Easter Sunday

Holidays in Shanghai are just not the same. For starters, Chinese people do not celebrate the majority of the Western Holidays so come holiday season, the stores are not filled with props and candy or whatever… just the normal Chinese rabbits and stuff. Easter wasn’t any different. Court L and I debated between going to church and going to the Softball games. Perhaps we should have gone to church, but the church that I go to out here is not my church – I am not comfortable in it and it is just not the same, so ultimately, Softball Sunday trumped.

I don’t remember if I have talked about Softball Sundays before or not, but there is a huge Softball league that plays every Sunday. There are two different divisions and probably about twenty different teams of mostly expats – guys and girls. Different bars sponsor the teams and they all have team names like the Barbeerians, the Blackouts and the Brew Crew. So all day Sunday, teams filter in and out of the fields from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm playing double-headers. I love going to watch the games. It is almost like being back in American, drinking beer, hanging out at the fields, and we know a couple different guys from several different teams so it is fun to socialize and meet people too.

Well Easter Sunday we had to wake up at like 5:00 am to leave at 6:00 to be to the Big Bamboo Club by 7:00 to catch the bus to the fields. Each team has a bus that takes them to the fields because the fields are really far in Southern Pu Dong. We made it to the fields by 7:45 and the first game started at 8:00. We went with our friends, the Barbeerians. They won the first game and lost the second game by only a run. Then we went to the other field and watched the Brew Crew play… my party bus boyfriend is on the Brew Crew. They lost because they were all shitfaced drunk before noon.

After their game, the Home Run Derby began. Basically, each team got to pick their best batter to compete in the Home Run Derby. Each player got ten pitches and whoever hit the most home runs won a trophy, a bunch of money and free drinks at the Big Bamboo Club. Now usually, all of the teams are never at the fields at the same time because the games are so spread out, but everyone was there for the derby, and everyone was drinking like crazy and smoking a ton of weed (I would say that weed is probably more popular here than in the US – but of course, I stayed far, far away – especially after girls were puking and passing out from weed brownies they had there). It was a madhouse but really fun at the same time. During the derby, I sat in the outfield with my Brew Crew friends and drank some beer. No worries, I had a beer in one hand and a mitt in the other so I was prepared to catch any balls that were hit in our direction.

Well in the end, our friend Matt, who we went with, won the Derby with 7 home runs! Afterwards, we went back to the Big Bamboo to celebrate. Now I had been drinking throughout the course of the day so I was buzzed leaving the fields, but Court was completely sober. On the other hand, when we got to Big Bamboo, I stopped drinking and Court started pounding them! Next thing I knew, she had 6 mixed drinks and 7 shots of Jager in about 2 hours, and she was plastered by 6:00. The rest of the night I spent trying to keep Courtney under control as she harassed every person she encountered walking down the street, the taxi driver and who ever she decided to call in her phone. Somehow we ended up at Andy’s house after leaving Matt’s, and we went out with him and his roommates for some pizza so Court could sober up! Then we caught another taxi and headed home. Court passed out pretty quickly after that, and had an interesting morning when she had to get up bright and early for work.

Anyway, it didn’t exactly feel like Easter, but we still had one heck of a fun Sunday afternoon!