Saturday, October 18, 2008

BYE, BYE, BEIJING, BYE, BYE

Good morning Rebecca and all,

It is yet another sunny and comfortable day this
Sunday morning in Beijing. The 1st ever World Mind
Sports Games officially came to an end last night and
now players and officials from around the world are in
the process of returning to their home countries.
Karen, Pamela and I are flying out at 3:50 this
afternoon. We take an 11 hour flight to Vancouver
where Pamela and I will say goodbye to Karen, who
then has a short hop over to Nanaimo. Pamela and I
get back to Toronto late tonight (Sunday). Kismet
flies home to Edmonton as well.

The past two days provided further opportunities to
experience Beijing. We did so at a leisurely pace.
As I may have mentioned earlier our hotel/playing
site are all part of the Olympic installations. Nearby
are the "Bird's Nest" (China National Stadium) and
the "Water Cube" (Aquatics Centre). We toured inside
both venues and they were magnificent. Both sites
are particularly stunning when they are lit up at night.
Many Beijingers now visit these sites and thousands
took advantage of a pleasant Friday afternoon to do so.
After much experimentation, over time, we have
found good and inexpensive Chinese food restaurants
and we dined again with most of the usual suspects.

On Saturday, a taxi ride saw us arriving at a down-
town park at about 9:30 am. This was not really a
tourist spot, but rather a large green park where the
residents come to rest, frolic and play. They partake
of dancing, singing, games playing, strolling and
Tai Chi. The Chinese all seemed to be greatly enjoy-
ing themselves.
Then off to Tian' amen Square, the huge meeting place
of note in history. Mao's memorial is located there.
Our last Beijing lunch and then we took the subway
back to the Olympic stop near out hotel in mid afternoon.

The closing ceremonies for the Mind Sports Games
took place last evening. Since the actual medal present-
ations had previously been made, the closing cere-
monies were really just a huge cocktail party with
lots of food and drink, held in a large green space,
about the size of four football fields adjacent to the
site of the other mind sports.
Josee Damiani, President of the World Bridge Feder-
ation and President as well of the World Mind Sports
Federation informed us that 2730 competitors from
123 countries took part in these Mind Sports Games.
China was the runaway leader in the medal count.
Canada did not reach the podium. I believe the U.S.
won two medals.

This will be my last blog from Beijing. It has been fun
to write each day to anyone checking in our our time
here. I have no idea if anyone has been doing so, but
feel free to e-mail me your comments back home at
johnrayner@rogers.com

Barbara, Nancy, Sally, Martin, Bev, David, Abe, -
thanks for looking after everything back at the club.
Michael - we hope you finally win some masterpoints
and emerge victorious in today's Swiss Teams at the
Nanaimo Regional.
My dearest "Rubberino" - can't wait to see you on
Monday.

Pamela has been an exemplary shopper while here.
The Beijing economy will be taking a huge hit with
her departure today.

So bye, bye, Beijing, bye, bye!
You are a great city. It has been wondrous.

John Rayner

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