It’s late in the night in China. I should be dead tired after a twenty plus hours ( who’s counting anymore?) trip from Europe to here, and maybe I am but I just don’t feel it yet. The rollercoaster this journey has proven to be so far has to be shared. So, here I am in this, I must say, fancy hotel room writing down my first story from Changzhou.
We all landed in Shanghai around noon. Some of us arrived at the schedule landing time, some had a few hours delay. From our small crew coming here, I was the last one to arrive as my flights were delayed due to the heavy snowing in Europe. The WESG staff was patiently waiting for all of us, media persons, to arrive and drive us to the hotel. And considering how many flights got delayed and how many people were still on their way to Shanghai, I must say the WESG personnel is quite amazing with how patient they are and how they find the inner power to always smile and answer all the questions we throw at them. You probably think right now, “hey it’s their job, of course they are” but trust me, today was a really hard day for them.
From the Shanghai Pudong international airport to our hotel in Changzhou there’s a bit over 200 kilometers that could be easily covered in about three hours by car if not for the insane traffic. So the drive turned out to be a slow and painful crawl over six hours. However, the atmosphere on the bus was pleasant and we joked a lot about the name of the hotel. It’s called Happiness.
Anyway, around six o'clock local time, we were finally entering Changzhou, heading towards Happiness, we passed China Dinosaurs Park and got to see multiple dinosaurs statues. Bronze dinosaurs statues, realistic dinosaurs statues, yellow, pink, red, blue lit dinosaurs silhouettes, all in all, a lot of dinosaurs. Unfortunately, we don’t have pictures to share with you today but I promise we will have them coming starting with the first day of the WESG event.
After we finally checked in, the staff announced that the welcoming dinner was about to start in like five minutes time. All the players, managers, media persons, WESG, Starladder and even representatives of the Chinese Government attended the welcoming dinner, so as you’d imagine, the food was high quality with dishes from both European and Asian cuisines.
Now the travel fatigue really kicked in and I’m going to end this bloggy post, but not before reminding you that the WESG Global Grand Finals are commencing tomorrow, January 10 at 10:00 local time. The 24 teams qualified teams have been split into four groups. Only the top three teams from each group will advance into the playoffs bracket, with the winner of each group being seeded straight into the quarterfinals.
It’s past 01:00 am in Changzhou, the hotel is quiet as the teams are expected at the venue at 08:00 AM. It’s time for me to get some rest before the big day at the Changzhou Olympic Sports Center. Tune in for on site updates and players interviews starting with tomorrow.
