MONDAY MORNING IN BEIJING

Good morning everyone from Beijing,

Our six Canadian Teams have all been eliminated now
from the Championship events. Canada's remaining
qualifiers - the Senior Team and the Under 26 Junior
Team - lost their round of 16 matches on Saturday.

All of the players from your Canadian Women's Team
and myself are now playing in the Transnational Mixed
Teams, which started last night and continues through
Wednesday afternoon in a Swiss Team format of 15
ten-board matches. We have formed three or four
different teams. I am playing with our team member
Karen Cumpstone along with three of her New Zealand
friends and a fellow from India. Most of our day yesterday
was spent trying to arrange teammates which is not so
easy as it is difficult to get a hold of people here.

On Saturday, which was a day off - Karen and I joined a
tour group of about ten others from Hong Kong, Singapore,
and Turkey for a day-long excursion. We started out at
7:00 am from the hotel and our visitations were to
"The Forbidden City" (residence of the Emperors), the
"Temple of Heaven," and the "Summer Palace."(summer
home of the Emperors) All were very interesting sites
harkening back to the Imperial times of China. At the
Temple there were beautiful parks and gardens. Many
citizens of Beijing were there partaking of singing, dancing,
game playing and Tai Chi.
We learned at the Summer Palace about the "Dragon Lady,"
who served as the de facto emperor of China at the turn of
the last century.

I continue to be amazed at how modern Beijing seems to be.
In all of our travels in and around Beijing, we have travelled
grand and wide streets, passed thousands of apartment
complexes and much modern architecture. We haven't yet
encountered the old parts or poor parts of Beijing. They
exist but we have not seen them. I am hoping to visit the
Hutong district of Beijing where apparently we will get
a better feel for the more ancient aura of the city.

Good night Rebecca - hope you had a great weekend.
Bye all.

John