The Ugly Inside is the only Saints media outlet to have a man out in China for the pre season tour, find out here what the Daily Echo can't tell you.
Saints have been based for the last week in Shanghai or at least Kinsman, which in a City of 24 million is some 30 miles from the Bund or Nanjing Song which most would con cur is the centre of the city.
After the game on Thursday evening several team members made a personal appearance at one of the many Under Armour stored in. The city and followed it up by visiting Shanghai on a sightseeing tour on the Saturday, not that the city noticed being a sprawl where it takes a lot to do anything that really gets noticed.
But at least Saints are trying and to be honest it is a market worth trying to crack, before I arrived I assumed like most that China was a poor country at least for its general population, in the main that may remain the case, however there is a very wealthy class in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing not to mention the other 100 cities with a population of 1million plus that have the money to put into the coffers.
The centre of Shanghai has more skyscraper than New York and in the last decade or so has doubled its population to become the biggest City in the World with a population of 24 million.
It even has a Disneyland opened in 2016 and at around £68 for a days admission was not shorty of paying customers, very few of them white face's, from the outside it looks much like Disneyworld in Florida, how high is Mickey Mouse I asked a member of staff ? " No How Hei is not Mickey Mouse" was the answer he is playing Donald Duck today.
The official website proclaimed today that Saints have moved up to Xuzhou today, it will be a culture shock, around 300 miles north of Shanghai and with a population of 1 million it is around half way between Beijing and Shanghai but is not the western style city of Shanghai nor the capitals city of Beijing, to be blunt what will interest the locals the most is seeing white faces, even in Kinsman a suburb of Shanghai white faces are rare and the inhabitants are not used to seeing them.
Saints play Jiangsu Sunning whose home is in Nanjing a City west of Shanghai and several hundred miles from Xuxhoe, so Saints will not have to face a partisan home support.
Saints fans coming out of Shanghai will travel the 300 miles on the high speed trains for around £30 for the journey which will take around 3 hours.
What will await them will be anyone guess although I would suspect that it will be a warm welcome from there Chinese people, crime here is very low and graffiti even in Shanghai was non existent, it does not seem oppressive here, the people are happy with their lot, it's safe to walk the streets, no graffiti, no gangs on the streets, they would probably prefer that to there freedom of the UK.
Up to Xuzhou tomorrow detailed to follow !