Putting my Chinese classes to use...

Last night, Hao (one of my Chinese flatmates) had a Chinese friend over for dinner. Determined to try out my Chinese skills, I asked him in Chinese what his name was. He said, "Wow!!" and then told me (in English) that his name was Qinnian. So I asked him in Chinese, "You're from China, right?" He said, "Cool!!" and then told me (in English) that he was from Beijing.

<sigh>

At least he understood me.

Where's Waldo?

Here are some pictures of my room. Can you find the refrigerator?

Jabes' Pond: A New Thanksgiving Tradition

Last week, my aunts Barbara and Kathleen flew me home for Thanksgiving, surprising the rest of the family. It was wonderful to be there. As if that wasn't enough, Barbara also gave me a new digital camera. So now I get to put my own pictures of London on the blog, instead of pictures stolen from other websites. This photo of Emma and me was taken by Kevin. Don't expect such high quality from my pictures. Fortunately, Kevin was able to give me a few pointers, so hopefully I'll be able to figure out some of the many features and options on the camera.

We often do some hiking at Thanksgiving and this year was no different. As usual, we hiked Inspiration point (see Kara's photos in previous blog entry). But this year, on a second hike, we decided to bypass the turn-off to Inspiration, and instead hike out to Jabes' Pond. Though less steep, it was a bit longer (2 miles instead of 1; we're not talking about anything serious here). I wasn't convinced that this "pond" would be worth the walk though. I was picturing some brown mudhole in the middle of the woods. What we got was a stunning lake shimmering in the sunlight. We immediately decreed this hike to be a new tradition. Of course there was an abundance of delicious food and excellent music back at the Inn. Robin even brought the brass: a french horn, two trumpets and a trombone. After a few shaky Christmas carols, Chrissy (on the trumpet) regaled us with the theme song from the Flintstones. While working on a puzzle, I was subjected to a practice music session: three hours of Mr. Bojangles on repeat. Mostly it was the usual rousing folk repertoire though, with an array of banjos, guitars, mandolins, bongos, washtub bass, autoharp, fiddle (thanks to Kirsten) and, of course, chicken shakes.



To my delight, I discovered that half the family is learning Chinese! Okay, so it's only Robin, Petie, Marty and Caryn & Nate, but Robin brought enough books to make it seem like half the family. He even brought brushes, so we got to practice writing characters.

Hopefully this dose of family time will be enough to tide me over until the next time I get to go home, or at least until I get some visitors (hint, hint).

Kobayashi Opening Answer

Well, I found one answer to my question on the Kobayashi opening (see post from September 30, 2006). Black wins by resignation, but it's most certainly not straightforward. I think the answer can basically be interpreted as "fight."

Here's how it starts:



Here's a bit more:



It's still not clear at this point (to me anyway) that Black has won the game. Indeed, the game continues until White resigns after move 259. The game was just played yesterday between Kono Rin (black) and Yamashita Keigo (white) as part of the 32nd Japanese Tengen title match.