The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
11.13.2015 | Men's Basketball
Junior forward recaps Thursday's busy schedule in Shanghai.
Diary entry for Thursday, November 12
(Shanghai)
Junior forward Ryan McClurg
"I woke up early at 6, because it's been pretty tough to sleep in later with the time difference. I went downstairs to the hotel lobby and met up with Javan (Felix) and Tevin (Mack) around 7:30 to get some coffee from Starbucks (there's a store around the corner from the hotel here). We came back, hung out for a bit and had breakfast at 9 as a team. Breakfast was the best we've had so far in my opinion, because they had some waffles that were pretty good.
From there, we bussed over to practice at a small high school here in Shanghai (Nanyang Model HS). The gym wasn't like any high school gym I have seen before. It was like a mini-arena. We had a good practice and ran through our scout team. The guys picked up the scout quickly, so that was pretty successful.
After practice, we headed over to the Han City Market. That was an experience in itself, and I recommend it to anyone who comes to Shanghai. It's a mall that has a bunch of small, individual stores that are selling pretty similar things in different areas. You would see a store, probably 10 feet by 10 feet in dimension, selling electronics. But you will see an exact carbon replica store 100 meters down the hall selling the exact same products.
The interesting part is you can haggle for prices. That's something I had never done before. Walking into my first store, the owner says 'I'll give you this scarf for 400 yuan.' I replied, 'No, I'll give you 200.' From there, we got down to a final offer of 225. And I thought I had got a good deal.
I actually didn't get a good deal. My last purchase at the mall was two scarves for 100 yuan – and they were the same quality as I purchased in the first store. So, my first purchase was my worst one. I bought a few watches, but it was fun just interacting and haggling over prices with the sellers. I stayed away from the electronics, because I felt clothing is clothing but electronics could malfunction if they were not put together properly.
From there, we had our usual interesting bus ride back to the hotel – driving in Shanghai is a unique experience as well. We had a great study hall session. I spent most of that time catching up on my MIS (Management Information System) homework and doing some reading for that class, learning about some business models for a particular clothing store.
Dinner at the hotel was similar to the other nights. I had chicken tenders, steak and some vegetables and a salad. After dinner, we went on river cruise through downtown Shanghai. It was kind of rainy at first, but it cleared up a little over time and we were able all the buildings and skyscrapers up and down the river. It was a pretty cool experience. I was able to take some good pictures with my fellow walk-ons Danny Newsome and Joe Schwartz (Fans encouraged to follow them on Twitter at @UTBBallWalkOns).
When we returned to hotel, we did our normal film and positional meetings. I was with the bigs and we were finishing up our last rotation, and a lady walked in and said Yao Ming was here. Five seconds later, Yao Ming walked in. I've never seen someone that big in my life. Let's just say he dwarfed all of our bigs. I've never seen Prince and Cam look small before, but they both looked like Yao's little brothers. Yao didn't say much. He basically smiled and took some pictures with our group. Danny (Newsome) is a huge Rockets fan, so he was going crazy. It was honestly surreal.
This experience overall has been different. China is unlike any place I've ever been. I've been to several European countries, Canada and Egypt, but the amount of people here and the difference in culture, language and how everything is done has been fascinating. It's been fun to watch and be a part of this one-week trip, but we understand our primary goal is to win a basketball game here on Saturday morning.
