Amazing U-Go

2009.10.17 Saturday

It was the day that we set off for Bangkok, Thailand. The flight was at 7.30 pm, and I was supposed to reach the air-port by 5.30 pm. I was surprised to see only James and Mile there, because I didn't know that the NYP people had already left for Thailand early in the morning. Seems like they found the air-ticket too expensive, haha. The flight was a bit delayed, and we reached Bangkok at around 9 plus. But the funny thing is that even though the flight to Bangkok takes around 1 hour, the time in Bangkok is also slower by 1 hour, so in the end it will seem like you didn't spend any time flying. Ironic, huh?

Boarded a coach to Tara Park immediately after we left the air-port. The weather was not as cold as I imagined. Guess I shouldn't have brought 2 jackets... After some time, we reached Tara Park, where we would be staying for the night before going to the actual competition venue. I didn't expect they actually prepared dinner for us, cos it was quite late. The last time we went there, I remember, they gave us cup noodles as supper. But this time they gave us yummy dishes! 

They also distributed the booklet for the competition and the shirts that we were supposed to wear for the next 2 days. Haiz, if I had known I wouldn't have brought so many shirts along... The booklet also let us know who our opponents could be... Some were quite... scary...

2009.10.18 Sunday

Today's schedule was full of lectures and "tutorials", which made the day very boring. Well, having a lecture at the resort wasn't such a bad idea, just that maybe the lectures could have been more interesting, haha. Or maybe the team leaders could attend the lectures, while we players go play?

Basically the lectures were about research on Go and it's effects on people. In the afternoon we even had a guy come and teach us how to meditate! It's not impossible though, but a bit hard to achieve in a lecture theatre, isn't it? In the end I think almost everybody fell asleep...

We spent the whole day at the resort. For the lunch and dinner, the environment was ok, but the food... I'm not really sure. I can't really get used to Thai food, even though I came here so many times. While Xie Tang kept complaining that the food sucks and he wasn't able to fill his stomach, haha. For dinner we even had to go to a riverside restaurant despite the fact that it was raining heavily, making everyone drenched when they reached there...

Oh yeah, in the evening every team were supposed to make a presentation on how they came to know about Go and what they feel etc. Singapore team was first, followed by Malaysia, Taipei, and Hong Kong. I don't know why the other teams didn't present, haha. The officials even told us that if we didn't finish they wouldn't send us to the air-port on the last day! Really?

At night we proceeded to our accomodation, which was something like a school hostel. But the rooms were very nice, just like a hotel, except maybe there were too many mosquitoes... The beds were very soft and very comfortable! I was tempted to just lie down and rest, but James went to play a friendly match with the Japanese, and I was also curious to know how well they were, so I went to watch.

2009.10.19 Monday

Finally the competition was going to start. We were going to play 6 rounds swiss rule, 2 rounds per day. It's actually an individual competition, just that your individual scores will contribute to your country's team score, just like Lanke Cup in Singapore. The competition hall was divided into 2 parts, one for the Thai U-Go and one for the Asian Go Tournament. Mile, me and Xie Tang joined the Asian Go, while the other NYP people played the Thai U-Go, against other Thailand universities. 

The opening ceremony included some big shots talking, some performances, and all the country flags going onto the stage. The performances were nice, especially the Hip-Hop dances, and it was also nice to see the head of 7-eleven giving a speech. 

Our first round's opponent was Vietnam players. All 3 of us won. It was a good start, considering that Mile's opponent was 4d, their strongest player. But of course, everybody's attention was on the fierce fight between the China and Korea players, who played against each other in the first round. 

In the end China won by 2-1. I didn't expect the professional player Yang Qian to lose! But well, this shows how strong the Korean players are...

We packed food for lunch, but I don't know why I feel it tastes better than the food we had at the restaurants... Oh well, never mind. In the afternoon we 3 played against players from different countries. Mile played Ho from Hong Kong, I played Tsai from Taipei, while Xie Tang played Yang Qian, the pro 6d from China! Unfortunately Xie Tang lost that game in the end. He said that he wasn't mentally prepared, and played a lot of bad moves, other wise he would have had a chance. I also lost my game, due to making a wrong move during the opening. Mile was the only Singaporean who won both game during the first day! Wow...

During the dinner at the competition hall, there was a muay thai performance. We were very anxious to see the fight, but it only started after about 10 minutes of warm-up, haha. Nevertheless it was still very exciting. Just when the NYP teacher in-charge Mr Wilfred who came with us was complaining that back in NYP the don't even allow food inside the hall, a black dog roamed into the scene and among our tables. Looks like they allow anything to go inside, haha~

I think it was on that night, that we and many others were invited to the Korean players' room to drink Shochu after we got back to our hostel. The alcohol level was like... 40 degrees? But I was still alright after drinking it. Guess I'm getting stronger now, haha. It was a fun night when we introduced ourselves and got to know more about each other. The Koreans also taught as a new way of eating Nong Shim noodles. Open the packet, break the noodles, pour out the sauce, and just eat! Don't even need to cook! We were all amazed by this method, but surprisingly it tasted quite good. There were also magic performances by Yukihiko from Japan and Ho from Hong Kong. They were very professional! I hope to learn from them if I had the chance, haha.

2009.10.20 Tuesday

3rd round of competition. I played Dong from Vietnam, Xie Tang played Peng Bei from Macau, while Mile played Tsai from Taipei. Xie Tang and me won, while Mile had his first loss. There was also a close match of Yukihiko VS Chen Xiao Chen from China. In the end Chen won by a bit. The review with Xie Tang after the match was very funny. Everytime the players were reviewing  game, they would talk about if Xie Tang was around he would be able to kill this group, make this group alive etc. And when Xie Tang really came, they made him prove to them that he can kill a particular group. In the end it became a let's-all-gang-up-against-Xie-Tang instead of a game review anymore. LOL

In the afternoon I played Ding Ding from Taipei, Xie Tang Yukihiko, and Mile Shogo from Japan. I was surprised that my opponents for the 2nd day are from the same country as my opponents for the first day, in the exact same order! And my results were also the same... I lost again... Even though I lost by only a small margin, It still shows that I wasn't up to standard. Xie Tang won by killing off one group, while Mile lost, but he kept saying that he could have won.

Dinner was at this place called Texas Steak House (or something like that?). It was outdoors, so everybody wondered what would happen if it were to suddenly rain. But soon everybody started to worry about something else... The mosquitoes. Just as Mile said, we were well fed, so were the mosquitoes, who started appearing in swarms when the sun set. After a while everybody was literally running away from the dining tables... You can see how powerful the mosquitoes are!

At night we went back to the competition venue for a teaching game... by us! Or rather by the high dan players, and apparently I was one of them. Each of us had to play against 9 to 10 players, all giving a handi of about 6 to 7. However it was more fun than I thought, and Xie Tang apparently enjoyed it. The other players were playing teaching games with the Korea and Thailand coaches. They also provided us with tasteful porridge after the games. What a nice evening!

2009.10.21 Wednesday

For the 5th round of competition, my opponent was Patcharapol from Thailand. Xie Tang played Shogo, and Mile played Peng Bei. Two Taipei players were playing against two Korean players, so it was like a match between the 2 countries. In the end it was 1-1. Congrats to Tsai for beating a Korean player! 

For the final round, I played Yukihiko, Xie Tang played Cui Chao from China, and Mile played Jimmy from Malaysia if I'm not wrong. Since it was the last round, I wanted to play a good quality game, but it ended up in a very bad one... Xie Tang won his China counterpart with a smile, and Mile also won. There was also a final fight between Chen Xiao Chen from China and a person from Korea (sorry, I forgot his name...). In the end Chen Xiao Chen won, and as a result of winning all 6 rounds he got the individual champion.

Xie Tang got 2nd, and even he himself was quite surprised, as he thought his SOS couldn't make it. For the team rankings, China was first, followed by Taipei, Korea, Japan, and Singapore. As for my individual ranking... I don't want to mention anymore... I actually got the lowest from my country... Haiz... 

Prize presentation ceremony was carried out at night in the same competition hall. They first gave out tokens to those who played the teaching games, followed by dinner and some performances, and then the prize presentation. The food was nice, and the performances also had beautiful girls and guys and... those who belong to neither category. Haha, but they were fun to look at, and everybody was laughing. 

After the ceremony instead of leaving everybody was busy taking photos with each other. As if no one wanted to leave, people were just crowding outside the hall flashing their cameras. The officials even had to come and ask us to hurry up before we moved up the bus. This shows how unwilling we were to part from each other...

That night back at the hostel was spent playing table tennis, drinking, and playing Go. Even though we had to wake up at 6.30 am the next day, no one wanted to sleep. Sleep is such a waste of time! Everybody wanted to spend more time with each other instead. That applied to me as well. In the end I played pair go with Chien Chong, Mile and Lok Yan until about 3 am before we really went to sleep.

2009.10.22 Thursday

This day was spent touring around Thailand. We went to the Grand Palace and some other places which I cannot recall the name... Thailand is nicer than Singapore in some ways. For example when boarding the MRT (they have another name for it) people actually queue up in front of the doors, unlike Singapore where everybody fights to be the first to get in. And their trains also look better than Singapore's. 

Night time was free time so the Singapore Team went to Siam Paragon, which was incredibly far away. Furthermore it was peak hour, and the traffic jam was at it's maximum, hence it took us more than 1 hour by taxi to get there... After dinner we had only 1 hour to shop around before we went for Thai traditional massage. It was actually the first massage that I had, and all I can say is... very painful. Yes, while Xie Tang said it was very comfortable, I kept holding back my screams during the massage... I really can't understand why people pay so much for these things...

The night won't end there. After we got back to Tara Park we joined the rest in drinking and playing games. The Koreans taught us a very fun game called the "I Love You Game" or something like that, and everybody enjoyed playing it. The video can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?comments&v=515299086528  After that I played pair go with Chien Chong, Jimmy and Mile until about 6 am before we slept.

2009.10.23 Friday

Left for Singapore very unwilling at 1 pm. Was back in Singapore by 4.30 pm Singapore time.

On the whole, I feel this was a very fruitful trip. I didn't do well for my games, but I didn't plan to achieve any good results, and I only treated this as an ORD trip, so it was still okay. Memories and friendship is much much more important, and I still regret not creating more good memories. But I hope the friendship I gained in this trip will always be there, and also hope that one day we will gather together again. 

PS My photography skills didn't improve much during this trip... I wanted to take nice photos, but all of them ended up very dark... The external flash I brought also screwed up and the photos didn't turn out as bright as I wanted... How can I shoot better without flash? Was it my settings' problem? I tried by increasing the ISO but that would just increase the noise level... Decreasing the shutter speed would also make the picture more blur... I don't know. The officials did a very good job. I'm definitely going to do some research next time... And guys, sorry for some photos that were very badly taken... ><