FIFA Women's World Cup Excitement!

On Friday evening, September 14th, Rich, Lucas, Lance, Stacia and I and two of the kids' friends attended a double header soccer game at the Hong Kou Stadium in Shanghai. We also surprised our Driver Mr. Xu with a ticket since we knew he was a soccer fan. He was shocked that we would include him. He had never done anything like that before. I think he had a very nice time. He bought popcorn for all as a gesture of thanks. We watched Japan vs. Argentina and Germany vs. England. Japan won the first game in extra time, 1-0. The second game was attended by a larger and more rowdy crowd. There were many Germans surrounding us chanting in German LOUDLY! They get into their game! The crowd did the wave several times. I believe there were about 28,000 in attendance. The game was quite exciting but ended a tie, 0-0. The most fun of the night though was when Lance, Lucas and Lance's friend Ryan all got mobbed by many Chinese people wanting to take their picture. The boys all had England soccer jerseys on and their cuteness attracted a lot of attention. You would have thought they had just walked off the set of Middle School Musical! There were Chinese school girls and adults taking pictures with their camera phones. They all wanted to take turns getting into the picture with the boys. Lucas was relishing the attention of the teenage girls who were completely giddy getting into the pictures with him. He enjoyed the attention very much. Lance has been used to this attention before because his blond hair gives him instant notoriety. He has learned to accept the attention like a seasoned star and even has a special smile he uses in their pictures. Rich and I just laughed and took pictures of people taking pictures of them! The boys were even given free pop because of their "popularity". Overall, we had such a great time. Watching soccer live is a lot more fun than on TV. So far as of today, the USA is in the final four. Tonight we will watch them play Brazil live on Chinese TV. We won't be able to understand anything, but it will still be fun to watch.