Last week I traveled to China with the Wizard Girls for one of the coolest weeks of my life! We traveled to Chengdu, China where the population of this city is OVER 15 million! How incredible is that!? During our time in the city, we danced at a basketball tournament called NBA 5V5, attended an NBA Cares event (my favorite part), visited the Chengdu Panda Research Facility, shopped Chinese markets, and had a ton of incredible food.

I highlight my favorite parts of the trip below:

-NBA Cares Event: We traveled to a small school outside of the city to surprise a school with a brand new basketball court. All the kids who go to the school attended the unveiling ceremony. where we danced, and NBA Cares presented the court model to the school. So amazing!! This was once in a lifetime opportunity and I'm so thankful I could be a part of it!

-Getting to bond with my teammates!! We worked out every morning, ate every meal together (breakfast was incredible at the hotel), and then danced together all day.

-The cuisine is very different from American Chinese food because it is a lot spicier, but my favorite food was at the Hong Kong restaurant we went to. The dishes at this restaurant were sweeter. Throughout the week we had fried rice in a pineapple, cauliflower with bacon and garlic, tempura shrimp, and dumplings, to name a few. There was also incredible fresh grapefruit juice and watermelon juice at the hotel. In almost every restaurant the dishes were served on a "Lazy Susan," to be passed and shared. Tea is served with every meal.

-The Chinese markets: It was so fun to walk around the markets in the city. A lot of the stores were quaint, touristy stores, but there were also stores with street food, a cool walk way where you could hang a key chain, tea pots and tea cups, and of course Starbucks! :p

-Our tour guide and translator Maggie was absolutely INCREDIBLE! She was so sweet and helpful throughout the week.

I'm so thankful for amazing this incredible opportunity to travel across the world to do that I love!!

xoxo Christie