China

Well we have now played all 3 games in China. All in all it was an interesting time with some mixed results. Coming to China from Europe was a bit of a shock (even though I have been to China before) It was dirtier, dustier and the food wasn't great. Most of us decided to pass of on the duck tongue and stick to simply the rice and some meats that looked edible. (no idea what animal it was from) Also we didn't see the sky til 1 week into the trip! Unbelivable the amount of pollution here. Some of us have consequently become a little sick so it's a bit annoying, I feel even more sorry for my roomate Matty. I've kept him up the last 4 nights coughing all night!! I'm sure we will recover for next week when we hit Japan. So anyway to the games, first game we were close, but it seemed like we were lacking just that 10% and couldn't pick up the points when we needed too. We seemed pretty run down and we werent really in the time zone so we were looking for a better result the next day.
Unfortunatelly game 2 did not really go to plan, again we were there and abouts, but our ball control and overall quality wasn't there like it had been at the start of the tour. So in the end it was 3-1.
3rd match and we took the 1st pretty easy, then struggled big time in the next 2, losing badly in the second and giving up the lead to lose a close one in the 3rd. It was looking rough down 18-13 in the 4th and then Paul Carroll went back and served about 8 consecutive balls. We managed to get on top of them in block and ran away to win that set. In the 5th it was much of the same combined with a 92% kill and we got over the line comfortably in the 5th. So good to a get a win on the board and some confidence heading into Japan!