DISPENCE

I flew to Montego Bay, Jamaica today.  I’m here for a new LPGA event called the Mojo6. I’ll be working as a production assistant for CBS Sports.

On the plane (JetBlue) the TVs had an ad for the event! The organizers said JetBlue was a partner, but it was still cool to see a slide advertising where I was headed.

The Mojo6 ad on JetBlue flight

It was pretty cool arriving. I was picked up, along with a guy working for the event management group putting on the event, by a nice lady holding a sign for us. I zipped right through customs, proudly proclaiming that yes, indeed, I was working for the LPGA event this week. I did have to explain to one nice lad that no, I wasn’t actually golfing, only working. (He did greet me with “Welcome to Jamaica, Mon!” which has got to be the mother of all cliches but it was still awesome.)

The bus ride from the airport to the hotel was uneventful save for the fact that I’m sure the bus was from China. There were Chinese characters on a sticker above the wind shield and by every label numbering the isles and seats there were characters too. I knew something was fishy as soon as I stepped on board. The seat backs were covered with the same logo/sponsor clad covers as bus seats I’d seen countless times while in China.

To make things even more interesting, as our bus driver proudly pointed out every big resort construction site we passed on the way to our hotel, we passed one building zone the driver said nothing about.

There was a six or seven story skeleton of a building clad with bright red banners with white Chinese Characters. Over the entrance to the site a similar banner spanned the drive. The Chinese must really be everywhere. The construction site reminded me of the ones I saw in Beijing. The green netting, sketchy scaffolding and general disarray and unkeptness that is a Chinese construction site was striking.

The hotel (resort) I’m staying at is first class. My all inclusive setup means I have full access to almost everything. I don’t have to be at work until tomorrow morning so I hit the outdoor restaurant (one of two) beach, ocean, pool and of course the bar (both swim and walk up). Perhaps the best part of the place are the water slides (yes, I’m seven years old). One is pretty decent and you have to ride an intertube down it. The second is a series of short slides going between hot tubes. Yeah, it’s awesome. Someone please remind me how I got into this business?

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 11th, 2010 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Jamaica. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.