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Baduk Festival

On the last weekend (28-29th of July) a Baduk Festival was held in Jecheon sponsored by Tygem. There were several events on this festival, such as Baduk tournament, singing contest, chokku tournament, etcetc. We have attended on the Baduk tournament and the chokku (footvolleyball) tournament, unfortunfately nobody had the confident for singing or dancing. Blackie could do it, but we wanted someone from the students :)

Members of the BIBA team for the Baduk Tournament:

Manuel (Canadian 5d /tygem 6-7d/, he just arrived to Korea one day before this festival)
Toni (Finnish 3d /tygem 6d/, he arrived to Korea few days ago)
Daniel (Singaporian 3d /tygem 5d/)
Gareth (England /about tygem 3d/)
Melissa (France /about tygem 2d/)
/on the Baduk tournament one team had only 5 players, so Alain-Melissa's father couldn't join us, but luckily he got the chance to play in another team/)

Members of the Chokku team:
Blackie
Dia
Manuel
Gareth

On the chokku tournament we were the second strongest team, but the Baduk tournament seemed to be a bit tougher. Anyway, everyone had some good games.

Here are some photos:

BIBA team

(from the left: Daniel, Toni, Dia, Gareth, Blackie, Melissa, Manuel, Alain

1st round of the team tournament, indoor

(from the front: Melissa, Gareth, Daniel, Toni, Manuel)

2nd round of the tournament, outdoor

We have got several prizes :) BIBA team got 2 boxes of potatos and 2 bags of corns, Dia got 1 box of potatos, 1 bag of corns and 1 frypan (chokku MVP). So lunch and dinner is gonna be only potatos and corns for about 2 weeks :D Vegetarians are welcomed. ^^

After we came back from the festival, Blackie and Dia made dinner for everyone and Manuel got inspired by the potatos so he also made some special Spanish food by potatos and eggs (was tasty:). Thanks. ^^

BIBA Holiday 2nd part

On the 6th:
We moved to a new accommodation. Actually we got really lucky, because someone had membership card for this room, so we could get it for pretty good price.

 From the entrance~

 Living room~

Bedroom and bathroom 1~

 Bedroom and bathroom 2~

Swimming pool, view from the balcony~

The sea, view from the balcony again~

 Before swimming, few games of backgammon~ with a nice view in the background :)

Very nice hot Jakuzzi :)

 It was raining a lot, but we didn't mind. Actually thanks to the rain, we had the whole swimming pool just for us. Later some Koreans got some confidence and joined too.

 

Blackie found a new friend :)

 

 Our bodyguards and us. They look a bit cold :) 

This water was pretty cold, especially after the hot jakuzzi.

 Team games between

 BIBA students vs players

 from Kangleung Baduk Club.

Blackie and me were preparing some melons for the players. I told to Blackie I can handled the melons, he should take some pictures. But I failed, melons won against me (I cut myself)

 So Blackie finished the job.

(9p power was needed:)

Next day, we went to the beach near by. The waves were really huge. :) Actually at first the weather wasn't so sunny, but slowly the sun reached us. (Nobody was really prepared for the sun after 2 days of heavy rain.)

 Blackie, Dia, Fredda

Me, enjoying sun. Blackie trying to hide from the sun. Probably he was worried that if he gets darker he might be not seen on the next pictures anymore.

We (Fredda, Ben, Gareth and me) got sunburnt a bit, but Blackie just only got darker. :) 

After spending about 3 hours on the beach and in the sea between huge waves, we started our way back to Sanbon. We stopped at a resting place and the guys found some very nice massage chairs. It was so good that we stayed at least 20 minutes :) (normally people only tried for like 3-5 minutes)

 After we managed to escape from the chairs, we continued our way back to Sanbon and arrived back around 9pm. Except for Blackie, it was time for us to deal with our sunburns. :)

Anyway hopefully everyone enjoyed this short trip to the sea.

The End

BIBA Holiday

Just like last year, we went for a short picnic in the beginning of July.
On the 4th of July, Blackie, me (Dia) and Gareth went to Kangleung by car. Blackie had golf meeting with other professional and strong amateur baduk players on the 4th and 5th, therefore we had to go first. Ben and Fredda were busy, so they came after us by bus on the 5th.
We went to the beach and I gave some life and death problems for Gareth, while we were waiting for Blackie to finish his golf game. At first he was solving them too fast, so I had to give him harder ones, so I could have some rest on the beach :)

The beach was pretty empty, but we had almost all we needed. :)

Gareth with his problems.

The problem in the lower-right corner gave him hard time.

After he managed to solve the problems, we played one game at the accommodation then we went for a nice dinner with all the GO(lf) players together.

left side: Professor Jeong (9 dan pro and professor at Myeongji, going to EGC this year), far away on his right is Kwon Gap-yong sabomnim (he was the teacher of many top pro players /Lee Se-dol, Choi Choel-han, Park Jeong-hwan, etcetc/ we often visit his school for match play), right next to him is Cho Hun-hyun 9p (was No. 1 for very long time, /until he made Lee Chang-ho very strong:)/ , he is Lee Chang-ho's teacher) on the right side: Blackie and Kwon Gap-yong sabomnim's wife

We got to eat some small crabs :)

 The owner of the restaurant

 asked an autograph and a picture

 with Cho Hun-hyun Guksu.

After the dinner, Gareth got to play one more game with a strong amateur, he already played one before they went to play golf. Unfortunately Gareth couldn't take his revenge.
We planned to go to swim around 11pm, however the beach was closed so we postponed swimming for the next day.

5th of July:
Anh Young-il 8p, who has been spreading Baduk in Australia already for 4 years, came back to Korea few days ago and decided to join us for 2 days. He arrived in the morning and played a short teaching game (even) with Gareth, then we went to the sea, but still didn't swim.

 Big discussion right next to the sea. :)

Blackie came back from playing golf around 2pm, we rested a bit,

studied Baduk, 

and finally decided to go to swim before the dinner appointment. Luckily, Fredda and Ben had nice timing, they arrived around 5pm so we went to swim all together (except Anh Young-gil, he had to meet someone).

Unfortunately the weather was not so good, it started to rain, but nothing could stop us. It seems the rainy weahter is going to become the tradition of BIBA picnics. Anyway the sea was still warm enough, so we could enjoy:)
After the sea, we were invited for dinner in a very nice restaurant by the President of the Kangwon-do Baduk Association. Actually his son lives in Australia and studying Baduk from Anh Young-il (small world) :)

On the left: Ben, Gareth, Mr. Ko (President of the Kangwon-do Baduk Association), Anh Young-il.
On the right: Fredda (half), Mr. Ko's son, Blackie, me (Dia)
The dinner was really nice, thank you. :)

 Me, taking picture of the red bean ice cream, which was served in a plate made by ice,

while Blackie is being very curious. ^^

To be continued...

Visiting Kwon Gap-yong's Academy

A bit more than a week ago, we visited the Kwon Academy again. It was the sport day of the Kwon's school so we also played soccer with the Korean students and Kwon sabomnim. Here are some pictures:

Matthew in the front and Joel in the back

Gareth in the front and Philippe in the back

Fredda in the front and Ali in the back

Issa

Ben is playing with a ghost :) (Ben lost :() - Sorry, misscusi... Ben won :)

Greetings before the soccer game

New Year Party (and opening party:)

Since we have started BIBA, we didn't have time to make an opening party.
Well, actually at first we moved into a Korean school and about 3 months ago we started to rent an office only for BIBA. But no worries, this office is on the same floor with the Korean school, so there is still chance to play with Korean kids. :) Moreover, twice a week we invite Korean kids from other school (Wednesday-Sanbon Academy, Thursday or Friday-Yoo Jae-seong Academy), so the strong foreigner players can play team games with stronger kids.

Anyway we decided to make an opening party before New Year, just before the Singaporean guys leaves. Therefore it became an opening, a New Year and a Bye-Bye party (for the Singaporean guys) at the same time. :)

Many people came to celebrate with us. Even top professional players:

Jo Han-sung 9p Title holder of Guksu Cup.

Song Tae-kwon 9p 2nd place on Fujitsu Cup /few years ago^^/

Great chance to take picture with them:)

Female professional players:

Kim Yoon-young 3p /many people know her well already :) but anyway gold and bronze medalist on 2010 Asian games/

Kim Hyo-jeong 3p (She is a very famous broadcaster at Baduk TV. This time she was my partner in atari Baduk, when we played against Jo Han-sung and Choi Dong-eun :)

Choi Dong-eun 1p (She became pro when she was very young /13years old/, and she went to Canada, finished her studies there. He has just recently returned back to Korea.)
Ali got the chance to play with her atari Baduk. I think Ali did pretty well. :)

Two lucky students got the chance to play with Jo Han-sung. Kerem from Turkey and Foosh from Singapore. :)

Team games with other guests. (on the right, Mok Jin-seok's father. He is about 4-5d and also very good at sports. :) Zhang Xiang seems to be more interested at Jo Han-seung's games. So definitely no chance for him against the Korean 7d. :( :)

Tasty buffet for the special event.

Talking and enjoying the food. On the left with glasses, Lee Sang-hoon 9p, from behind Jeong Su-hyun 9p (also professor of Myongji University), and the guy with hat, Blackie's first teacher; his father. :)

Trying to find something to cut the cake. :)

I think we didnt manage to cut it, but seems still everyone enjoyed eating it. :)

Name list. People who came to celebrate together with us.

Last picture with the Singaporean guys.

Christmas-eve (?)^^ Party

On the 24th of December, special guests visited BIBA.

Kim Yoon-young (3p)

An Seong-jun (3p)

Jin Seung-jae (ama 7d, formal 1st group younguseng)

Lee Min-ho (ama 7d, formal 3rd group younguseng-greenpig on kgs)

We played some Baduk games, first a team tournament, then relay tournament.
Relay tournament was tough, we played only one game but 7 people were Black and 7 were White. Every 10 moves new player played. :) The avarange rank of the teams were about same, but sometimes there were big difference between players, so the game was quite fun. :)

After the Baduk games, we played some English quiz games, so the special guests could show their English power, or I should rather say telepathy power. :)

Let me show some example:

Jin Seung-jae: Animal. Wondering at night.....
at first noone had any clue, but after few seconds
Kim Yoon-young came up with the solution: Cat

Still not sure how could she know :)

Another example for strong telepathy:
Seung-jae: Animal. It has big mouth.
Yoon-young (after one second): Hippo.

Well... :)

But sometimes telepathy didnt work:
Yoon-young: Not alive, not dead.
Seung-jae: Zombie.
(Seung-jae missed the small important fact that it was a baduk term :) -> ko :)

Cute video about Yoon-young :) --->

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=2739284932903

After this game, we created a new game. It was about which team can replay a pro game faster.
There were 6 people in one team. Two people tried to replay the game according how the other people explained the next move for them.

Yurika, a Japanese lady just arrived on this day around 4pm.
She joined the games immediately. Yurika was Black and tried to replay a game with Seung-jae (White) together.
In the other team, An Seung-jun and Foosh were replaying. Only thing we worried about that An Seung-jun might know the game by heart. So we chose an old game. ;)

Genial is telling the pro where to play ;-)

After these games, we went to eat all together (Blackie, Dia, Yoon-young, Seung-jae, Min-ho, Zhang Xiang /to be honest at this time he was rather Tomato:)/, Alvin, Foosh, Daniel, Book, Genial and Kerem.) Unfortunately An Seung-jun couldn't join for dinner and later Daniel and Minho couldn't join for karaoke either.
Anyway Blackie invited all of us for a nice dinner, then we ended up in a marathon karaoke. Book amazed us by showing how many Korean songs he knows. :)

The lady from the restaurant couldn't manage to take a picture, so Blackie sacraficed himself, that's why he is not on the picture :( :)

As for a European, it was quite an extraordinary Christmas-eve, but really fun. Hopefully everyone enjoyed. :)