Start of World Tour events this week

Its just after 5am here in Shanghai and for the second morning in a row I am wide awake before the birds. Its a frustrating part of travel and often something we cant control. But I dont feel as sleep deprived as I did yesterday morning when I woke after 4 hours sleep. Last night I achieved 8 hours, I just feel asleep a bit too early.

China isnt one of my favourite destinations but the memories from this trip have already surpassed my experiences here last year when I was sick. We have meet up with the first of the Kiwi's we will see on our travels this year who bring a touch of home (and the arrival of NZ food which is a saviour here). Anna's partner has joined us as well as the "famous" NZ ref on the World Tour, Richard "Sooty" Casutt.

We finished our training week in Berlin but before leaving we had to off loaded 13kg of luggage that we would have paid 90 pounds for on British Airways. We had already been stung 82Euro from Italy to Germany and 90 pounds is not part of our tight budget. The off loaded luggage was meant to be collected by UPS couriers, but there was a glitch in the plan and we have a month to figure how best to get it to Hamburg, our next European destination. So for the next month Anna and I are will be sporting very little variation in what we wear after having to cut our luggage down to 20kg each which includes 3 balls each and other weighty items like protein powder.

What seemed like a normal long haul flight from London to Shanghai turned into 10.5 hours of frustration. We had asked for the seat between us to be blocked out to give us some space, but that didnt last because the economy part of the flight was full so we ended up with a weird man from Iceland between us. In hindsight I should have moved to the middle seat and Im sure we all would have had a more comfortable flight. With far to much flatulence from a near by male passenger, stolen leg room by the guy between Anna and I, elbows to the top of the shoulders by the same culprit, 3 movies and 2 sit coms later we arrived in Shanghai with perhaps 2 hours sleep tops.

But sleep eventually arrives in strange forms and the days tick by and take us closer to Thursday, the first day of our FIVB competition for the year, and as Anna said last week, we are straight into maindraw, a great position to be in.

I will email later in the week with results.

:)