Part 1 — The Scenery || Part 2 — The Food || Part 3 — Weiqi

Introduction

When it comes to traveling, my number one priority is always to find the most authentic food to that area. The more special it is to the area (aka I can’t get it anywhere else in the world) the better. And for those who aren’t following me on Twitter already, you’ll notice that my Twitter consists primarily of go and food. So as you might expect, I’m quite enthusiastic about food and thus this post is a tad lengthier than normal.

With that said, I hope you prepare yourself as you set off with me to relive my food adventures through Hong Kong, and be sure to read to the end because I recount my experience with a buffet that costs $100USD per person. No that is not a typo. See you at the the bottom!

Part 2 - The Food

For starters, I’ll have to say that while we had some recommendations on places to go, my family and I were mostly on our own when it came to figuring out what we wanted to eat.

When we had finally escaped surviving on airplane food for the last 13+ hours, you can imagine our desire to find some actual food. Nothing microwaved or mushy. Just legit Hong Kong food. And even though it took us a bit before we got settled in at our hotel, we were fortune enough that there were some places open nearby. To top it off, we were incredibly lucky to pick the one place where they had excellent wonton egg noodle soup. Definitely the best I had the entire trip!

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Part 1 — The Scenery || Part 2 — The Food || Part 3 — Weiqi

Introduction

After much waiting and anticipation, I’m happy to finally release my Hong Kong post series! I originally had plans to do a day by day retelling of my adventures in Hong Kong, but I realized that it would take way too long to write and not to mention I would probably bore you to tears.

In addition, since the trip wasn’t entirely centered on go, I wanted to capture as much of my trip as possible without taking too much time away from the main subject matter of this blog: go. After all, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’ve worked hard to ensure that all my posts have always been related to go. So I hope you’ll forgive me for detracting from go these next couple of days to tell you about my trip. With that said, I hope you enjoy these posts!

Part 1 - The Scenery

The trip was a 13+ hour flight, so you can imagine our delight when we were finally off the plane and stepping foot into Hong Kong for the first time. After going through customs, getting our luggage, and a brief encounter of a taxi driver trying to hustle and get our family to take his taxi back to the city as opposed to the bus, we soon found ourselves on a bus driving down into the city.

After about thirty minutes, we were driving through the city and I was greeted by the following view of Hong Kong for the first time:

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Overview

Man. I really fell off the wagon this week in terms of my training regimen. I was super disciplined about my reading training a couple of weeks ago, but I really got bum rushed with other priorities in life and just couldn’t do the regimen properly. The only thing that is redeeming about this week is that I was able to practice problems here and there, but just not in one session the way I might have preferred.

In addition, the silver lining of it all is that I’ve been much more involved with my game reviews and trying to really improve upon them. In case you missed it, this week there were two game reviews that were released (MGM 50 and Jubango Game 3). And oy vey did they take a long time to do! Regardless, I would like to think that it will be valuable to my own growth and journey.

Finally, I’ve started digging into the lectures on Yunguseng Dojang and really have loved what I have been able to watch so far. I can only imagine what it will be like when I’m actually participating in the reviews and having my own games reviewed. So excited for the season to start!

Training Regimen

• Currently on pause at the moment. Will hopefully have an update next week.

Games

• KGS - 5 games
• IGS - 4 games
• DGS - 5 ongoing games
• OGS - 3 ongoing games

Books

• N/A

Friday Go Forward: Week 56

Overview

This week marked the start of April and thus the official countdown to US Go Congress! In addition, I am uber psyched to announce that I officially joined the Yunguseng Dojang and will definitely be part of Season 9 2014! Even though it hasn’t started yet, since it’s a break month, I was able to get started on checking out some of the recorded material in there. And while I would love to rant on and on about it right now, I will keep it short and just say that there is a lot of great stuff waiting for me to discover.

I think I have come up with a new training regimen for my training my tsumego and reading, but I haven’t finalized it yet so I’ll wait till next week to update the section with what I’m doing. And in terms of playing go, it has been a bit quieter this week, but I’m definitely hoping to get online and play a game soon! Hope you all are doing well and I’ll see you next week!

Training Regimen

• Reading Ability - Work on the tasks below until whichever comes first.*

  *   Work on go problems for 30 minutes.
  *   Work on 300 go problems.
  

  *This is a way to split the difference between task based versus time based training. If you work faster than normal, and can get through 300 (or whichever number you decide on) problems. Kudos to you. But in the event you’re having trouble and need more time to work on the problems, just keep at it until 30 minutes is up (or whatever time you think it best for you).

Games

• KGS - 2 games
• DGS - 5 ongoing games
• OGS - 4 ongoing games

Books

• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.

I know that it’s been over a week since I came back from Hong Kong, so first off, I apologize that I haven’t been able to post about Hong Kong yet.

When I got back, I thought that I would be able to just grab my photos and quickly organize them in an hour or so. And then after I did that, I would be able to start working on my posts. After all, it’s only about a week’s worth of pictures right?

Yeah… Let’s just say I completely forgot and therefore underestimated the amount of effort it takes to properly organize your photos (and that doesn’t even count editing, cropping, resizing, etc.). There were the duplicates, the variations on a shot that I had to choose through, and then renaming them properly so I can easily track what is what…

So while I thought I would be able to knock it out quickly so I could get started on drafting my Hong Kong trip posts, it’ll probably be at least another week before I’m able to get them up and online. Because in the end, I’m not trying to just throw up posts for the sake of posting. I’m really trying to capture the experience as best I can in order to give you the most enjoyable reading experience possible, so I hope you can bear with me a bit longer.

On a separate but related note, I am also starting to feel the twinge of anxiety as I’m starting to fall slightly my weekly posts. As I’ve been trying to improve the quality of the game reviews, they’ve also started to take a considerable amount of time. But don’t worry, I’m working hard to make sure that I don’t fall behind. Back to work I go!

APRIL FOOLS!!!!! xD

To be honest, I had no intentions of pranking anyone or anything; but then I started drafting a post for today and then the idea just came to me. So… bursts of laughing you’ll have to forgive me for trolling you a little bit. (By the way, got to love that GIF. Captures how I’m feeling perfectly. Cracks me up.)

Anyways… on a more serious note, today marks the beginning of April and thus a chance to start fresh as the official countdown to Go Congress begins. Yup… I’ve registered. I haven’t paid yet since I want to make sure that nothing on the schedule alters my plans, but it’s practically set in stone.

Since this is my first Go Congress, I’m really hoping to go there with a bang. In order to really reinvigorate my training in preparation for Go Congress, I’ve started:

1. Re-watching Hikaru No Go - It’s always good to start back with one of the most inspiring stories of all go stories.
2. Joined Yunguseng Dojang - This is essentially an online insei program (from what I understand). My friend Diego has told me good things about it, so I’ve decided to give it a shot!
3. Becoming super-disciplined about my tsumego training - In my last few games I’ve played on KGS, I’ve been reminded just how important reading is and how it can completely change the tide of the game when you’re able to read just one step further than your opponent.
4. Working a lot harder on the blog - I know this might seem totally unrelated to my growth. And to some, it’ll hinder my progress as a player. However, the blog is something that I’ve come to really enjoy and has helped me be accountable for my own journey as a go player. Definitely do not regret any of the time I’ve spent on it!

With that said, I also wanted to give a quick shoutout to Maaike and her April Challenge! Her April Challenge is to “get our of your comfort zone.” So, for this month, my challenge will be to play a territorial style and avoid a moyo style! I think that should be a good one right? (If you have a better one for me, please let me know!)

Hope you all are doing well and don’t get pranked too much today!

PS. I haven’t forgotten about my Hong Kong posts. They are just taking a lot longer than anticipated.

PPS. One last thing, I’ll be releasing another combo review with frozensoul on the third jubango game next Wednesday (4/9), so be sure to be on a lookout for it!

Friday Go Forward: Week 55

Overview

Ever since getting back from Hong Kong, this week has been consumed with getting back on track with life and not to mention getting readjusted from a 12 hour jet lag. (Yes it was quite painful to switch back and forth.) However, in the process of picking things back up, I have had the opportunity to start fine tuning a number of my daily processes in order to maximize my output with minimal input. For example, I’ve actually managed to start becoming more efficient and accustomed to doing a set of go problems every day now. In fact, if I go most of the day without doing any problems, I usually find myself itching to grab my phone and practice some before bed.

In addition, I’ve had a bit of a self-revelation in regards to my destructive habit of overthinking things. Since that post, I have really been trying to streamline my mental processes so that I am not hindered by any self-doubt or overly cumbersome obstacles that I create for myself. And even though it’s only been a couple of days since that post, I feel that it has had a rather large impact on my life.

Anyhow, I also wanted to take the opportunity to mention an event going on in DC on April 12th, 2014 - 10:30am to 6:00pm - 54th Annual Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival. I had the pleasure of volunteering to teach go there last year, but failed to ever get around to writing about it. Long story short though, I had a great time and it was a fantastic experience. So if you’re in the DC area and have some time to come out for it, I’d highly recommend it and you will probably find me teaching go at the go kiosk. Hope to see you there!

Training Regimen

• Reading Ability - Work on the tasks below until whichever comes first.*

  • Work on go problems for 30 minutes.
  • Work on 300 go problems.
    *This is a way to split the difference between task based versus time based training. If you work faster than normal, and can get through 300 (or whichever number you decide on) problems. Kudos to you. But in the event you’re having trouble and need more time to work on the problems, just keep at it until 30 minutes is up (or whatever time you think it best for you).

Games

• KGS - 1 game
• DGS - 3 ongoing games
• OGS - 5 ongoing games | 1 completed games

Books

• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.
• Worked on 1001 Life and Death Problems from Kiseido.

Hey everyone. I just got back from Hong Kong yesterday. So while I’d love to write all about my Hong Kong trip, I’ll need to finish catching up before doing so. But overall, the trip went well and I got to spend a bit of time really fine tuning my approach to go along with having the pleasure of visiting the Hong Kong Go Association. More on that later though. Hope you all are doing well!

Friday Go Forward: Week 54

Overview

This week marks the start of my race towards the dan wall that all kyu players are striving to overcome. I’ve tried playing more recently, and I’ve completely ramped up my training regimen. In the past, I’ve tried alternating between time-based training versus task-based training and kept finding something lacking about each. As a result, I’ve decided to do a fusion this time around to really get the ball rolling. I’m really hoping that it will gain some traction this time.

Secondly, I wanted to give a shoutout to a fellow go player Lizardfish (aka Eulerstotle for those who knew him before) who started a new go site called Lizardfish’s GO Notes. He approaches the notion of explaining go topics through PDF’s as opposed to SGF’s (which can be quite confusing if designed poorly). Be sure to check it out! Definitely looking forward to seeing more of his work.

Finally, in case you missed it, I am going to be heading out to Hong Kong this week and will be pretty MIA for the next week. However, I am happy to announce that none of the weekly articles (i.e., Monday Go Meditation) will be taking a hiatus. I’m not sure what my internet connection will be like, but I’ll be sure to try and update as best as I can. So if I don’t get a chance to get online next week, I’ll see you all after I get back!

Training Regimen

• Reading Ability - Work on the tasks below until whichever comes first.*

  • Work on go problems for 30 minutes.
  • Work on 200 go problems.
    *This is a way to split the difference between task based versus time based training. If you work faster than normal, and can get through 200 (or whichever number you decide on) problems. Kudos to you. But in the event you’re having trouble and need more time to work on the problems, just keep at it until 30 minutes is up (or whatever time you think it best for you).

Games

• KGS - 2 games
• DGS - 3 ongoing games
• OGS - 6 ongoing games | 1 completed games

Books

• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.

It’s that time of year again! The 41st Maryland Open Go Tournament is upon us once again! So if you live in the DC Metro Area or simply don’t mind making the trip down to Baltimore, Maryland, be sure to check out the flier below for more information.

41st Maryland Go Open Official Site

And as always, let me know if you plan on going so we can meet up! I should be going unless something serious comes up. Hope to see you some of you at the tournament!