lso at the end of February, my friend Roman and I took a short trip to visit Quebec. Of course we visited the Quebec go club while there.
On the way up to quebec we very briefly stopped by a teahouse in Montreal. They happened to have a go set there, but it was a little strange...
The funny board
In Quebec we stayed with my friend Pascal Tremblay 5d (we were roommates in the IBA) His roommates were a girl that liked to smoke, and worked as a newspaper delivery person. And a guy who was much too sick, and loved music and beer. He was actually a very interesting person, he had little talent for the guitar or ukulele, or probably any other instrument for that matter, but still every night I was there late into the night he would play. He also had a little impromptu art studio in the living room, fully equipped with a tape deck. His CD player and DVD players didn't work. Most of his work consisted of manipulating found objects. Also he was an ice climber, and a history buff.
In the living room
After two days of much relaxing we went to to the university go club with Pascal. We met the members at a food court of a mall, and after eating we proceeded to the University. We ended up in the section of the school reserved for grade schoolers. The club room itself was the art room that the kids used. The tables were your regular school tables made of some indiscernible material coated with something similar to linoleum. We had two large bottles of soda and a bag of chips. The playing boards were of bamboo, and we used Chinese style stones to play. It was during the Olympics, so while we were playing go, the women were playing hockey on the computer screen. Through the windows, took up most of the wall, we could see a forest covered in snow, there was a surreal yellow-y light reflecting up out of the snow.
Well that was what the club looked like if you can imagine it from my description.
There were about 10 of us. I played a game with the Vice president, unfortunately I lost by 2 points or so. Roman had much better results. I think he won 3 of his games there. He seems to have improved a lot for no reason. Recently he came back from a 6 month travel around Europe, and for no discernible reason he grew from 11kyu to about 8 or 7 kyu.
Ice Wall
Photos Courtesy of Roman Kudryashov
