WeRun Update: 16257 steps (proud of this effort)
Just a lunch with an old friend...
So I met up with an uncle I met in Melbourne who works in Nanjing in the export business. He's an absolute cracker of a bloke and I remember giving him his English name Ken when I met him at some dinner that I went to with my parents. Anyway, Ken brings along a 2007 bottle of Shiraz from Barossa Valley because he remembers that I had a drink at that dinner 6 months ago. It's 11.30am and I've been drinking for the last 2 days. So I decide to show him my respect and accept the drinks (after all he did ask me to come out). I didn't realise that we'd be finishing the whole bottle between the two of us, which wasn't ideal since I had to be somewhere a bit later (sober). But my thought process was: it's these little things that can go a long way to develop the guanxi in this new city. Anyway, we had a great chat over some Hong Kong cuisine and fine Australian wine - Ken, being the great bloke that he is, says that we should meet up more often and hopefully just eat (and not drink more wine). He also knows some guys pretty high up so I think it could be a relationship worth investing in for the future ;)
A unique Chinese Super League experience - crazy what connections can do!
When my friend asked me to come to watch the soccer, I thought it'd just be your usual game-day, go to the gates, buy your tickets and watch the game type of experience. Little did I realise that I was going to get the whole VIP package. So my friend is close with the wife of the captain of Jiangsu Suning soccer team and they were playing a home game against Shanghai Shenhua at the Olympic Stadium. We didn't have to pay for our tickets, we just got walked through which was dope!
Some things that I discovered:
- Chinese soccer fans are louder than I expected, they really get up and about. Chants and drums and screaming throughout the whole match
- The Mexican Wave is alive here! And people turned on the torches on their phones for a bit, which was cool!
- People were smoking inside the stadium - at least I was not surprised by this
- The quality of soccer is better than the A-League
- Apparently, there are league policies around international players - you can get fined for having more than the quota in your squad, you also have to meet a requirement to include Chinese youth players in the squad if you have international players.
The score ended up 5-1 to Jiangsu Suning, an amazing result for the crowd and also the most goals I've witnessed in a live match - always love a goalfest. After the game, my friend told me that the captain would personally come out to get a photo with us. There were heaps of fans waiting outside the VIP area to see the players. Some even recognised their wives and wanted photos with them too. That's next level! Anyway, so the captain comes out, and there's a whole crowd wanting his autograph and I'm just getting this undeserving VIP treatment just to get a photo with some dude who I didn't know 2 hours ago. This was truly a unique experience that many fans would die for so I am grateful that my friend could sort this out for me!
Humid Nanjing
Absolutely disgusting weather and not even the worst of it. Hot. Humid. Sticky. Patches of rain. A nightmare to pick what to wear. Sticking with the shorts for now.
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