The big day has come! The Sprite Charity Event is finally here. It includes a night of music and – of course, basketball. This event is hosted by China’s Jay Chou and the NBA’s Kobe Bryant.

We arrived at the arena at 2:30 p.m. for final rehearsals. We were ready by 6:30 p.m. to greet our fans by gave them Thunder gear! The friendliness and excitement of the fans made for some great picture opportunities. It was a great experience to be able to interact with basketball fans half way around the world.

The evening started off with the NBA’s finest entertainment teams; the Washington Wizard’s Secret Service Dunkers, the Raptors Dance Pak, and your OKC Thunder Girls! The excitement of 10,000 fans continued as Kobe Bryant and Jay Chou made their entrance. The entire night was such an amazing event to be a part of and definitely something that we will never forget.

We would like to thank Sprite and the NBA for this opportunity!

Check out our fans in the Far East!

We arrived at the arena today to see the amazing transition that took place since yesterday. The court was complete, the stage was built and some of the lighting was set. We were excited to see what the final production will be on game-day.

All of the participants for tomorrow’s game had scheduled rehearsal time. We rehearsed with the Raptors Dance Pak for the pregame performance and halftime show. Rehearsal was long and hard but we all feel ready for tomorrow night’s game!

This taste of basketball has made us that much more ready to come back to Oklahoma City and start the 2012-13 season!

Practice time

Thursday was our first day to see the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. This is the arena where the Sprite Charity Game will take place on Saturday. The arena is only two years old and is also an aquatic center. The court was built just for this event and the venue seats about 18,000.

The Shanghai Oriental Sports Center

We’re gearing up for the game

We had a “walk through” meeting with the team event managers. This helped us prepare and know what to expect for our full rehearsals.

To complete the day we found some Thunder Fans! Fans weren’t only in the arena, but they were throughout the city too. We are so excited to meet all of Shanghai’s basketball fans on Saturday!

Today we headed to a quaint water town, that was an hour away, called Zhujiajiao. This town is known as the Venice of the Far East. The town has small, narrow streets in front of the houses and shops, but lots of the transportation is by boat. It was another hot and humid day in Shanghai, so we did our best to stay cool.

In the evening we had dinner with our new NBA friends; the Toronto Raptors Dance Pak, the Pacers’ mascot Boomer, the Trail Blazers’ mascot Blaze, and the Washington Wizards’ Secret Service Dunk Team. Rehearsal is tomorrow, we can’t wait!

This made us miss the canal in Bricktown

We tried to keep cool on the water

On Tuesday, our tour guides took us to an old Chinese downtown market. When we were at the market, we went to a pearl shop and discovered how to tell the difference between genuine pearls and fake ones. The employees at the shop also opened up a live oyster and showed us the pearls inside!

Our tour guides with their Thunder gear

After shopping at the market, we headed to a local teahouse and enjoyed a traditional Chinese tea-time. The tea was grown in China and made by a local Chinese woman. We were able to sample up to six different types of tea. Yum!

We left the teahouse and walked a short distance to the Yu Garden, which means Garden of Happiness. It was full of bonsai trees, dragon walls, koi ponds, and ancient Chinese structures.

The garden made for great photos

After, we went to the world famous Nanjing Road. This road is a major tourist attraction for shopping, of course. It has been known to have up to 1.7 million visitors a day.

We returned to the hotel to freshen up and then headed out to enjoy dinner. We ended our day with a Chinese acrobatics show performed at the Shanghai Circus World. The show was full of amazing tumbling acts, balancing skills, contortionists, dancers, singers, and so much more. We definitely picked up some new tricks to take home to Rumble!

Workout – check! Breakfast buffet – check!

Today, Sean and Chris, who are wonderful tour guides, took us to one of the three most famous temples in Shanghai, the Jade Buddha Temple. This temple and its Buddha statues were brought over from India. Many local people still come here to give thanks and pray.

After that stop, we visited a nearby silk factory and museum, which showed the history of how silk originated in China. We are now fully educated on how silk is made and we have learned more about the silk worm than we ever could have imagined.

We then visited another local shopping plaza in the French Concession, which we started dubbing the “French Quarter,” where of course we had to purchase lens-less glasses in honor of Russell Westbrook!

Our frames in honor of Russell Westbrook and Team USA’s Olympic gold!

During our time here, we learned than Oklahoma is not the only place to have large surprise rain storms. We stayed dry under a local restaurant awning, killing time people-watching and being watched. We attract a lot of attention being the only Americans around. We love to spend time taking pictures with the local people, who are very friendly and approachable.

Even off the dance floor, we attract a lot of attention

To finish the day, our tour guides surprised us by taking us to the world’s fastest train, the Shanghai Maglev Train! This magnetic levitation train travels at a speed of 431 km/h. The main track is 30 km long, which took us only seven minutes to travel.

It’s great to see the sights of China, but to be honest, we’re itching to get back on the dance floor. We have rehearsals coming up for the Sprite Charity Game – we’re looking foward to it!

After starting our morning with a workout and breakfast, we meet our tour guides Chris and Sean, who started out by showing us around the financial district of Shanghai.

We arrived at The Bund, meaning “waterfront.” This river divides Shanghai’s old financial center from its new financial center. The old financial center includes Golden Bull Square, modeled after our own Wall Street in New York City. The square also displays a statue of Mayor Cheng, who was Shanghai’s first mayor after the People’s Revolution in 1949. The old financial center’s buildings still house most of Shanghai’s major banks. It is also home of the famous Peace Hotel.

We loaded up, and took the bus to the other side of the river to the new financial center. Shanghai is known to have one of the most famous skylines in the world, with structures like the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is the highest TV tower in Asia and is the third-highest one in the world. The Jin Mao Tower is also part of this skyline. It is 88 stories high and one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. We are fortunate enough to be able to tour the Jin Mao Observatory. We arrive at the 88th floor in only 45 seconds! The observation deck was similar to that of the Empire State Building. From there, we were able to see the entire city of Shanghai. The views were breathtaking, as was the glance to the ground below. The NBA is even represented there by Yao Ming’s jersey, which was displayed on the observation deck.

In front of the skyline with the Oriental Pearl Tower

One of our last stops of the day was in Shanghai’s French Concession. This area has long, sprawled-out streets that are lined with trees. The buildings have mansard roofs and shutters, resembling those of old French towns. After visiting this area, we were able to walk around to the shops and restaurants in the Xintiandi district. Once we arrived back at our hotel, we decided on a Thai restaurant nearby for dinner to top off another wonderful day in China.

Today is our first full day in China after arriving last night. Our total travel time was over 24 hours.

Well-trained to work out regularly, three of us started the morning with an hour long workout at the hotel’s fitness center – only to be followed by a fabulous breakfast buffet. After this we had time to shower and get settled into our new home for the next nine days.

Our first day in Shanghai is also our first appearance day. We all had the pleasure of meeting up with six members and the coach of the Toronto Raptors Dance Pak. Together, we loaded up on our bus to a local adidas 3-on-3 basketball tournament.

The Raptors Dance Pak is joining us on the tour!

This tournament took place outdoors in a local park. We had a one-hour rehearsal and a small break to freshen up before the tournament began at 6 p.m. The Toronto Raptors dance Pak started off the game with a performance. Then, it was time for the Thunder Girls! We performed our routine at the first timeout. Each dance team performed another routine in the second half of the game. At the end of the tournament we had photo opportunities with all of the finalists and were able to hand out our team autograph cards to the fans.

Posing with the teams

Following the game, we had our first experience at a traditional all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Sampling a little of everything seemed to be the most popular way to approach this adventure. It will definitely take us a few days to find our favorite Chinese dish.

Overall, our first day in China went well. Starting tomorrow, we have four days to tour this giant city before we have to get to work again.

Here we go, ready to begin our journey to China! On Thursday, the six of us all met our Director and Choreographer Paige Carter at Will Rogers Airport early in the morning. And we mean,
e-a-r-l-y. The members going are LaTeshia, Shereka, Jessica, Jada, Kelsey and Sarah. There wasn’t a lot happening at the airport that early so we just waited for our connecting flight to Minneapolis. Once we got there we realized we had a six-hour layover!

So, we headed out into the St. Paul International Airport in search for one of our favorite things, food! After lunch we were fully awake and it finally began to sink in that we are headed overseas to represent the NBA, and the best team in the NBA. We’re so lucky to have all the support of fans back home, and now we get the chance to meet new ones! Speaking of fans, we ran into a few Thunder fanatics at the airport and took some pictures, as well as signed some autographs cards for them. After that, we went to grab a snack and somehow we got in a five-minute workout.

Our plane to Tokyo just got here and we are about to board our second to last flight. It’s leaving 30 minutes late so we may be cutting it close. We have two hours to make it through customs and board the final flight to Shanghai, China. Hope that is enough time!