Monday, November 14, 2005 Sunday, November 13, 2005 Just got back from Rafa's wedding. It was great! *JUST KIDDING* Actually, I went on a sightseeing bus tour, and you cannot believe how fortunate I was. I met up with a journalist from Belarus. She now lives in Beijing, and she has written a book on China for tourists. It is in the process of being published, and for 4 hours, I had the exclusive benefit of her knowledge of China in general, and Shanghai in particular. It was terrific!! I'm off to the tennis now, and will check in when I get there. Stay tuned . . . Okay, I'm at the tennis. I have 45 minutes before Roger is crowned World No. 1, and then there is a champagne and cake reception for him in the media room. I really hope I win the Indesit appliance media drawing. Although it may be difficult getting the washing machine home to California. ;-) I really enjoyed the sightseeing tour today. It was a four-hour bus tour designed to show you the main sites of Shanghai. We didn't have a guide. We had an English student to help with translation, but she speaks what generally passes for English here, so it wasn't very informative. But I paired myself up with Inesa from Belarus, who was quite friendly as we were waiting for the bus. What I didn't realize is that in addition to doing sports writing for a Belarus newspaper, she writes travel tour guides. She's publishing one on China this year, and has been to Shanghai several times. She was a wealth of information about Shanghai and China in general. She told me about the one-family/one-child rule. China has relaxed the rule in some instances, but it is necessary to control the population. But as a result of the family preference for boys, there are now 51 million more boys than girls between ages 12 and 24. This has led to wife stealing and things like that. And now, they don't allow couples to find out the sex of the child before it's born (to prevent abortions of girls), so the population of girls is growing again. Anyway, I found that and her discussions of other political issues very interesting. China is a fascinating country -- even if I couldn't see any junkets today. Guess you have to go to South China for that. We did visit the second tallest building in the world, and also the Tower of the Oriental Pearl, which is my fave landmark so far. It is more spectacular at night, as is Shanghai in general. Inesa spoke with Max Mirnyi's parents this week, and Max is really enjoying the event. He's impressed with the facilities and at how the players are treated like "stars." He is enjoying it more than Houston. Inesa said that although China isn't really into tennis, they are really into celebrity, which explains why the players are being treated so specially. She also said that China is very good at organizing events, and this one is extremely well organized. It makes the Houston Masters Cup event look very pedestrian. The stadium here is world-class -- very beautiful, and the seats have their own individual air conditioning units in them. The media facilities are first-rate , and apparently the player lounge areas are unbelievable. The only thing I can complain about is the food -- but I'm having that problem in general here. My breakfast muffins were the strangest muffins I have ever seen -- although they were edible. I still think, though, that sawdust was a principal ingredient. And I finally have located a supply of Diet Coke, so I've decided I do not have to leave the country early after all. *lol* Inesa explained that the Chinese are not big on diet drinks, so that's why they aren't routinely available. When we got back from the tour, Inesa and I headed to McDonald's -- finally, I was able to eat a meal that tasted somewhat normal. I was starving. Those were the best fries I have ever had in my life!!! So at least I don't have to worry about starving now. Although after a few months here, I probably could wear the small shirts that they sell everywhere. The Chinese women are so petite that it's hard to purchase clothes that a larger than a size small. Inesa, whom I consider normal size, has to go to London to purchase dresses and suits. So then it was time to catch the 3 p.m. bus to the tennis. I got down there right before 3 p.m., but the bus had just left. I said it wasn't fair that they left early, and the woman there got on her cell phone and started yelling in Chinese -- the Chinese talk very loudly, and they also love to argue. It's a national past-time. In any event, she told me the bus was coming back. Well, it did, about 10 minutes later. They hadn't gotten very far, but with traffic, it took them a while to double-back. And boy, were the guys on the bus upset they had to go back. I thought they were going to throw me off. But I explained what happened, and told them that I didn't ask for the bus to come back. They realized it had left early, and that we didn't think it had gotten very far. So they calmed down a bit, and actually I chatted with two ESPN technical guys all the way here. The ESPN announcers -- Brad Gilbert (whom they call BG) and Pat McEnroe are in Connecticut doing the commentary, while the tech guys are here sending the feed. He said the decision was made for financial reasons. They gave me a little bit of goss. They really like Roger Federer, who is nice to everyone. They said that Roger has requested that the ESPN commentators not refer to Mirka as his manager, but rather as his girlfriend. He feels that is more respectful to her. They didn't have much news on Nadal, but they said that the ESPN crew gets a big kick out of his "butt-picking." They said they even count the number of "butt-picks" per match, and said they would give me the official count tomorrow. *lol* They said their boss, who is a woman, doesn't really like this, as she likes Nadal, and that they actually try to minimize the number of shots of Rafa adjusting his pants. Apparently Carlos Moya is a favorite of the ESPN bosses, too. We aren't the only ones who think he's quite handsome. Oh, I asked them if they heard that Rafa has a girlfriend. And they asked, "He has a girlfriend?" And I told them what Toni said, and what Rafa said after that, and they said, "Sounds as though Toni was talking when he shouldn't have." Oh, they are now presenting Roger with his No. 1 trophy. They just showed Mirka taking photos of her boyfriend. Guess I should go to Roger's Champagne reception. Carly and MAC would love that. :-) Then I'll be off to Agassi/Davydenko. Oh, an Italian reporter went by and he saw the Christmas books on Rafa, and he loved them. (I have them here, as I may try to give them to him after his press conference this evening.) So he's writing a bit about our site. And he's also very good friends with the Spanish press, and is going to help me investigate the gf issue. *insert Mission Impossible music here* Oh, Mimi's photographers took some photos of me for her article, which will appear in the Oriental Sports Daily tomorrow. Hopefully Veyonce will see it. She thinks it will appear on sina.com. I'm becoming quite a celebrity around here. Okay, Roger is waiting. More later . . . . PS: My Italian friend says that he's going to ask Rafa about the gf issue in the press conference. The things I do for you all. ;-) Just got back from the Federer reception. It was nice. Unfortunately, I didn't win the Indesit refrigerator autographed by Roger. And I was so looking forward to getting it on the plane. posted by Susan @ 10:33 PM