So, a Ferrari and overseas working holidays. Business must be doing alright??????

Andrew Gaze was talking to Phil, on radio here yesterday. He mentioned 200 million watched the friday night game on tv.

Just who is looking after the Ferrari at the moment?????

Isaac as the Hoops correspondent on location in Shanghai are you the only Oz media covering the game apart from JR's blog?
As I understand it you remained on location in Shanghai after being unable to board a planned train to WuXi on arrival due to technical difficulties-a bums on seats issue-too many bums and not enough seats.
You then reportedly made emergency arrangements overnight and got a train to Ningbo to find you were an hour away from the actual location.
I understand your minimalist wardrobe is dramatically sweat stained. Are you able to represent Oz basketball media in an appropriate manner especially considering the high standard Adelaide Bball media sets? It doesn't sound like its all beer and ferraris over there?

Great to see A Gaze taking a few of our younger guys to China to experience some more intl competition. Any news on the game tonight Isaac? Would be interested to hear how Forman, Knight, Loughton and Ng perform.

they are an hour and a half behind so it is in progress.

all tied up at half time -Ng 9 and forman 5- dont know any other details, very intense crowd OZ fouls 13 and China 7. (courtesy of a text from isaac)

China win 66-61 .

Darren Ng top scored 16pts (7-14 fgs, 2-3 3pa) and 2 steals. Read a good report on

http://www.jronfire.blogspot.com/

There is a lesson hear flatshot dont play with your i phone on an international flight.

What happens when the phone goes flat and you dont have a charger with you because you are following through on a dare not to take any luggage with you.

You are now in a foreign country with limited to no language skills, no idea where you need to go and no way of contacting your brother because he has the phone charger that you need.

Because you spent the flight showing off your i phone to the person next to you on the plane you are now stuck in a precarious position.

I never thought of him as a showoff...i know there is the ferrari and all!
I did say to him if that bloody Ben Fitz dared you to jump off the harbour bridge would you do that as well...but he just had a glazed over look in his eyes and was obviously in a distant place.
Sounds like justice to me if he has to get around in sweaty XXL Oscar cast offs that smell of Auckland mould.
Sounds like a classic case of overplanning and under preparation?

Fitz, dare I ask what that cryptic message you sent me was about...

Am I to guess that your currently in a Balinese jail and your waiting for representatives to bail you out????

or

are you currently tied to a pole somewhere in the Yunnan province and being molested by members of the People's Liberation Army???

or

does Ben Fitz even exist anymore and this is some crazy Chinese hacker attempting to take over Hoops SA???

or

Isaac and/or yourself did something crazy at the airport????

no it was completely unrelated to Isaac's chinese misadventures.

can you read the report at work or do i need to tell everyone?

I give you a buzz when I'm back on board.

Have managed to grab myself some time on a hotel computer while Oscar finishes breakfast. We're in Hangzhou ("Highly recommended by Lindsay Gaze") and leaving this morning to go to Huangshan (literally 'yellow mountain').

The game in Beilun was very good - intense, competitive and in front of a noisy and packed crowd - basketball is popular here. Kids wearing NBA gear, ads for Shaq, Vince Carter, etc on billboards.

Beilun is a trade district yet had a very decent venue with two big video screens and two other quality scoreboards. The game night presentation was excellent - great music throughout, everything was very professional.

The Aussies were presented as an All Star team and the crowd seemed aware of who Andrew Gaze was and cheered him when he was announced. He was pretty animated on the sidelines (especially given the bad refs) and the cameras never ceased to focus on his antics.

The players all played hard and it was pretty cool to see a bunch representing a number of NBL clubs out there for the same side.

As has been mentioned, Darren Ng was the main force for Australia - played a really good game and was cheered by the crowd each time China took 6 minutes to get on the scoreboard but once they got started the crowd got behind them

Yi JianLian had a couple of big blocks and Sun Yue Lakers drafted him last year spanked a Crawford fast break into the crowd

In the end a 5 point loss - quite respectable considering it was a Boomers C team or so and the refs 42 free throws to 9 or something like that

All up it was pretty exciting seeing these young NBL representatives over there going up against a rising power

After another night of poker and snooker the rest of the team were off early back to Shanghai to hit the markets before flying home Oscar and I are still over here until the 21st hoping to get to Tiger Leaping Gorge after HuangShan then HuaShan and around to Beijing and then Shanghai again