A couple of weeks ago, the Nuggets and Pacers flew halfway across the globe to play a pair of exhibition games in the Far East. The first game took in Taipei, Taiwan, and the second one went down in Beijing, China. The headliner for the two teams was undoubtedly Carmelo Anthony. On top of playing the two games, Carmelo was crazy busy promoting his new Jordan Melo M6 sneaker to his Asian fan base. Since we weren’t there to tell you about it, we had Melo pen his Asia experience…

What’s going on Dime readers!

My trip to Asia was crazy. The flight was 14 hours and I didn’t sleep at all going over there. I slept for probably like an hour. Me, Chauncey, Kenyon, Arron Afflalo and the little rookie, Ty Lawson, just kicked it the whole time. We were gambling, playing cards, listening to music, watching movies.

We got into Taiwan late like 8 or 9 at night, then we had another hour ride to the hotel. After we checked in, we had to wait another hour for our bags to come. The first night and the next day was a little bit exhausting.

Honestly, we didn’t get a chance to go out and see too much of the city. I did notice that everybody out there had a moped. They had more mopeds than cars there. We just practiced and got to meet a lot of the international media. It was fun, but definitely got a lot of the same generic questions. After that, I had a shoe release event for my Jordan Melo M6 out there at this club called Spark 101 in Taipei. This club was one of the more upscale clubs and it was in the building, Taipei 101, which I guess is the world’s tallest building. It was packed wall to wall. We brought music, DJ Clark Kent to come out to DJ for us. So he did a hell of a job on the ones and twos. It was cool, a nice crowd came out. Actually a lot of celebrities from over there in Taiwan came out. Some of my teammates, Bruce Bowen and guys on the Pacers came through, so we had a good time.

The atmosphere at the game was good. The fans were in tune, they were cheering. I had an alright game, but I’m not going to lie, fatigue and jet lag definitely took place in that first game.

After Taiwan we headed over to Beijing. I came there last summer with the Olympic team. I’m kind of familiar with the area, but again didn’t really get to go out much because we were so busy. People always ask me if I tried any of the crazy food out there, but no not really, I just basically stuck to the basics. I’m a picky eater, so I try to stay with the most generic foods.

I had a bunch of other Jordan events going on in China as well. I had an in-store event with my shoe. It was in a Jordan store which was inside a Niketown. We just did like a meet and greet and I had to pick out a couple of outfits for the fans. I went to an outside court and saw some street ballers they got over there. I was also at a website launch event. It was for my website, Thisismelo.com. We just a launch party over there. Everybody was invited, guys from both teams came.

Between the Jordan events and the game, I’m always impressed with the fans in China. You don’t realize how much basketball has an influence ‘til you are actually over there. It was definitely packed in there. It felt like I was back playing in the Olympics again.

Maybe I’ll have time to go back and enjoy it a little more. The trip was so fast, we left literally boarded a plane right after the game!