Day 2: Tournament Begins

Weather permitting, the tournament is to begin tonight with one game in Taipei between Chinese Taipei and Italy. I am not working the game and did not make the 3 hour trip. We were told that we could go to watch the opening ceremonies, but that there would be no seat for us at the game. I opted not to make a three hour bus ride, view the ceremonies, and then ride three hours back. (Tough decision, huh?) The games are all on TV here, so I will probably get together with some of the other guys and watch the ceremony/game in a restaurant/tavern.

I have my first game tomorrow (Wednesday). I'm working first base in the game between Spain and Panama. It's a noon start here, which puts it on at about 11:00pm EDT on Tuesday night in the states. The games are all broadcast live on the internet at http://www.stadeo.tv/. Check them out if you've got insomnia some night!

I feel much better now that I've gotten a good night's sleep. I had breakfast in the hotel, then walked around the downtown area for about three hours. I don't know if I intended to go out for three hours, but I kinda got lost for awhile. I'm sure all of you are surprised to hear that. Eventually I found my way back. I did make a purchase while I was out. I neglected to take a memory card reader for my camera's card, and found one for $500 NTD (New Taiwanese Dollars) which is about $16/US money. It did feel kind of nice this morning to leave my first $100 tip after the breakfast buffet!

I'm continually amazed at all of the scooters buzzing around. It's incredible that there aren't accidents constantly. At many intersections at smaller streets, I don't even see any lights or stop signs. Taichung has an interesting mix of old and new. There are some really upscale shops, but there are also little street-side food stands. There's a 7-Eleven on almost every other corner, and I've seen BlockBuster, Baskin-Robbins, Starbucks and Subway, among other notable businesses seen back home.

In addition to Mark and Dick Runchey, the person who assigned me the tournament, there are two other long-lost friends of mine who are here. Willie Rodriguez and Carlos Rey were both umpires in Puerto Rico when I went down there in the winter of 1991-92. It's really good to see them, and Willie and I are in the same group here in Taichung, so I've gotten a chance to talk to him quite a bit. Due to the language barrier that exists, people tend to gravitate toward those who speak their language. Because of this, I've already spent a lot of time with the Canadian guys (Corrie Davis and Williams Higgins) and one of the Australian guys (Neil Poulton).

After coming back from my walk, I have been catching up on my email and working on issues with the basketball assigning I do back home. It's good to have internet access in my room. I don't know what I would do without that. I'm going to sign off and see if I can figure out how to post some pictures I took yesterday at the "boat party" and some I took on the bus on the way. After that, it's dinner, and then find the other guys and come up with a place to watch the game.