REM impossible. Somewhere in the night, I
found an oasis of comfort and drifted to sleep.
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