By Pawlo
March 27 2007

As the England squad embarks on the latest leg of this years IRB Sevens World Series to Hong Kong and Adelaide, Charlie Amesbury shares some insights of his latest exploits with Quins supporters back home. After my last set of postcards from Wellington and San Diego, many Quins supporters shared with me that they welcomed hearing about my “behind-the-scenes” thoughts and experiences while on the road on England duty. So here we go with my latest snippets (entrusting the final “copy” to my scribe back home!)…

I met up with the rest of the England squad at the Crowne Plaza hotel near Heathrow on Sunday afternoon, where we had some food and then all boarded the coach to the airport. There are some new faces in the squad this time, but I pretty much know everyone – especially as we all trained together last week.

The flight was OK and I watched a couple of films – A Night at the Museum and Rocky – and then managed to get some sleep. Everyone has to be careful and drink loads of water during the flight and we also take zinc tablets; to try and prevent us picking up any bugs on the plane. We eventually arrived into Hong Kong on Monday afternoon and transferred straight to the hotel.

This is my first trip to Hong Kong, another place I’ve always wanted to visit. The island is very built up with sky scrapers everywhere and it’s taking me a little while to get my bearings. It helps that Tom (Williams) is out here with us this time as he lived here for many years, so knows his way around more than most!

We were allowed to go out for a bit of a leg-stretch last night after dinner so we all had our first opportunity to look around some of the shops, but no-one has bought anything yet. We are all just at the early bartering stage at the moment and perfecting the “walk away” technique! I am hoping to buy a laptop while I’m out here, as they are much cheaper than back in the UK. I’m also looking to get a tailored made-to-measure suit if I get a chance.

None of the squad slept very well last night as we were all very jetlagged – Hong Kong is seven hours ahead of England – and personally I woke up at 4am this morning. I’m definitely looking forward to hopefully getting a decent eight hours sleep tonight.

The hotel is fantastic – we have really big rooms, with great showers! On the last trip I shared with Shabbs (Dominic Shabbo, London Irish), but he was very unfortunate to sustain a serious leg injury during the Irish v Quins A league match in Sunbury last week. So this time I’m rooming with Dave Seymour from Saracens. In the past Dave has roomed with Ben Russell (also Saracens) so at least I have managed to split that partnership up! Dave made sure that he brought his music speakers along so our room is also very lively. Of course I couldn’t really comment on the Saracens music choice, other than to say that there is a bit of Phil Collins in there!

I hadn’t personally met Dave before this trip but I look up to him as a player – as well as admiring his long hair! I have often thought about growing my own hair long but never really had the guts to do it, so I may have a chat with him about that while we are out here.

Well that’s all for now as it’s just about time to head off for our first afternoon training session, which will be a light run-through with the prime aim of getting the flight out of our legs… and I’ll aim to share more with you all later in the week.