Good luck, if you don't mind, please tell us how it went after!

_________________
Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

Oh? I'll be in Beijing in 2 weeks, maybe we can bump into each other. It's for non-Go related reasons, but I plan on visiting the Experience Go group because a Go player I befriended from a previous Go trip in Beijing 5 years ago is there, as well as Peter Liu who I got along well with then.

Thanks for the good wishes guys! Araban, I'll be in Beijing from the 25-30 of July, so it sounds likes we'll miss each other right?

_________________
"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

Haven't updated this in a while, but I've been busy!

I realized that I never posted anything about my amazing trip to China. Experiencing Shanghai and Beijing was very memorable, but perhaps greatest of all was the fantastic treatment that my group got from the Ing foundation. They got us hotel rooms, a tour bus with a few dedicated very friendly guides in their 20s, the flight from Shanghai to Beijing, and perhaps most surprising of all took us to top quality restaurants for amazing meals twice every day. In addition to all of this they took us to some great go sites, like the Ing foundation building and the chinese Weichi center. One of my greatest memories is getting to be in the room where they play the Ing Cup and even getting to play on a board there (for the icing on top, they even gave us the watches that all entrants into the Ing Cup receive)! We also meet some great people, like the president of chinese weichi association as well as two chinese professionals who played us in simuls (my first ever game with a pro).

This isn't even counting all the great sites we saw or the fun times we had playing friendship matches with the chinese college students and talking about our different life/college experiences.

It really was the trip of a lifetime! Here's one photo from it:

In other news, the account that I've been using on KGS for the past few months has been solidly ranked as 1D for a while, so I figured I'd update my rating here! I've been trying to play stronger players as much as possible both on and off the board, even if that means losing a lot

So goals? I guess my main one now is to reach 2D KGS by the time I go to Japan (early Jan.)

_________________
"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

Let me know when you and where you'll be in Japan. I'd like to meet you and play go with you. I might be able to take you to visit Honinbo Shusaku's grave and museum in Innoshima.

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

So it's finally time, I'm going off to Japan tomorrow! I'll be going to Tokyo first for about a week, and then head over to Kyoto where my study abroad program is. I plan to visit the Nihon-Kiin while I'm in Tokyo, as well as hopefully drop by some local go clubs.

I'm not sure how much time to actually play I'll have once my program starts, but I'm hoping to get a lot of playing in. One of the things associated with my program is to study a traditional japanese art/activity 1 on 1 with a mentor/"master", so you can guess what I'm thinking for that...

Aside from go, I'm really hoping to improve my japanese a lot over the next few months, although I know it will sometimes be difficult/frustrating... and everyone warns me about culture shock

When my program ends at the end of april/beginning of may, I may stay in Japan a little longer, but that's all undecided for now.

_________________
"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

So I figured I'd post a little progress report.

So in Tokyo, I first went to the Nihon Kiin... only to find it was closed for a pro event! I think it was for promotions. I first tried to go to a club in Shibuya, but after wandering around for an hour I couldn't find it. I started to think me playing go in Tokyo just wasn't meant to be. The next day though, I went to a great club in Ueno. Everyone was very nice, but this was my first exposure to japanese rank inflation; I ended up playing as 5d!

I finally ended up at the Nihon Kiin. I had never played go in a place like this. For those who don't know, everyone gets a card with their name and a number corresponding to their rank. You get/lose a point depending if you win/lose. I think it was 6 points per rank. The people working there matched us up. I was winning all my games as 4d( ) So i had to self promote to 5d, where I was pleased to find I could still hold my own. One time there wasn't anyone free around my strength, so the matchmaker dude offered to play me. He gave me four stones and comfortably beat me. I have no idea who he was, but he was mad strong. We were the last ones playing that day, and when we finished I looked up and saw we were surrounded by a ton of people watching!

Everytime I went there, there seemed to be exactly one other foreigner. The first time there was this guy who I was told was from Ohio. I went over to talk to him while he was playing, but as he looked up and saw me he snapped his head back down and started strange autistic-like mumbling . The next day there was this big guy with a pony tail. I said hi to him, but he just smiled. When I tried to talk to him later, it turned out he spoke french! I didn't remember much french from high school, but I knew enough to ask him if he spoke any japanese for us to communicate in, which would have been hilarious, but alas he did not.

I did a lot of other very fun/cool/weird stuff in Tokyo that I won't spend time going into here.

But anyway after a week it was on to Kyoto, where I currently am. I found a nice local club located pretty close to where I take classes. The woman running it is very nice, she helps to match me with people, especially the first few times when I didn't know anyone. All this it's mostly older folks, I've gotten to know a japanese college student whose my age. And the old folks are actually a lot of fun to talk to. I've gotten a lot of great games in, including playing 2 stone games with people stronger than me.

I then decided to ask about taking lessons or anything of the sort, and it turned out that there are two pros who come twice a week to play simuls as well as teach lessons for kyu players. I decided to play in a simul with the older of the two pros, because he was only playing two other people and seemed nice. His name is Fujiyama, and I've played 3 games with him so far. They were 4 stones and I've lost all of them, but what I appreciate is that he takes his time with each game (it helps that the average number of other players is 1 throughout the whole game) and then reviews it with me afterwards. Even aside from go, it's been great japanese practice!

Overall, I've been having a great time, outside of go too! Below are a few go related pics and my most recent Fujiyama game.

Next week, I'm planning to hit up the Kyoto University Go Club, so we'll see what happens

http://imgur.com/a/8dJNW

http://eidogo.com/#1N5VINcB

_________________
"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

Things are still going well in Kyoto!

I've finally made it to a college go club! Unfortunately since it's been spring break for the past two months, there's usually only about three people there. However I've found a few strong people at the Kyoto University club who destroyed me and then helped me review afterwards.

I've been treated pretty nicely at the Kyoto go salon. I've gotten to know some of the people there, and a few weeks ago a man gave me a tsumego book as a present, along with a handwritten note in English! Talking with the older folk there is a lot of fun, although their particular type of Japanese can be tough to understand.

Interestingly, I feel like I get some of my best english practice at the club from reviewing my game with Fujiyama the pro. He speaks very clearly, unlike some of the mumblers

I'll only be here for another month before heading back to America, but I plan to make the most of it!


In non go related news, for spring break I went with a few friends to Nagasaki. We went to this big zoo where a monkey stole my friend's hair ribbon, and then later to the Peace Park, at the epicenter of where the nuclear bomb detonated.

Here's the game I played with Fujiyama today, along with his suggestions!

_________________
"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee