Fridays party was just a normal barbecue thing, but this time we had more fish and less meat. Don't have so much to add about this except that I was just talking with Mr. Takezawa about wanting to see fireworks and boom! As I was walking towards Teine station local hospital started shooting some fireworks since they apparently had some small event there. I didn't get good pictures of them though, but it was nice surprise.
Saturday I had agreed to participate in small Go tournament with some of the teachers. I met with 5 older teachers, including Mr. Takeda who had showed me how to play few weeks earlier. I was slightly anxious as I heard that every one of them were dan ranked players. Fortunately Go has a very good handicap system in place.
While I was walking to our meeting place I snapped a couple of pictures from south side of Sapporo JR station.
This is outside view of "Daimaru", which is large high quality shopping mall next to JR station. They have some expensive merchantize there, let me tell you.
We met at Keio Plaza hotel and went for buffet lunch first at restaurant called "Glass Seasons".
It's a nice looking place, but I do have to say food wasn't even close to best things I've eaten here. Probably because it was buffet lunch so cooks went for quantity over quality. :)
After that we headed to a Go Club. It was very interesting see this and experience not only playing the game against several good players, but also see all other people playing around me. There is a steady clapping of stones hitting goban (go board) and after-game discussion going on during busy hours. Many of the players were pretty old and this observation was also backed up by the teachers own experience. There are now quite a bit less younger players than in the past. From what I gathered to actually become a Pro Go player is very hard so no wonder there are less people trying to go for that occupation these days.
I do have to say this was a lot of fun and I genuinely felt I learned quite a bit about playing. I played total of 5 tournament games and one extra game while waiting for last official game to finish. So how did I do?
Pretty well as a matter of fact, 2-1-2 on win/draw/loss. Given that I have very limited experience I was especially happy to win two official games (obviously with handicaps given the caliber of players I was facing) and also the extra match with 6 stone handicap. Best player of the table was honorary 8th dan and against him I made couple big errors. :) Afterwards he explained to me couple move sequences that I should avoid and I did so on next games. One game actually ended up as a draw, which is quite rare. Calculating points for that game was quite exciting. :)
My final position was fifth but the competition was very close. If I just had captured one more stone on my draw game I could have finished in top three. And alternatively with one more lost stone I would have ended as last.
As a reward, I got 4000 yen gift card and this nice fan. If you've ever watched Hikaru no Go or just some old movies you can often see players with fans trying to keep cool while waiting for opponents move.
After our tournament we headed to old and famous hotel called "Sapporo Grand Hotel". It has a feel of quality but it is not glitzy like many new hotels seem to be.
Other people had played golf, bowled, rock-climbed and played tennis. Winners recieved small prices.
We had a nice dinner there and there also was a bingo competition. Funnily enough bingo ball machine was malfuntioning and caused quite a few funny situations with multiple balls flying out of it at inopportune times much to the chagrin of the user. Oh, and I had to make a speech. Well, actually just more like few comments on go tourney while pictures of me playing were shown with projector. ^^
Today I have to keep making my presentation for this upcoming wednesday. After that I don't have much official program so it is time to clean the apartment, possibly make one last sightseeing trip if I feel like it and then it is time to leave.
o/
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