2008-01-31 (2):
I have just read on the Internet a German newspaper (FAZ). To have an impression what is going on in big parts of southern and central China have a look at the pictures and the video. A friend of mine who works here in Wuhan was on Tuesday stuck in Beijing; no train, no plane back to Wuhan. And tomorrow he would like to leave for vacation.
He is one of millions of people who are stuck due to the exceptional winter. The reason why so many people travel is the Chinese New Year, the main festival here in China. And a lot of so-called migrant workers have only once a year the opportunity to visit their family.
http://www.faz.net/s/RubB08CD9E6B08746679EDCF370F87A4512/Doc~E658850C07CD542109B68106BCC56B75E~ATpl~Ecommon~SMed.html#1D666B36AB574FABA55935F019C17077

2008-01-31:

Yesterday I was challenged by the lady who cooks here and keeps the flat tidied. I accepted, and I had to give her 9 stones. It has been her very first time that she played. Though I won I was positively surprised how well she played, considering that this has been her first time. And even though I am much stronger than her, 9 stones still look impressive...

And the end of today's schedule in the go-school two of Yan An's students came to visit us. One is a strong 6 Dan, the other one a 3 Pro. I remembered that I had seen the 3 Pro during the DSC Tournament. When school was over An Yan, his students, their fathers and I went for dinner. One of the students speaks a little bit of English, so we had a nice conversation.

Today I am finishing the "Tour De Flat" by showing how it looks like when you look out of the windows:

When you look out of "my" bedroom you see the following:

When you look out of the studyroom you see this:

And this is the inner courtyard:















Two more problems, Black to play in both problems, enjoy:
The whole board situation is a position that arised during my game today, I had 3 stones handicap. I made a joseki mistake in the upper left corner, but used in this position my chance to attack White.

2008-01-30:

It has again started to melt. Let's see how the weather is developing in the next days. For some time you could even spot the sun, not clear, rather dusty and dirty, but still. People used immediately the opportunity to hang their clothes out for drying. Due to space problems this is quite common here. And traditionally on Saturday and on Sunday all people seem to wash simultaneously. If you then look at houses you have rather the impression to be a shop for clothes ;-).

As you can on the photos in front of the windows there is some kind of metal bar. In most cases rusty, but this doesn't matter. Then you take long bamboos, and on those bamboos you hang your clothes. Alternatively, people use their balcony - if available -, or I also saw people who put their stuff in trees, next to the street.

For go-players I have this time two nice problems.

White to play, an interesting problem.

Black to play, this is a funny problem. Since there aren't so many points it should be quite easy to solve it, shouldn't it? Actually you need to check only four points because the position is symmetrical.

2008-01-29:
Today a short blog.
I have played today a "normal" game against An Yan. In case that the other student from the go-school had not come then I would have played simultaneously two games against An Yan.

On the Internet I read in German and Russian newspapers about the chaotic situation here in China. Quite interesting that even abroad this issue is reported.
People here have the strong concern that this weather impacts significantly the Chinese New Year activities that are going to start very soon.

2008-01-28:

Today is my free day. After lunch I had nice walk enjoying the snow. I detected some kind of park, and it was really nice to escape from the streets. During the day I have done many L&D-problems.

After dinner An Yan introduced me to his plan for tomorrow. If I understood him correctly I am going to play simultaneously two games. Well, this would be the first time that I play two or more games at the same time. Exciting!

It is cold in the go-school. Wearing warm clothes is needed.

2008-01-27:
It is now certain, washing machine's pipe is frozen. I didn't know that a part of this pipe is outside. As as you can see on the picture, the part of the pipe that is outside has the form of a "U" where at the deepest point always some water remains. This water is now frozen.
















How to protect your car from snow? This car driver was creative. To park as close as possible to the building, and then to cover the car properly.
















"Street-workers" in action. These people are at this moment everywhere and fight a hopeless battle. It hasn't stopped snowing. Today I have even seen this kind of special car with which you clean the streets. An Yan told me that there were not so many in Wuhan.

















Unfortunately I was too late to take a picture from the following scene:
A van/ truck is standing on the street. The driver collected some wood (honestly I have no clue where he got it from) , put it on the snow under the tank. The tank is on the left side of the vehicles, outside. And he started a nice fire... I could easily see it when An Yan passed this van/ truck. Either he used fuel of (very) bad quality, or some connections are frozen?! Hmmmm....

Camille who has stayed here in Wuhan for some time and has moved on to another city also has a blog. Her blog is in French. This is the link:
http://camille-en-chine.over-blog.com/

2008-01-26:

Winter in Wuhan. An Yan told me that Wuhan had had the last time that amount of snow in 1991. Car drivers hate it, and kids love it.

I belong almost to Mac's inventory. In the go-book there was one problem where I had a different solution that the proposed one. I checked again and again, and I was sure that mine is correct. Back at school I showed the problem An Yan, and he agreed on my solution. ;-)Nevertheless, my reading in my two games was poor - to be polite. Let's call it "Black Saturday"!

An Yan made me a nice present: A book with almost 1000 L&D-problems, level: 5-dan...

It is still beyond my level, but still..., encouraging

Wuhan's streets this morning. A surface out of plain snow, and partly ice under. So, it was half driving, half sliding. On the campus where I live it was even worse. An Yan and I had some trouble to leave.

Children built a snowman in front of a shop.