Argentina May 30th, 31st and China June 1st and 2nd

It's been a while since my last entry since I've been on the road so much as of late. which is where we pick up my travels. i didn't go to sleep the night we left for the airport cause i wanted to be able to sleep on the bus. the bus came and picked me up and i was immediately disappointed because it was a different bus than the last time we took a trip and they didn't have the beds. i got over it quick and fell asleep after meeting the president and another guy who i think is a part owner. they both seemed really nice and professional. we stopped and ate breakfast about a hour from the airport at would would be equivalent to a trucker stop diner in the states. the food was OK but nothing like i had been eating the past 2 weeks. we get back on the road and arrive at the airport. a couple days before we left i had giving my passport to the team manager because he was taking it to Bueno's Aries to get my visa for china. i hadn't got it back and i had been asking the coach about it and he said that we would be picking it up in Bueno's Aries when we got there. we got there a 3 hours early and i was getting nervous because he wasn't there and everyone was checking in. not long after he showed up with my passport and the other American Robert battle. a big guy from Phillie. i had seen him the day before at the 100 year celebration but didn't approach him because there was too many people talking to him. he's a real nice guy and it didn't take long to know that we were going to get along fine. overseas most Americans get aling but when you don't it makes it really difficult. as i was checking in i my agent comes up and introduces himself to me. his name is Jose and he lives in Rio DE Janero Brazil. first impression was good. he tries really hard to stay ahead of everything so things go smooth. he came early to the airport to the tickets so everything was fast. he buys me lunch he likes to talk about things that he does and that he's done. it's a bit annoying but i know he's trying to develop an image of who he is so i trust him. what he has done doesn't interest me as much as what he's going to do but i let him talk anyways. so we board this huge trans-Atlantic plane and get on our way. i ended up sitting in an isle seat in toward the back next to Marcelo (the other owner who cam on the trip with us). it's about 5:30 when we take off and were supposed to land in Paris sometime the next morning (June 1st). total flight time is 14 and half hours. we have our own TV just like the flight from Dallas to Argentina but after messing with it for a while i realize it doesn't work. i couldn't handle 14 hours with some entertainment! i ended finding another seat further up from next to Tyler (the American from Cali that live with his wife in Argentina). i never am able to sleep very well on planes so i end up watching 4 movies in a row (shutter island, invention of lying, brothers, and precious). not a bad line up i thought. after that i tried to get some Zs in. i think i ended up sleeping for about 2 hours which is isn't bad bit on a 14 trip i would have to liked to sleep more. here i go talking about food again but i was kind of excited to see what the food was going to be on the flight because we were flying air France. they had option of a chicken dish and a pasta dish. i opted for the pasta which was a rigatoni with red sauce and cheese on top. it came with some french bread, a small cubed potato salad (really good), a cheese wedge, and a small piece of chocolate cake. i was pretty impressed. we finally land in Paris and it takes forever to get through customs and get to our next gate. most of the time was spent in this bus getting from one terminal to the other. it was stinky and humid. we sat in some line for probably a half an hour and i never found out why. when we get to our next gate we have had about a hour before we boarded. some of the guy walked around but i just sat down and relaxed. i was expecting more out out of airport. I'm not sure why, but it seemed a little old and out dated as well as being a bit dirty. oh well, i wasn't there long for it to matter anyways. we get on the next flight, another air France plane. this flight was about 11 hours and we were supposed to fly thought the night on this one as well arriving in Shanghai at about 9 am (June 2ND). i again had a isle seat sitting next to nobody i knew which kind of frustrated me. i was hoping to get a glimpse of the Eiffel tower. same set up with the personal TVs, but there was less room in between seats was didn't excite me or any other guy on the team. again i spent my time watching a couple movies (one was a new one i guess that had Jim Carey as a gay guy. a bit funny as well as uncomfortable to watch. the other movies i can't remember as i sit here and write!) i also read part of one of the 5 books i brought (already read 3) as well as sleeping for a couple more hours. i probably could have slept more but there was a bunch of Chinese guys sitting around me having a good ole high volume conversation. we finally land in Shanghai. it doesn't take to long to get our bags even though the airport is huge! the translator/Chinese representative met us right outside the baggage claim and took us to our bus. we were told that we were going to the world expo sometime today. it turns out that is we were to the hotel and clean up and drop our bags off that it would take 5-6 hours because traffic was gridlocked for some reason. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact the city has 15-20 million people! none of really knew what this expo was all about but we heard that they spent more money of this expo than they did on the Olympics and that we would be able to buy some stuff. on the way we all realized that this city was far bigger than any of us really imagined. on the way to the airport there was apartment and condo building as far as you see that were at least 30 stories high. they do everything big. i think they need to steal Texas's motto. it took about 30 minutes to get there and it it WA obvious as you showed up you were there. it was 9:30am and this parking lot that was at the base of this massive bridge (crosses the river that runs through the city) had to have close to 300-400 big greyhound type buses packing it. we parked on the side of the street which didn't look legal but there's not many rules for cars come to find out here. we get off the bus with our 2 day stench in our travel clothes (jeans and a club polo) and head off to the entrance. i guess the place didn't open till 10am but there were these gates that like you would have at an amusement park like Disney world that were packed already. i couldn't even guess how many people were there but we were at the end of the line!! as we were standing in line we met a couple Chinese guys from new york that spoke enough English to give us a crash course on pronunciation and a couple basic words (hello and thank you). they also gave a us a bit of an overview of what the expo was. you basically have a lot of individual buildings that represent each country and i think they have one for every country in the world. inside the buildings i think they had representatives from each country that designed the building on how they wanted the people that were visiting to view they're country. while we were talking nobody really noticed but we had quite a few onlookers taking pictures and staring so we gestured for s a couple of them to come over and we posed for pictures. i knew we were going to be in for a long day at this point. last time i was here if you take one picture then other flock to take more with you. luckily the line bottle necked into the narrow windy line you would find at a roller coaster so it made us a bit unapproachable. when we finally get in my agent seems to want to run things since he's dealing with the translator the most. we decided to go to china but we were told the line would already be 4 hours long and that we would have to go to a reservation booth so when we showed up later we could get in line. we set a time a place to meet just in case we got split up and headed toward the china pavilion. as we were walking it defiantly starting to get hot and we are hungry as well. it was only 10 so they guy didn't want to sit down and eat so we waited. the translator stopped at a stand and got all water on the water to help tide us over. i think a couple of the guys didn't like the idea of going to china and waiting line so they walked to Singapore which had a much shorter line. it still took an hour to get through this line and we all started to wonder if it was worth it when we got in there. it was pretty anticlimactic. a bunch of pictures of Singapore and facts on the wall. then you started walk up this staircase that winded you up to this theater where we watched a music video dedicated to the country. it was in the native language with Chinese subtitles so we didn't get any of it. after that it took you up to the roof where they had flown in a garden of plants that were typical to the country. this was probably the coolest part and partly because you could see out over a lot of the other pavilions. we head down there stairs and wait for everyone to gather so we can go eat. this took forever because we didn't realize that my agent never came with us. he took the translator somewhere else. as we were waiting we saw a couple little buildings that was a Singapore gift store and a grill that sold Singapore finger food. Robert battle and i were starving so we got a couple snack until Jose (my agent got there). we got chicken satay with peanut sauce with rice. it hit the spot but we were still starving. Jose finally showed and we headed off to this Chinese fast food joint. they sold chicken and shrimp burgers as well as a chicken and thigh dish and wings. hey also had a shrimp wanton soup and something else nobody recognized. i ended up getting the shrimp burger, the spicy chicken dish, and the won ton soup. it was all really good. the chicken was a bit spicy which was funny because come to find out Argentinians don't really do spicy so everyone who got that dish couldn't eat it. it's a bit different than Mexico where they eat jalapenos like candy bars! after eating wanted to just walk around. there's a sky walk the runs the length of the expo grounds. we got on that and walked toward the china pavilion. the line was still so ling so we just decided to take pictures of all the places we wanted to see except Argentina and USA of course. they were at the far other end of the expo. so what was probably a 1 mile and 1/2-2 mile walk we got to Argentina. everyone was wanting to leave so Robert, Tyler, and i decided to split up and go see the USA pavilion and then meet up with them at the entrance. the USA pavilion was really nice with a really long line. we tried to sneak in the exit but we didn't blend in that well. this lady stopped us and asked us if we were trying to get in. she said we looked like VIP so she could get us in the VIP line but we would have to mingle and talk to people. that wasn't a problem for us. there was a class of students that was loaned up that we went over and hung out with for a minute. they were really cute. using the little English they knew. they would say "you are really tall and strong" or "i love you" and hello and goodbye. it didn't take long to get in but we realized we didn't have enough time to see the whole thing. so we just watched the opening video which a montage of random Americans trying to say hello and various other phrases in Chinese. it started off with most of them messing up but ended with them saying it correctly. it was pretty good. while we watching it the lady came in to tell us she was leaving and thanks for the mingling part. she also told us a bit about the USA pavilion. she said they raised 61 million dollars to build the project and get people to come over a help run it while the expo was open (which i think was 6 months). majority of the money was donated by big companies in the states; chevron, some banks, investment firm, and even KFC. i think over a 100 companies in all. she also told us that after the expo that the building would either be torn down and scrapped or more likely a Chinese company would buy it, take it down and reconstruct it else where for their own use. so after the video we darted out and met the team at the bus. it was about 3pm now and we are all feeling the rigors of traveling and walking around. we head head to hotel winding through this massive city taking pictures of the famous landscape of the downtown area and other cool buildings. we get to the hotel after about 40 minutes and it's not like any of us expected. it was a bit run down in a weird place in town, but nobody cared. at this point everyone wanted a bed to lay down on. we got a chance to lay down for a couple hours before dinner at the hotel. dinner was just like i remembered last time i was in china. i didn't recognize 80% any of the food by either sight or smell. i was able to get enough boiled eggs, rice, a chicken dish to tide me over for the night. after eating we went to the room and i jumped on the Internet for a bit. there hasn't been wireless anywhere we've been so i have to sit at the desk...i sound so spoiled! ha ha.. i thought i was going to be tired but i got restless and was up till 3 or so. i finally got to sleep which was good considering we had to get up the next morning to go to the city will be playing our first game in. wheeeww...what a couple days!