Gathering for Gardner-Beijing

This trip was a nice side adventure that isn't a part of my regular puzzle parties.  I really didn't expect to go, but after a bit of arm twisting-not too hard though-I bought a ticket and headed to the  airport.

I changed my flight because I didn't want to go all the way to Beijing for just one day.  What a waste that would have been.  I arrived Thursday  night just before midnight and Otis was a prince.  He picked me up and let me stay at his flat that first night.  It seems the hotels in Beijing don't like late check-ins.  He was even more of a prince when he let me sleep past 10:30.  I've been exhausted lately and I guess I just needed the rest.

First stop was to go to the hotel and check me in.  From there we had a bit of lunch and met Da Yan and his wife.  They went off to visit an old school friend and Otis and I headed for the Great Wall.  Can you believe, 20 years in Asia and I hadn't seen it yet!  Shocking but true.  In fact, this was my first trip to Beijing.  As such, I wanted to see some touristy places while I was there.

From the wall we headed back into town to go to a speed cubers meet up.  Now I'm not a speed cuber, but this didn't bother me too much.  I just wanted to see what was happening with them.  Otis told me I shouldn't miss it, and I'm glad I went.  I met a couple of puzzle designers and a few of the organizers for the G4G.  We later went to Mr. Yau's workshop and of course I had to buy some puzzles!

Otis and I headed back to the hotel for an 'early' night.  We got in around 12.  The next day we woke at 7:30 and headed to Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City.  (See, Touristy things)  I wanted to see Mao's tomb, but as Otis said there were "too many bodies to see the body".  The line snaked around the block and then some. We had to be back to the hotel around 11:30 to meet Nick and Wei-Hwa so we gave the viewing a miss.  Maybe next trip.  I enjoyed the outing very much.  A friend of mine in the States said he wasn't overly impressed with it, but I've got to say, I was.  The amount of labor needed to build those structures...astounding.  I was also a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people I saw there.

We went and saw the room of clocks.  Otis had said he'd never seen it, and I had watched a documentary on it and wanted to go.  IT was well worth the extra admission price.  I hadn't realized the Chinese clock makers were so good.  To be honest, I liked theirs more than I did those from the UK or France.  Or maybe it's just because I've seen that type before.  While inside, I got a call from Wei-Hwa saying they were in the hotel and Otis got a call from Da Yan saying he and Tom were in the square and would meet us out back shortly.  We attempted to get a cab back to the hotel, but none would take us.  Instead we got on a bus and took it to the nearest train station and took the metro instead.  An hour later we met up with Wei-Hwa and Nick and headed out for lunch.

It was a HK style restaurant, which kind of made me laugh because I went all the way to Beijing to eat home food.  Anyway, we showed around a few puzzles, Nick figured out that DaYan was THE DaYan, he worked out Tom's puzzling secret and we just had good fun talking.

After lunch DaYan and Tom went off to the hotel, Otis went to his flat and Nick and Wei-Hwa and I went to a "locked room".  They explained what it was on the way over, and I couldn't wait to start.  To begin with, they told us to go to the bathroom because we would be locked in for an hour...and then they gave us a glass of water.  How logical is that?  We were blindfolded and brought into a room where we were told to count down and take off the blindfolds they had put us in.   Click!  I heard the door lock.

There was a video playing giving the back story of the room, and poor Wei-Hwa just couldn't keep up with the translation.  Did I forget to mention it was all in Chinese? Well, we managed to solve the puzzle with Wei-Hwa as translator and won a prize for it as well. A glass Eiffel Tower figurine.

From there we headed out to dinner with the Beijing collectors group.  I was in for a huge surprise!  When I walked in, I saw friends from Shenzhen and Guangzhou.  I didn't know they were coming.  Hugs all around I tell you.  What else would I do?  As it turned out, it was one guys birthday.  A food fight broke out with the birthday cake, and if truth be told, it was Tom who started it.  There were puzzles a plenty.  I brought the Angel Box, a Stickman, Jerry Loo's cylinders, 2 burrs from Derek Bosch and a few more.  DaYan had some of his as did Tom. But I didn't manage to take a single puzzle photo.  As Nick said later, I was too busy peopling to puzzle or photograph.

From dinner we headed out to karaoke.  A staple of boys and toys.  Well, guess who was good and plastered?  Yep, your's truly.  I don't really remember how I got back in my room.  But I know we left quite early.  My dear friend G. summed it up nicely...

The next morning Smaz called me around 10:30 the next morning, but I was still abed.  I stayed in until lunch and then met up with Otis, Nick, and Wei-Hwa again.  We had Beijing black noodles for lunch and headed over to G4G.

There were a number of speeches all in Mandarin so of course I didn't understand a single word of it.  I stayed through Wei-Hwa's talk and Michael's as well, but then I needed to get up and stretch my legs.  I felt bad leaving, but I just couldn't stay any longer.  I was getting antsy.

There were a number of puzzles on display that I enjoyed looking at.  There were also puzzles for sale, and of course I had to buy a number of them.  I had to head back to the airport early because of Monday morning work.

As usual, it was hard saying good by to friends but I know I will see the guys from China again before years end, and I'll see Nick and Wei-Hwa next August.  All in all, it was a great weekend.  I'm glad I joined in the fun.

Back again

I've been a very bad girl.  I haven't posted in over a month!  What ever is wrong with me?  Work, study, lack of time. But have no fear, I shall attempt to make up for it now.

Since I last posted, I've had 2 boys and toys but haven't really purchased that many new puzzles. (Ok, that's a lie.  I always get more, but none overly exciting.)  I'll start with the GZ open.

1 October is Chinese National day and it's also the date of the annual GZ open.  I haven't missed this since I first started going to GZ 5 years ago and this year was no exception.

I left HK right after I finished my classes at 6 on Monday evening and spent 2 nights with the guys.  Some fool decided to jump on the tracks, so despite my best laid plans, I didn't arrive in GZ until after 10 pm.  As Ming was setting up the venue for the competition the next day he couldn't meet me at the train station.  I'm very proud of myself though.  For the first time ever, I not only made it to GZ by myself, but I also navigated the subway by myself.  I've no excuse now.  I know I can do it and the guys do too so I'll have no more welcoming committee.

 I helped to set up the venue for the competition and around 12 we headed for the hotel to sleep.  The next morning Smaz and I awoke around 10 and headed out for a bit of visiting with cubers and hunting for some gifts for our kids and a thing or two for us.

High on my list of priorities was a flask so I don't have to travel on the train drink free.  Even after having gone to China all these years, and all the conferences I go to I'm still afraid of the train and flying.  A bit of liquid courage is needed, and the flask seemed like a good solution for me.  Sadly because it was national day, most of the shops were closed.

We went back to the competition and saw a few solves, and then got ready to hand out some of the awards.  Jing Meffert was there as well as a representative from Yong Jin.  Smaz and I also gave out a few of the awards.  Standard stuff for us.  But the fun was yet to begin.

After, we all headed out for dinner together and had the usual too many drinks and too little food.  Tonight's dinner was in a different kind of restaurant.  There was even a belly dancer and Happy Angel was enticed to dance with one of the girls.


The best photo of the night though was of the guys puzzling away while the girls danced on.

This is really the reason I go to these things.  To have fun with the guys.  My friends are worth the trip.  As is usual, we enjoyed a bit of karaoke and this time the guys even got me up to sing.

Silly Rox was supposed to go back Tuesday night, but Smaz reminded me of the cheap cost of a train ticket so I stayed overnight and spent an extra day.

On the 2nd we went back out to do our shopping and managed to pick up everything we were looking for except my docking station for my phone.  Another quick dinner and we headed off for the train station.  We just made it and managed to hit HK before the boarder closed and the trains stopped running.  All in all, it was a great GZ trip.  (Like I expected anything less.)

Stay tuned for Gathering for Gardner in Beijing....

IPP 33 and GZ trip final thoughts

My week and a half journey into puzzles is over and I'm back home ready to head to work again.  But before I do, I've still got the long task of posting videos of each of the puzzles I picked up.  That should be fun! It gives me a chance to play before I have to pack everything away until I get old and grey and have more time.

So today I go back and fill in some of the blanks from the previous posts.  Ill start with our trip to SZ and GZ.  I arrived at Uwe's on the Wednesday afternoon full of excitement to see old friends again.  I was eagerly looking forward to this part of the journey for months.  Oskar and Jose are phenomenal   planners and I knew about every step we would take.  

The first hiccup in the plan came when we had to meet the driver to go to the first factory. He was only about 2 hours late.  You can't do Anything but laugh.  We ended up postponing the first factory to till Friday which was good because it gave us more time at each factory than we expected to have.  

Friday was a blast because I'd never been to this factory before.  It's a big one! Again, I can't tell the name, but we saw puzzles and games from many companies here.  I was impressed, and sort of surprised to see that competing companies produce their products in the same factory.  That hadn't occurred to me before.  Of course photos are out of the question because of confidentiality issues.  

We finished our visit around 1 and headed for the SZ train station.  I'd never been to this one before so I was a bit confused.  The driver couldn't find the entrance either, and Jose questioned his ability to read.  BINGO! I don't think he could.  I gave turns and directions in Cantonese once we saw the signs, but even then we walked a bit to find the entrance.  First stop was buying tickets. As it turned out we were in the wrong line so we had to queue up and start over again.  We managed to get our tickets, but for the later train.  Nothing for it but to eat at the train station.  

We arrived in GZ and Ming was waiting as always.  He's my angel! From there we jumped a cab to the witeden offices, had dinner and watched Oskar sign a few cubes.  Separate hotels for us at the end of the night made for an early wakeup.  

Fast forward to the Saturday night dinner because I've written all I can about the day.  Dinner had around 35 people there.  As usual, we were ourselves.  Boys and toys and beer.  As I said, Oskar was the star of the show.  There were people from all over china that came in to see him.  I think he enjoyed it, but Jose I worried about.  She was the official photographer, and not being a puzzler, I could empathize. My first few trips with the language barrier were hard on me so I can only imagine what it felt like for her.

Monday saw us in the way to Tokyo. And over the next two days I was hunting puzzles in Disney.  Sadly I found none.  Not even a rubics cube!  Doesn't matter, we had a blast riding rides and just talking.  

As I said, on Thursday we went to tribox and hanayama. After we went to the Tokyo sky tree and when we came down I looked again for puzzles.  I knew hanayama had a crystal puzzle of the sky tree and Oskar managed to get one for us from hanayama as awe couldn't find any in the shops.  It's good to have friends with connections. 

Saturday was the exchange day and this year bug took photos of all exchanges for me.  Now I can put a face and hopefully a name to each of the puzzles.  It was a short one this year because of lack of participants. Which I really don't quite understand...

In the evening we had the TP puzzle meetup after the banquet.  I thought I got everyone but somehow I missed Carl. My sincere apologies. The meet up lasted past my 1 am bedtime.  But until then, I had loads of fun! 

Sunday was the puzzle party, and I really was looking forward to it.  This year though, I got very little for myself.  I'm pleased with my purchases though and made a few trades as well.  The biggest hit from me were the mini dball puzzles I picked up. I managed to get rid of all of them which meant less weight to bring back home.  Again I stayed in the lobby puzzling for a while before heading off to bed.

On Monday Dave, Bob, George and I headed off to torito.  A must for any puzzle trip to Japan.  While there, I spent a good chunk of change, but again most of it was for my friends.  I picked up the rubics brand bandaged cube, a new card case and key holder along with a wooden puzzle or two and a new puzzle ring. The others bought a few things as well.  Even George picked up a puzzle! We went for quick bite to eat before heading back to the hotel to repack our bags, change clothes and head home.  We all said good bye to Nick and jumped a bus for the airport.  

At the airport hugs and kisses were given out and we made a promise of "same time next year, different city". No tears were shed because this type of friendship extends all year long through email and forum. The reunion next summer will be all the more sweet for the absence of friends in between.  

I took a few puzzles for the flight, but managed none of them. I was dead! The guys really wore me out this year (again, not getting older!) When the stew came around with a toy for bug to play with I made her get mom the JAL 15 puzzle! Mind, the girl gave bug a notebook as well.  Nice lady. 

Once again I feel blessed to have such great people in my life.  My husband who lets me go off for these weekends without worry, my bug who has turned out to be quite the little lady, and finally all the puzzlers who have allowed me to enter their lives one weekend a year.  I love you all and can't wait till the next one!