World Cup Experience

I apologize for the lack of updates. As of now, I am still without internet at home, so my only access is at Lily's parents, or at the "wang ba" (internet cafe).

So far, everything has been very fun and enjoying. I have been very fortunate to meet some really nice people, and my job couldn't be any easier. I am starting to catch on with what needs to be done in the classroom, and, when I'm not teaching, I'm exploring more of Tianjin.

My school was kind enough to offer us foreign teachers tickets to last night's women's World Cup. It just so happened that the US was playing England in last night's match, so I had the chance to cheer on my country and develop more American pride.

On our way to the stadium, Mr. and Mrs. Brown (the two surrounding Kathy in the middle) ran into a couple of Mrs. Brown's students (the guys on the far left). The guy in the far back is Ryan, a new teacher who hails from London. He seems like a fairly intelligent guy, and can share a lot with me in the way of English culture.

For example, he was telling me that, back home, he was captain of his university's football team. However, and correcting my initial assumption, university sports work a bit different in England. Different from America, it is not a natural progression to move on to professional sports from the university. Rather, university sports are more like small-town high school teams. Ryan was telling me that many football players are actually groomed at an early age. He said that one English team recently acquired a 7 year old from Australia! As you can see, sport regulations are a bit different in Europe.

I can already sense that he is not too fond of American culture; we talked about "football" (America - soccer, rest of the world - football), and he finds American football to be quite boring. We also talked about college life in America, which he "seems" to understand; I believe Ryan has watched one too many American teenager movies, haha.

Back to the game, the US and England played against each other in one of Tianjin's newest stadiums. Supposedly, they built the stadium in preparation for next year's Olympic Games, with some of the games being held in Tianjin. According to Brian, the stadium holds close to 60,000 people.

The announcer at the stadium said that last night's game had something like 29,000 people in attendance. It's hard to believe this figure -- look at the emptiness of the stadium; it gives you an idea of how enormous the place is!

They also had a colorful fountain in the front of the stadium.

So, the game started off England receiving the ball first.

Before that, they had an opening cermony, where they brought out flags and had the captains talk about "playing fair."
The first half of the game was somewhat boring, with both teams exchanging shots and passes. When I wasn't watching the game, I was observing this adorable little girl who was sitting in front of us.

Interestingly, I and some of the other foreign teachers weren't the only Americans at the game.

In the second half, the US overwhelmed England with good passing and manuevering. After scoring our first goal, the US quickly scored another two goals. In the end, the US shut out England to win by a score of 3-0.

We actually left a few minutes early, because the game had been pretty much decided by the third goal. It wasn't too much trouble finding a taxi and making it back home. I have found it fairly convenient to get around the city without my own car; thank god, because traffic in Tianjin (and I assume much of China) is a nightmare!

Once we got back, I decided to test my skills and went out to Tianjin's club district. Too bad everyone bailed out on me, because it was a lot of fun. Tianjin has this district -- Xia Wa Fang -- which is lined up with bars and clubs. Three preeminent clubs here are "Sugar," "Feeling," and "Babi Club." They were all pretty much the same -- flashy inside with very nice architecture and colors -- and the DJs played similar music. I thought the DJ at "Babi" was probably the best; I guess because he looked "cool" when he wasn't mixing, and the songs he played were entertaining.

Nothing too exciting that night, other than an overpriced Bud (30 yuan, which is crazy expensive in China!) and some practice at speaking Chinese with the taxi driver. He asked me the same questions: where are you from, how long are you here, what do you do, etc. He was a nice man all around.

Today was spent hanging out with some of my new friends (I will say more about them in the next blog) and working out. I bought a membership at this one nice gym in Ying Kou Dao. It's frustrating that my bad back doesn't allow me to lift, but I did run some. I think I'm going to make it a habit of running several times a week; after all, I want to lose the beer/Chinese food belly for when I see Lily baby again ;)

Here are two links to more pictures from the game, and pictures of my friends:

My friends: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2332731&l=85543&id=7936253

World Cup game: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2332729&l=3c63c&id=7936253

More to come from China and (fairly soon) South Korea!

Love,

Mike