Asian Cup 2004, the early days

Published on July 18, 2004 By Sharpliner In Sports & Leisure

Well.. Asian Cup 2004 had just started with China drew with Bahrain, 2 2. The last few days here was rather hectic. It all started on the 15th.......

I woke up at 5.30 on the 15th... Feeling a little blur, I make myself a Nescafe and did some final packing and trying to remember what else I didn;t put into my luggage.. Luckily I notice my notebook power cable wasn;t packed!!!! if I had forgotten that then it will be a very long 3 week in China. Wife took me to Subang Parade and not long after I got myself a taxi that would take me to KLIA. Nice Indian fellow, keep bashing about the government thought

Most of the AFC group members already there at the airport. Did the usual stuff and off we go to China. Flight was OK, since there will be a 6 hours transit at Beijing, I follow the group to the Sheraton Hotel Beijing and meet my boss there. Then off we go again to Beijing International airport and headoff to Jinan. Feeling tired, I was so happy hearing the announcement that we are on the decending to Jinan airport, but 10 minutes after I got news that the plane is heading back to Beijing cause of bad weather in Jinan.. .... arrive back in Beijing at about 11pm .. waited in the plane for another hour then we head back to Jinan. Arrive Jinan at about 1, another half an hour to the hotel, checked in.. slept at 2.30am

Since it is the first day here, I called for morning wakeup call at 7.30.. the call came 30 minutes early the next day.. Continue..... ..

The first day in Jinan was extremely slow. Donno who to meet, where to meet, when to meet, what to do... but all question answer when I got down to the lobby the third time that morning and saw my colleague. We head for the Jinan stadium which is about 15 minutes away. Gosh, the chinese driver was extremely bad, worse than Malaysia!!!. They would just go to the opposite lane and then flash at YOU and ask YOU to scram!!! So does the bicycle riders, they own the road.

The Managers Meeting went well.. although I was half awake most of the time. After the meeting I got into my work place for the rest of 3 weeks in Jinan. Everyone left me during lunch time and I had not had anything for more than 12 hours. Thought I go for a adventure to search for food nearby the stadium.

Saw an alley that looks like Malaysia version of pasar malam but with more stingy smell. Passing few stalls and don't feel the hygiene is up to my standard so i keep walking.. 5 minutes into it I begin to feel uneasy, I was surrounded with poor hawker sellers and I was wearing a suit. I walk faster and finally saw a main road and across it is a bakery store. Phew!, quicky grab a few bread and walk very very fast through the alley again, and act like local (luckily i look like chinese )

It seems that for the next few days my daily routine will be travelling to the stadium from my hotel back and forth everyday. But this time I ate more breakfast and skip lunch. Hard to find food around the stadium there.

So the first game at Jinan will be tommorow, the system proof "usable" and hard to say it is working well or not. So far Beijing and ChongQing had passed the test. Tommorow will be my test. 5 months of work for this.. wish me luck

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