Smart Gilas goes to Outback or Happy Birthday, Greg Slaughter!

Monday was Rest Day for all the teams. Seems kind of odd that the rest day was held one day after the quarterfinals. In a perfect world it should have been right before but they were going to miss the Sunday crowd. Nevertheless, they should have still ended the eliminations on a Sunday.

The team went shopping in some tiangge that was a waste of time for some of them since there was only an hour to look around. They spent more time inside the bus than walking around. They should have instead gone to Mal Kelapa Gading which is like three malls in one. It will remind one of Robinson's Ermita but with a touch of Shangri-La.

For dinner, the team went to Outback in Central Jakarta and that meant another hour's drive going there with all the rush hour traffic. It's like going from Cubao to Makati but taking C5 with all the traffic.

The dinner was feted by one of the team's Indonesian friends and it was also a celebration for center Greg Slaughter whose actual birthday is today Tuesday. Happy Birthday, Big Fella!

During our ride to Central, Greg who is 21 today, borrowed my iPod Touch. We have so many things in common with regards to musical tastes. Since the ride was long, I had the Bloc Party, New Radicals, Zwan, and Interpol playing.

Dinner was fab. Onions rings, mushroom soup, and baked mushrooms with onion dip were the appetizers. Then everyone was served steaks. Wow, that has to be shaken off now, huh? And the vanilla ice cream with chocolate brownies for dessert was a perfect way to top it off.

On the subject of pretty girls in Indonesia, yes they have too. Take Widja, one of the waitresses here. Pretty much everyone wanted to have their pictures taken with her. I did but beside that damn fake crocodile! Yes, it is fake.

The disappointment of the loss to Qatar is still there. No one expected anything from this team and the modest goal was to advance to the quarters and not get sent home packing. All the wins raised expectations but after two consecutive highly-emotional games with no rest in between (plus a superb game by the Qataris) just finished off the team.

Up to last night it was still pretty much the conversation amongst the coaching staff, team officials, and the players. Even all the other teams were concerned (genuinely I might add as they were really shocked that we lost). Mahram Iran's Priest Lauderdale who has become one of my chat buddies here asked for the skinny on the game outside his hotel room (I'm on the 6th floor with two other Filipinos) as the Iran, Qatar, and Korean teams.


There was a huge disparity in calls and free throws attempted. More than double! But still the team had its chances but I guess this is where inexperience really kicked in.

Smart Gilas plays Korea a second time. If we win we will play another squad for 5th place in the standings.

Game time is 2pm (3pm Manila time).

Wish us luck and that it will be truly be a Happy Birthday for Greg and a nifty comeback win for the Philippines!

In the meantime, I'm writing a piece on the American imports here: Iran's Priest Lauderdale, Qatar's Joshua Jones, Kuwait's Joel Box (whose brother will be playing in Kansas this coming season), and Lebanon's Chris Charles. I've become friends with the dudes on the Arab teams here. In fact, some of them joined me yesterday in the mall. Shayee Saeed bought the England national football kit that was on sale at rp 160-240! I wanted to get the Everton jersey (yes, I know I super root for Liverpool but it would be cool to wear an Everton during the coming UAAP games. Except that they ran out of XLs. Hmm.