Excellent Bidding

David Grainger (East) member of the Canadian Youth Team was playing with John Stewart (West) East Coast expert.

	North
	♠ 1074
	♥—
	◊Q9765
	♣ QJ1082
West		East
♠ KQ65		♠ A9832
♥ A2		♥ KQJ109
◊ AK		◊ 2
♣ 7643		♣ A5
	South
	♠ J
	♥876543
	◊J10843
	♣ K

Dealer East. All Vul.

West	North	East	South
1NT	pass	2H*	pass
3S	pass	4NT?	pass
5D**	pass	5H?	pass
6D***	pass	7NT	all pass

John's 1NT was 15-17. David's 2H was transfer to spade. 3S was super accept with four trumps and top of the no trump range. 4NT was Roman key card ask and 5D shows 3 key cards. 5H was queen of trump ask and 6D show queen of spade and king of diamond. David made the key bid of 7NT and won the board as the other table played in 7S.

Beijing Attractions

Forbidden City or Palace Museum

Ticket is 60 (RMB) each and there are discount for students and seniors (60 Year). It is a confusing place for foreign visitors as most of the signboards are in Chinese. The best way to see the Museum is to rent an audio guide for 40 (RMB) with refundable deposit of 100 (RMB). Be sure to wear comfortable walking shoes and best to give yourself about 6 hours for the tour.


Temple of Heaven

This is also a very large park where the locals come for daily recreation and relaxation. Tickets are 35 (RMB), just like other attractions in Beijing there are discount for students and seniors (60 years).

Ni Hao (Hello in Chinese)

"Who lives sees much. Who travels sees more" Arab proverb.

Beijing or Peking (Northern Capital) is the second largest city in China (Middle kingdom). Has over seventeen millions people. Local currency is the Chinese Renminbi (RMB). The Canadian dollar is worth 6.2 (RMB)

After a wonderful two weeks with family in Singapore. Jeff and I got on a Singapore Airline flight to Beijing this morning. It was a very enjoyable five hour flight.

The new airport is very large and user friendly. All the signs are in both Chinese and English. We cleared immigration, pick up our luggage and passed custom in no time. It was day and night compare to what we had to do to get our visa!

We decided to have some fun and took the fast train into the city instead of the 300 (RMB) town car or the 120 (RMB) taxi ride. Train tickets are 25 (RMB) each and the taxi ride from the train station to our hotel was only 27 (RMB). It is a very cool (14c) day when we touched down and is much colder (8c) in the evening.

Will do some sightseeing this week and looking forward to joining up with The Team.

First World Mind Sports Games

Open Team :: NPC David T. Willis
Vincent Demuy, Kamel Fergani, Marc-Andre Fourcaudot,
Dan Jacob, Robert Lebi, Nicolas L’Ecuyer.

Women’s Team :: NPC John Rayner
Susan Culham, Karen Cumpstone, Kismet Fung,
Pascale Gaudreault, Martine Lacroix, Pamela Nisbet

Senior Team :: NPC Sandra Fraser
John Bowman, William Bowman, Stephen Brown,
Jurek Czyzowicz, Douglas Fraser, Edward Zaluski

Junior Team :: NPC Michael Yuen
Erin Anderson, David Grainger, Yang Li, Matthew Mason, David Sabourin, Kai Zhou

2008 Ortiz Patino Team (under 26) :: NPC Nader Hanna
Team: Anton Blagov, James Dulmage, Charles Halasi, Daniel Lavee, Samantha Nystrom, Scott Rosom

2008 Jose Damiani Team (under 21) :: NPC Bryan Maksymetz
Team: Aled Iaboni, Ethan Macaulay, John Maguire, Malcolm McColl,
Tristan Wood, Gordon Zind