http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/kstroup/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from kstroup en-us Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:01:37 +0000 Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:01:37 +0000 Hi there folks. As promised an update to keep you posted on recent goingson with the tournament. The tournament began with a day of adjudicator training including a practice round and a test to make sure that we are competent to judge as well as to enable the tabulation staff to place the most qualified judges in the highestseeded rounds. This picture shows Girouard struggling through the tes http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-279160.html Hi there folks. Sorry the reports have been sparse the last couple of days. The tournament has begun so we haven't been doing as many things that make it onto the front of post cards but we're still having fun. The internet is running really slow which is causing me problems in uploading pictures but I'm going to leave them uploading when I head out today so hopefully I will be able to post pi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-278794.html Off the top a programming note Truman email is not working very well on the servers here. That means if you want to talk to Mark you can email him at ramcard14yahoo.comToday was definitely a day of marked contrasts because we went exploring the area around the compound including both the alleyways of rural Daxing around the compound and the very urban area of downtown Daxing. The one constan http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-278129.html From the jaws of defeathellip Today almost was a disaster. We had a lot of trouble getting in touch with someone who might help us navigate the city and had basically given up all hope of another great day in Beijing when Vincent in the clutch play of the day tracked down Cecilyrsquos cell number for us. We promised to immortalize the clutch play here When I say that the people are nicer h http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-278098.html Suffice it to say that today went much better than yesterday on any number of levels and we learned one very important thing it would be almost impossible to make the most out of a trip to Beijing without having some local friends with you. The generosity and friendliness of the people here is astounding and the people we have met have universally contributed to making this an amazing tripOur d http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-277780.html Hi there folks. Just a quick update our internet has been down for two days here. They just got an engineer in that has it up to some degree but it is slow. I have text for the last two days saved in word and will get on formatting it with pictures so look for an update tonight. Also a headsup for all the worriers out there if we drop off the face for a couple of days you can probably as http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-277760.html Hi there folks. Well it's almost 2AM in Beijing and my body just decided to realize it's in China so I'm wide awake and thought I would fill you in on our trevails in the process of getting here. Thankfully we stayed in KC the night before the trip so we didn't have to tack on an additional few hours to an already long trip. We had some issues with the weight limits for bags in going through http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-277003.html Hi there folks. After some research as to what blogging service would be accessible from China I settled on this as a venue for posting updates and pictures of my trip to Beijing. The blogging won't begin in earnest until the 16th of May once I hit the ground running but a few points of information you might find interesting...We'll be serving as guest adjudicators for the FLTRP Cup which is th http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-269352.html