Home, James

Last day in London. We'll be on a plane before too long, for all the fun of another long-haul flight back home.

We'll sort out more photos once we get back -- Vince has been doing a better job than us so far.

Photos!

OK, here's the first batch of photos, lovingly hand-selected by Richard:


Mitchell on Day Two


A member of the Malaysian team competing in Nanquan on Day Two


Team Photo, end of Day Two


Martin from the Netherlands (more on him later) competing in Sanshou on Day Three


Last day - time to go...

On Our Own

So, Richard and I are on our own in the middle of London, having seen the team off yesterday:



Although we're out and about most days seeing the sights and spending way too much money on food and drink, we'll try to put some time aside to show off some photos and recount a few anecdotes that really need accompanying pictures to fully tell the tale...

Seeing the Sights

With the competition over (no, still no more results) today was spent on an organized sight-seeing tour. We drove around in a double-decker bus and checked out such attractions as Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.



The day alternated between rain and shine, but it mostly stayed fine enough to have a good time.



In other news, between them Richard and Vince have taken well over 1000 photos. It'll take a while to sort them out and decide which ones to put up here. It'll take a while, especically since Richard hasn't been around lately. We're not sure why, but this was the last image found on his camera...

Medal Tally

More medals awarded at the start of today's events. (Today was Sanshou, but as you'll recall, medals weren't handed out at the end of yesterday.)

They still haven't given them all out, but of the medals that were awarded today, New Zealand received:

2 more bronze (both to Bronson for his Qun Yang Gun and Changchuan)
2 more silver (Vince and Tom won a joint silver for Qun Yang Gun)
1 exhibition gold (Lucy for Changchuan - exhibition means that there weren't enough entrants in her category to make up a full competition, so the rules for awarding medals work differently)
1 gold (Siu Yuat for Gunshu)

This brings New Zealand's total to:

Gold: 2
Gold (exhibition): 1
Silver: 3
Bronze: 5

Like I say, we still don't have all the results (it could be said that our hosts, while accommodating, friendly and gracious, are a little organizationally challenged). Word is that we're due at least two or three more medals (we think Tom scored one for Jianshu, and Siu Yuat and Mitchell seemed a shoe-in for their two-man form) but we may not know for sure until the team is on it's way home...

Day Three: Dunno.

Heading off to Day Three in a minute. Still don't have the many MANY (many) photos Richard's taken sorted out, so for now, here's a shot of Siu Yuat warming up his gold-winning spear technique:



(Did I mention you can click on all of the pictures for a bigger version? Because you can.)

The Big Event: Day Two (Traditional forms)

More intense competition today, and some really good-looking forms on display. Once again, the prizes hadn't been fully worked out by the end of the day, so no medals have been awarded yet. Indications are that we'll be adding a few more to our tally, though...

Another long day -- one that marks the end of the competition for us, as tomorrow is the Sanshou (full-contact sparring) competition, which none of us are involved in. There's still medal presentations and the closing ceremony to be there for, but plans are afoot to make out on our own once they're out of the way.

Medal Tally

Gold: 1 (Siu Yuat for Wu Hu Qiang)
Silver: 1 (Bronson for Tan Tui)
Bronze: 3 (Lucy, Tim and Tom for Tan Tui)

There's a bit of confusion over Tom's medal - he and Tim were both awarded bronze for the same medal in the same category - ???

Medals have not yet been announced for Qun Yang Gun and the two-man Dan Dao Chuan Qiang (sword/spear) form.

The Big Event: Day One (Chin Woo forms)

OK, it's been a long LONG day, and I don't have the photos off Richard's camera yet, so I'll just post a quick summary of the day and put up something more substantial later.


The team getting ready to leave for the venue

First of all the New Zealand team has medals! I'm not 100% clear on who has what, and winners weren't announced for a couple of the events, as they hadn't been decided by the end of the day. I can tell you that Bronson won silver for his grade's Tan Tui, and Siu Yuat took the gold for Wu Hu Qiang (spear)! That's not all we won, but it's all I'm certain of at the moment.

Of the two events that haven't been announced yet, one was the two man sword/staff form, where Mitchell and Siu Yuat look to be solid contenders for first place.

Medals aside, the highlight of the competition would have to be Vince's entry in the Ba Gua Dao (broad sword). He had just got started in his form, when his broad sword broke in two -- the blade flew off the handle! Such power -- he's to strong even for his own weapon. At any rate, he was able to try again using Tim's sword and did well for himself.

After the day's competition, there was the Opening Ceremony, which included demonstrations from many of the teams. There was a great drunken jian (thin sword) form from one of the Polish competitors, an interpretive wushu version of Romeo and Juliet from one of the Russian teams, and a few more impressive routines besides.

The best part was when the MC announced "and now, a demonstration from the New Zealand team," which was news to the New Zealand team, who didn't think they were giving a demonstartion. Not a problem, though -- coach Guo sent down Mitchell to show off his Di Tang (tumble boxing) form, which got a great response from the crowd.

After the ceremony was over, it was on a bus to the usual restaurant for dinner, then finally back to the hotel not long before 10PM (we had left the hotel at 8AM -- long day).

Tomorrow it's the traditional forms, which should be interesting to watch, as there's a lot more variety on what people can do. It should also be a shorter day, with no extra ceremonies on the end...

Thursday: Warming Up

Here's a wrap up of yesterday's activities:

1:24
I woke up at about the time I normally do at home, which is promising -- looks like my body has adapted to the new time zone OK. Or maybe it's just that I'm still so tired that it doesn't matter what time it is, I'm still going to feel the same. While not feeling as wretched as I have for the last couple of days, I'm still a bit spacey from lack of sleep -- I expect I'll invest in a nap this afternoon before we go to the big opening dinner this evening.

This morning Richard and I went and filmed the team warming up in the hotel car park (unfortunately the actual venue isn't available today). Then it was time for lunch, which we again ducked out of (with most of the rest of the team).


Stretching in the car park

4:35 PM
The rest of the day has been fairly uneventful so far. The others went for lunch at Subway while I was upstairs writing the last bit. I went out for a wander on my own for lunch and took a couple of photos of the local church, then walked around the local shops. I had McDonald's for lunch, including a Rolo milkshake (yummy). They don't give you any prices for burgers over here -- everything assumes you want a combo. It would be an exaggeration to say that the guy behind teh counter looked at me like I was a madman when I said I didn't want any drinks or chips, but he was surprised.

Apart from that, we've just been sitting in the room relaxing and watching snooker on TV (Ronnie O'Sullivan cleaned up). The opening banquet thing is on tonight -- it's supposedly somewhat formal, but all I have is a nice shirt to go with my black cargo pants and leather jacket.

10:25 PM
The opening banquet was at the Oriental City restaurant -- not bad, but a long bus ride again. We got to chat with the Swiss team on the way back -- they seemed like fun guys, although it was a bit disconcerting to hear that one of them had been training since he was 4, and now trains with a kung fu brother of Mr. Guo's...

Tom spent most of the time frantically getting everyone's forms sortd out. Due to a large number of late entries, they had to cut everyone back to six forms (three Chin Woo forms and three traditional ones), so everyone needed to work out which ones they were going to do, and make sure they didn't clash with any of the other ones they wanted to do. It seemed to get sorted out in the end. Bed now -- long day tomorrow.

Getting There is Half the Fun

Here's a dump of the stuff I wrote down a couple of days ago while I was still having trouble with the Internet. Subsequent posts will be shorter. Probably.

We set off on the 15th. Our flight was delayed by about 30 minutes, but what's half an hour when out of a ten hour flight? Everything went smoothly (Cathay gives you 20-odd movie channels, which on this flight included Lucky Number Slevin (worst title ever), Over the Hedge, The Terminator (!!!) and a variety of other sitcoms, drama shows and episodes of Top Gear. The food was pretty standard airline food, the seats were pretty standard airline seats (which meant sleeping wasn't too easy, so I didn't really try much). By the time we got to Hong Kong, everyone was starting to get pretty tired. Siu Yuat crashed out on the floor by the departure gate to everyone else's amusement. If we'd been thinking clearly, we'd have followed his example.

Having only seen bits of Hong Kong airport, and only from the inside, the only impression I got was that it's very very big. We took a little subway-like train from the Arrival area to the transfers/Departure area, then explored a bit until we found a nice food court full of American staples like Burger King -- I had Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits. It was good (if you allow for the fact that I was very tired and hungry, and therefore would have been grateful for anthing that didn't taste like asphalt). The stopover was four hours, which was a decent amount of time -- we could walk around a bit, buy some food, then rest up for the final leg.


Getting some stretchng in while waiting in Hong Kong

Hong Kong to London was a 13 hour flight, and it was a killer. I tried getting some sleep, but that didn't work out -- too cramped, noisy and uncomfortable. I managed to doze on and off for a few hours, but eventually just gave up and watched movies (Finding Nemo was the only one that kept my attention) and played PSP games to pass the time. And that was a *lot* of time to pass. Being stuck in the same chair for half a day is not my idea of fun (stuck because I was in the middle of three -- Richard was at the window, and on the aisle was the man with the biggest bladder in the world -- twelve hours and he didn't go to the toilet once, which meant I had to ask him to move any time I wanted to get up).

We stumbled into Heathrow at 6 in the morning, expecting queues stretching for miles, but it was fine -- we got our passports stamped and then just wandered through the baggage claim and out of the airport ompletely unimpeded. I guess all the big security measures are in place for people leaving London, not entering it. Two nice young ladies were waiting for us in the arrivals section, and took us out to where a bus had been organised to get us to the hotel.

By this stage I was one "braaaiiins" away from walking dead, and all that had been sustaining me for the previous few hours was the thought of getting to the hotel, showering and collapsing into a coma on a comfy hotel bed. But it was not to be. We arrived at the St. Giles at around 8AM, to be told that check in time is at 2PM, and a bus would be coming for us at 1:30 to take us out to lunch for who knows how long. We were at least allowed to go into the buffet for a big English breakfast, but then it was another five hours of sitting around waiting and wishing I was asleep. We went and explored a bit, which at least allowed me to get some caffeine into my system (courtesy of an ASDA supermarket down the road), but I still ended up flopped on a hair in the lobby for several hours. By 1:40 the bus hadn't shown, so we decided to see if we could check in anyway. We could, which meant I could at least dump my lugage, change my stinky socks and t-shirt, slap on some deodorant and splash some water in my face before heading back down to wait for the bus.

The Russian team arrived while we were waiting, and the bus (a big blue double decker) soon after. It took us and the Russians on a 40-minute ride to the chinese restaurant that would be providing our meals for the next couple of days. Why they didn't pick somewhere closer to the hotel is still a mystery -- there are two hotels where competitors are staying; I guess it must be closer to the other one. Lunch was nice, but didn't change the fact that we spent more time in transit than we did eating. Once we got back, I finally had the chance to wash myself for the first time since Tuesday morning -- I actually had a bath, which was very pleasant even though the tub wasn't really big enough for a decent soak.

A bit about the hotel. It's not as swanky as its website lead me to believe, but it's no worse than any other hotel I've stayed in (apart from the absence of a mini fridge -- dunno what that's about). Our room has a double bed -- and another single one as well. I took the single on the first night, on the understanding that we'd swap each night (on the understanding that the maids would be changing the sheets each day...) Apart from that there's the usual TV, phone, power outlets, shower/tub, mini soaps, safe, kettle and so on. We are on the 9th floor (room 920) -- the rest of the team is scattered all over the place. Vince and Tom are two doors down from us in 924, while the others are on the 4th and 6th floors.


The St. Giles Hotel Heathrow

By the time I was out of the bath and dressed, Richard was returning from exploring the hotel gym. Dinner was not far off, and since we didn't feel like more bus rides (and since lunch hadn't been that long ago anyway), we decided to dodge out, using the excuse of going to catch up with our ols flatmate Eleanor. This would prove to be our first experience of London's public transport system, and it was a fairly painless experience all round. There is train station right near the hotel, from which we bought a return ticket into London for £5.30, then wandered onto the train that appeared just after we bought our tickets, wondering if were meant to give them to someone or swipe them through something or similar. As it turned out, we were fine -- ticket inspectors come around to check them (although there wasn't one on the trip in). The train ride was a comfortable 30 minutes into Waterloo Station, from where we had ben instructed by Eleanor to "take the Jubilee line north to Baker Street station". More tickets purchased (these ones you did have to stick through a machine, but it was the machine that let you through into the tubes, so it's not like we could miss doing it) and we were on our way. Everything was clearly signposted and we made our way out to Baker Street without difficulty, to be met by a sqeualing Eleanor.

She took us for a quick walk around London, with the destination of a favourite pub in mind. Unfortunately, this one was packed full, so we went to another, which brewed all it's own drinks (including soft drinks - my cola was very nice). After a few hours of boozing and catching up, she escorted us to the Marylebone Station, and we did the trip in reverse, which was even easier once we knew more or less what we were doing.

It was a bit after 10:30 when we got back to the hotel. I showered, put on pyjamas and settled into bed for my first real sleep in more than two days.

Experiencing Technical Difficulties

I can't get onto the wireless network here at the hotel, which makes posting difficult and posting pictures impossible at the moment. I'll see if I can sort something out by the time the competition starts for real tomorrow...

18/8/06 7:20AM - UPDATE: Looks like we're in business. Of course, now that I've got it sorted out, I'm about to head out all day for the actual competition... Photos and proper posts this evening, promise.

Need sleep...

Long haul flights suck. More later.

'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go

The Big Day. Everything's packed (more or less) -- it looks like we're allowed carry-on luggage, except for when we aren't. Translation: Make sure there's room in my suitcase to stuff my backpack if it turns out I'm not allowed it. Check.

And we're off. Depending on how things turn out, my next post may be from swanky Hong Kong International Airport, or it may be from our hotel room in London, complaining about the heat and the hours of queueing and the jetlag. Won't that be grand?

Nice Timing

Well that's just peachy.

It sounds like the restrictions on hand luggage only apply if you're flying out of Heathrow, not flying into it like us, but the queues are going to be murder no matter what...

The Wonders of Modern Technology

Here's a bit of fun: if you have Google Earth installed, you can download these two Placemark files and open them to see exactly where we'll be in London...

The St. Giles Hotel
The Brentford Fountain Leisure Centre

Getting Started

Right, well it's a week before we leave, but it would probably be a clever thing to put our itinerary up online for the benefit of anyone who wants to check up on us:

Depart Auckland 15 August, 13:00
Arrive Hong Kong 15 August, 20:40

Depart Hong Kong 16 August, 00:35
Arrive London 16 August, 06:20

(I'm pretty sure all of those times are local time, so if you think those are long flights, they're actually longer...)

In London, we are staying at the St. Giles Heathrow Hotel.

We register for the event on the 17th. The event itself runs from the 18th to the 20th, and is hosted at the Brentford Fountain Leisure Centre. For more on the event, see the offical website.

Afterwards, we split up -- Richard and I stay until London until the 29th (we arrive in Auckland on the 31st, stopping in Hong Kong on the way back), while the rest of the team heads home straight after the event (some of them spending some time in Hong Kong).