A very tired day after competing in whampoa cup.

This year there has been some changes in the grouping, besides primary sch group and kyu group, dan group has been divided to high dan(3d and above) and low dan(1d to 2d)group.

As usual there are 7 rounds in all and it really is a test to your stamina.

Out of the 7 match i should say the one against xing wei was the most unforgettable game cause he was leading alot and it was in yose when i catch up. I know i caught up quite alot but i thought i am still going to lose(no time to count territory). He did improve quite alot since the last time i play with him.

The match with yi fei was a joke. A simple mistake in a yose and lost by 3 stones. To be able to play like that at his age is quite good.

Haha, and i lost to hong you once again after TPY cup. I just cant seems to win him and is not that he plays really well but i think the problem lies with me.

If everything goes according to my plan this will be my last year joining whampoa before going korea.

Well, is time to start preparing for 3 countries match.

Just came back from Japan with Minyi as we went there for the 20th International Pair Go Competition. I must say that being able to go to this trip is a dream come true for me cause i really wish to go Japan.

Come to think of it, i have been playing pair go for more than 3 months since july for Singapore internal pair go competition till this competition in Japan. At least to me i feel that we have trained hard enough.

Hmmm.... as for our result, haha... i have to say is kind of terrible but we have not break the record of being the worst sg team.

After this 5 days in Japan, i am kind of touched by their effort to promote pair go. They take pair go seriously believing that this game will let more people enjoy the playing process. And i beieve it will work.

"Double the joy when you win, half the pain when you lose" quote of pair go

Meet minyi in airport on thursday night at terminal 3 to travel to japan on Singapore airline A380 airbus. I was looking forward to travel on this flight cause is the biggest plane SIA has and there are 2 storey in the plane.



How the air bus look from the inside. Is much bigger inside compare to other plane but i dun like the light color.. abit like pink....



Same like other SIA plane there are plenty of movies to choose from. But we were traveling in the middle of the night so i only manage to watch 1 hong kong movie then spend most of my time sleeping.



Breakfast in the plane. Food is not bad but i dun really like the hotdog...



After almost 7 hours of flight, we arrive at Narita Airport and we need to take train ourselves to the hotel. The train map was wah..... super complex and colorful. Minyi was wondering will they will run out of color if they built more lines in future? haha... So instead of digesting the map we approach japanese most of the time and ask for direction. I have to say they are really friendly and helpful. To me japanese are just too friendly, whenever i talk to one i feel so guilty cause they keep nodding and bowing.





We saw the pair go competition poster in one of the train station, cool yea. Oh yar..there are 2 things in the train station that i find interesting. First is the train seat. The seat emmits heat and i understand cause it will be comfortable in winter but the thing is it gets really hot. In Singapore those aunty will pat pat their seat before seating down, worrying that the seat is hot. Imagine we have this in Singapore, think you will see all aunty and uncle seating on the floor instead.. haha. Second thing is the train gap from the train to the platform. OMG, i am really shocked at how huge the gap is compared to sg "pls mind the platform gap". If i am a kid i will be really scared whenever i board train...



And finally we reach the station. When we register in the hotel the organizer was quite surprise at how cheap our train ticket cost compared to other teams. Of course there is a price to pay too, we travel longer than other teams and we have to stay awake in order not to miss our stop. This is the map from the train station to the hotel. I have to admit i am an idiot when it comes to map reading, thanks to minyi we manage to get to the hotel with not much problem.



The pair go booth in the hotel. We can only check in after 3pm so we decide to have lunch first then go shopping and return before 6 to check in...



Our first meal in Japan. We were given coupon and there are a few restaurant to choose from and we pick the Japanese restaurant. What i am not used to is that japanese food is really cold.. almost every side dish(except soup) are cold, even the rice...



If you think this is a duplicate of the top pic, look again. Actually this is the after meal photo.. I am really guilty cause i din eat much and this meal cost around S$30+(is free for us though)...


And we went shopping after lunch... As i got a long shopping list i din manage to shop for my own stuff, most of the time i am looking for frend's items. And the lame thing is we went to place that are available in Singapore like Takashimaya, Isetan and Kino to shop... hahaha.. Kino there is really huge, if i am not wrong is around 5 storey high. And i got myself something which i wanted to buy in sg kino.....



Hikaru no Go illustration book!!! This book is huge...It cost 89 bucks in sg kino and i bought this for S$60+ in japan kino!!! haha...



After shopping for few hours, we check in to our room. I am surprise that i dun have to share room with other player and the room is really fantastic!!



Toilet......



Haha... i am amused by these toilet bowl function.... I wonder if yurika is use to not having these function in sg toilet. I din try these function though and yurika if u r reading this, whats the difference between spray and bidet?

DAY 2



First thing we have is the lottery of opponent.....



Name tags for all the players... There are a total of 32 teams.. i think 11 teams are japanese team from all over japan(they are winner of their state) and the rest are overseas teams..



Yup... and we are lucky number 6!! Well, looking at our final result i am not sure is it lucky or not...haha.. Anyway our first opponent is a japanese team.



This is our first opponent.... We lost............. haha...



Competition venue for the first match...



Our lunch bento after the match.. The packaging is really nice but again everything inside is cold... But the food is not bad, in fact better than the hotel food...haha


We only have to play 1 game for that day. After lunch we have the friendship game in our traditional costume... How this friendship game work is that we will draw lots and pair up with a partner of another country..



Vietnam and Guatemala players...




Turkey player...



Romania player... If you play alot on kgs, u will know that the center guy is cornel 8d(not sure if this is the right spelling). the lady on right is the female player of Czech..



So i got paired up with a japanese lady. She is a beginner so the whole game got really no content. But thats not the main point. The guy opposite me is a japanese pro, 瀬戸大樹 七段 and i really admire him cause he have to play along this whole pointless game and this to other pro player is really waste of time. I am quite lucky to have a pro player in my playing group cause not every playing group will have pro. This pro player can speak chinese too cause he used to go china to play in their weiqi league.



Some of the pro who were there... din manage to take the rest...



Banner for the competition... During this friendship game the MC actually intro every single person and we clap for everyone of them. We clap more than 130 times... haha...


Anyway 1 interesting thing minyi and i did was to take picture with as many pro as possible..



瀬戸大樹 七段, under kansai ki-in. anyway he is the rumored guy who inspired the artist to draw the character Hikaru in Hikaru no Go. Well, is a rumor though...



石田芳夫 九段 aka 24世本因坊秀芳.


高梨聖健 八段. He was in the final of NHK cup last year but lost to Chou U.



Michael Redmond 九段. The only non Asian pro player that is 9p. Most people dunno how to use the focus function in my camera so forgive those blur pic...



周俊勋 九段. Top taiwan player who won LG cup few years back..



謝依旻 四段. Current female meijin (女流名人) and honinbo (女流本因坊)



大竹英雄 九段. Heard alot of funny story about him from yls...



羽根直樹 九段. Current Honinbo.



今村 俊也 九段. One of the top player in Kansai ki-in.



After the friendship game, there was a special game between Hsieh Yi Min(Women's Honinbo) / Hane Naoki(Kisei) vs Akane Ishii(1-dan) / Yamada Kimio(9-dan).



This is the commentary game for japanese.



Michael Redmond 九段 do the commentary game for overseas player. haha..look at the board size difference between the japanese room and overseas room.



A welcome party at night. I think japanese got strong legs cause you have to stand around for like 2 hours for the whole event to end. Almost all the ceremony i attend there are like that.



And there is a huge screen showing our result for the first match.



This is an interesting couple. They are actually VIP invited by the organizer cause they know each other through pair go and later on they got married and have a kid. The japanese call the kid "The pair go baby" haha.. the kid is really cute..

DAY 3




We have to play the remaining of our matches on this day. There is a total of 5 rounds. This is the new venue for the remaining matches. All these venue are in the hotel so is very convenient for the players.



石田芳夫 九段 saying the opening speech.



Our beautiful bento lunch box again..



I think this is red bean rice or something. Not bad.





At one corner of the hall are the prizes for the lucky draw. Yar, i think they adpot the same system as swa of lucky draw so that people will stay for the prize giving. Look at the prizes!!! Wii!!! DS!!! even bicycle!!! omg....is damm good prize. I was telling minyi if we so heng got the bicycle how are we going to bring back to sg? haha...





Closing Ceremony. There were alot alot alot of people in the closing ceremony. Looks like the lucky draw prize is very attractive, haha...


DAY 4




Early in the morning after breakfast, minyi, me and suzan went to a japanese shrine near the hotel.



Is my first time entering japanese shrine and the feeling is completely different from temple (of course)



A small both for public to buy lucky charm. I did buy some for my family.





I think these 2 place are for japanese to hang their wishes.


Exit of the shrine.





Decided to take a few pic of japan street on the way back to hotel. Oh yar... one huge problem we face is that is so difficult to find rubbish bin on the street and yet the street is super clean.



Before lunch we have a talk by pandanet aka IGS. Seems that IGS is one of a sponsor for this competition and this talk is to encourage us to spread IGS to our friends.



Lunch time. The farewell lunch was really amazing. Look at the seating arrangement, is so formal. Beside lunch, each country also have to share how pair go is progressing in each country and their comment on IGS.



Lunch!!! The translator told us this is very very high class meal.



This is one of the best japanese meal i have eaten in the past few days. The food is still cold but it seems that i have somehow gotten use to it. The rock melon they serve is super duper sweet. Minyi and i agree that the rock melon is the best one we have eaten in our life. haha



We took a pic with the champion team, KOREA!!



Lastly a group photo....



After the farewell lunch, minyi and i rush like mad to do our last min shopping. We are actually quite anti-social cause we din really hang out with other teams to shop. Reason being is that if we wanna go with other team, it will drag and take quite long to decide where to go, haha..







We went to this place call qian chao which is like what minyi said "tourist trap".. haha... bought lots of food there...



Saw this beautiful wolf, i mean dog when we were shopping. Is super big lar..



got a few pack of cigrattes for my army frends. Their packaging is so nice, somemore got free lighter!! haha...wat a temptation to start smoking.



At night we went to visit Tokyo Tower. The tower is really beautiful.. Took this pic outside the train station.



A closer pic under the tower. We din went up the tower cause is ex i guess..



Entrance to the tower.



I have a hard time packing my bag at night. I realize i bought too much food. As you know some of the food packaging is quite big, my army duffel bag cant even zip up. i have to keep rearranging the position and worry that the zip might burst.





Pic of Narita airport...



Plane food. Quite nice... Spend most of the time watching movie and sleeping.

For more info of the 20th Pair Go International Competition, do visit here