2006-07-08

Professional game

Today there was an arrangement for us to see real live professional games. They picked us upp with buss and we went to a go club. There we first had the chance to play against chinese amateurs. Most of them were strong players. I played aganst a strong 2 dan amateur. I recieved 4 stones of handicap and I had to resign after half the game. The beginning of the game looked good for me. I had a really large group that he invaded. It looked like that I managed to capture his stones but he got out and my two halves had problem and one side died. Other played weak 2 dans and had a more even game. Bad luck for me to get the strong 2 dan.

Then small groups of us took turn to go in to the professionals. One of them was Lee Sedol. He looked like a disco pimp in his white clothes. Someone took pictures there and Sedol complained so everybody did not get a chance to see the professionals play. Too bad...

After the games we went to an expensive restaurant nearby where we had dinner with a couple of professionals. The clubs strongest pro sat a while at every table and answered our questions like "When did you start playing weiqi?", "When did you become pro?", "Does it ever get boring?" and so on. The same questions at every table but he was very kind and answered patiently.

2006-07-01

The temple of heaven

Today I and some of the guys went to see the temple of heaven. We was aiming to do several other stuff as well but the temple took so long time so we did not have time for anything else. The temple was fun to see but not too exciting.

Then they wanted to eat pizza. I objected and said that we are in China and are supposed to eat chinese food. But they insisted... so ok... We went back to where they had seen a sign about a pizza buffet. We searched long and well. Some gave up and went to a sandwich joint. I went with three others to look one last time at a place we had not checked yet. And there it was! We payed $6 (huge amount of money for food here) and went in. Two half pizzas and some other food that had been laying for too long as we guessed and noone dared to eat much. I ate a little and then we went. Everybody still hungry. So three of us went to a real pizza place later. There we got some more problems. We ordered two medium pizzas but we got three. We tried to give one back but they didn't let us. So we had to pay for all three but the extra one we took back to the appartment for others to eat.

While at the mall I baught a mouse and Eric bought a basketball. Some day we will find a basketball court and shoot some hoops.