Wednesday - Master McPhail

Yesterday was pretty much a free day for us Umpires. We took in the old town again and pretty much took it easy.

At 5pm I had a photo shoot with some of the other Masters and Master Marano, as they are planning on publishing an update to the condensed encyclopaedia. Master Nunez was involved with that too - reminiscent of the photo shoot we had in Canada in 1996 for the last edition of the encyclopaedia.

After that it was out to dinner with all the Umpires. We arived at a restaurant in a Hotel, where incidentally the German team are staying. We were ushered to our tables and had an okay meal. The German team arrived and we noticed they were sent upstairs for their meal.

Turns out the restaurant staff must have thought we were the German Team so we got THEIR meal (with one drink of coke) - while upstairs they enjoyed a banquet complete with desert and drinks. grrrrr. Those Germans!!

Probably Andrew Niven behind that! :-)

Today we had the 3 hour Umpires meeting, where we were talked through rules and protocols for the next 4 days. Lots of questions asked and I think everyone is perhaps understandably nervy - as we also feel the weight of a World Champs on our shoulders.

The new electronic scoring system was explained and demonstrated. It has been developed further since we saw it in Spain last year and is VERY impressive (a few screen shots are attached). It even includes patterns as well as sparring now so it should be interesting. I have put my name forward to have a crack at that in Ring one - but not sure if they will put new people on that system...depends how many umpires they have that have used it from the different countries I guess. Lots of the German umpires have used it but there is not allowed to be more than one umpire from each Country in any ring.

Master Davidson had put his name down as a Power breaking Referee - so we will hopefully come out of this with a lot more experience which will benefit ITFNZ. Tomorrow they will announce the Ring Councils and we will find out where they put us.

I called in to see the Team after lunch but they were out and about. We saw them briefly training this morning..and they looked fantastic. They were going through their stepping routines for Team Patterns and had all of the supporters clapping in time with their steps. This attracted a lot of attention and looked great.
The Team look happy and I was so proud seeing them today. Good luck team!

From tomorrow we are not even meant to talk to any team members, so that will be hard.
Mr Eccles is here now, joining Mr Ward, Mr Banicevich, Master Davidson and myself as the Umpires for New Zealand.
Tonight we have a Cocktail Reception thingy, dinner, then our last night`s sleep before it all begins. Very exciting!

Last team meeting before competition starts

Last evening the whole team got together to hand out the competition ID cards and to hear advice from world champ veterans Carl Van Roon, Luke Thompson and Mark Trotter.

Breakfast is at 7am then we head over to the PEPS sports centre at 8am where the competition starts at 8.30am.

The adrenalin is definately on the rise!

Looking forward to reading all your new messages of support at breakfast in half an hour's time.

The long wait chilling out

This afternoon most competitors spent time confined to barracks and chilling out. Huge anticipation for tomorrow. At the moment coaches and management are at a tournament briefing meeting and we expect to get a de-briefing ourselves when they return soon.

We've just returned from dinner so spare a thought for Cori-Jean, Paige, DJ and Lizzie who are working hard to loose weight for the weigh in tomorrow. (Apologies if I missed any "starvers" out.)

Here's a couple of chilling out photos...

Tournament program

The team management get the draws and the programme details at their briefing tonight. In the mean time Master McPhail and Mr Banicevich came in and met with coaches this afternoon while they had a break in their seminars and debriefed them on rule interpretation decisions and the programme. We haven't seen much of the 4 NZ officials as they're staying in a hotel away from us and have spent most of their time at various official meetings and seminars etc.

From what I have gleaned (and the official programme) here's how it will go:

Thursday May 31:
From 8.30am - 12.30pm, then 2.30pm - 6.30pm
Individual and team patterns
Concurrent weigh in in the morning
Specialty
First round of pre-arranged sparring (because it is a new event this is to give the judges a "feel" for what they will be judging).
7pm-8.30pm Opening ceremony & historic photo shoot (contestants and supporters in Dobok)

Friday June 1:
From 8.30am-12.30pm Competition (I'm not sure what events yet)
3pm-6pm XVI ITF Congress (where NZ will pitch for the 2011 world champs)
4pm-6pm Mass Outdoor Training
7.30-10pm 1st ITF Hall of Fame Banquet Evening (fingers crossed for NZ nominees Master McPhail, Carl Van Roon and Johs Van Pierce)

Saturday June 2: (very big day for sparring)
8.30am-12.30pm, 2.30pm-6.30pm Sparring
7.30-10.30pm Sparring Finals

Sunday June 3:
8.30am-12.30pm, 3.00pm-6.00pm Competition Finals
6.00pm-6.45pm Closing Ceremony
9.00pm-2.00am Farewell Party

Monday
Recovery, although a few kiwis leave to go on with their travels

Tuesday
The remaining contingent leave to come home or go on with their travels.

Only 17 hours to go!

Over jet lag – check
Over travel sickness – check
Energy levels high – check

It’s fair to say we are ready! Bring it on!

This morning’s training session was about pulling it all together. For the first time since we arrived the supporters were “invited” to come to the training. Unfortunately it’s been raining and we thought we’d all get pretty wet getting over to PEPS.

However, someone found the underground tunnel system. In winter there’s permanently several feet of snow on the ground so they have an underground walking tunnel system joining all the buildings together. It’s awesome. So we used it and didn’t get wet at all (except for me because I joined the team late after staying behind to put up the messages home and walked over in the rain).

For training we had booked a basketball court for a couple of hours. Other teams were also training nearby but we got some privacy.

At the end Mr Trotter got everyone together to go over the cheering strategy. We all practiced for all the team walk ons and it sounded and looked awesome!

I’ve put comments on the photos…

Messages for people back home…

Here’s the team having breakfast and reading the 14 pages of messages that we received from you overnight (they're projected up onto the wall and also downloaded onto various laptops which are passed around).

They didn’t have much time to write as well as read and eat breakfast but here’s a few messages back to you (below).

Please keep them coming… they make a big difference!

From Bradley
Hi everyone, so far everything is going well. I’m just getting over a cold now but I will be fine for the competition. Wish us luck. See you soon

From Candice
To all my fans, I love you. XXX

From Jeremy
Not long now – can’t sit still! Just wanna get in there!!

From Shane
Hi everyone. One more day to go until we kick ass. See you soon :-)

From Stacey
Hay everyone, it’s going well very tired haha but alg. I miss you especially my family, tail, berry, sez, and Jason. Not long to c u soon, mwah xoxoxoxoxo

From Eliza
Hello! I miss all you guys! Tomorrow’s the day! Really tired from too much shopping – haha – see you all when I get back! Luv yah! xoxo

To Mr Salton & Horowhenua TKD Club
Aramai is fine. Our body clocks have finally changed over. Please send us messages. Can’t text home. Lotsalov – Suzanne, Whetu & Aramai

To Pete, Taila & TKD Clubs
Many thanks for your support. Uma and Rose are continuing to train hard – fully focused. D-day not long now. Yours in TKD, Uma, Donna, Rose and Luke

To Joanna & Bob Van Pierce
Hi family. Thanks for all the messages, they are very welcome. Canada is awesome and training is excellent. I have gotten a sore throat infection. Comp starts tomorrow. Will call you soon. Johs Van Pierce

To Indigo
Hay Ind! Here’s your reply! Everything is going well and having a great time! I miss all you guys and yes I won’t 4get your pressie! Keep writing to me and tell the others too! Love ya, Kristy xoxo

To Nick & the TSE Family
Hi Guys. All good over here. Preped up ready to go. Can’t wait. Hope you are all good over there. Cher Cher Jonboy

To Lena
Cheers bud, one more eh. See you in the next team champ. Cher Cher Jonboy

Click Message Book on the grey menu on the right of this page to leave us a message

Wednesday - from Master McPhail

A few pics of great seminar run by Master Lan and Andrew Niven

Keep the support messages coming...

Please keep the messages of support coming through the website. The team loves getting them. Each morning we download the latest messages that you have written in the previous 24 hours and put them onto various laptops plus the big screen at breakfast. There's then a swarm around each laptop to get to read them. We'd love to respond to each and every one but unfortunately, it's really hard to achieve (due to lack of Internet access points) but we will try to get some responses tomorrow. I've only got pictures of parents reading them so you'll just have to believe me until tomorrow morning!

Click Message Book on the grey menu on the right of this page to leave a message

Haka practice

The team did their first full Haka tonight since camp. At first it was established that they would do a couple of quiet ones to save their voices for the competition. However, it felt right to go "full out" for the last one. It's a great way to psych up for the competition and cleared any flem right out. No photos.

This was followed by a long team talk headed by the captains discussing various tactics but I can't tell you (and our competitors) about this until it's "delivered".

More pick's...

More questions answered...

Why are there so few photos of the supporters?
The training sessions have been "Closed" which means the parents are politely "not invited". so whle I'm there taking lots of photos of the coaches, management and team members, there ain't any supporters around.

A further small problem is that they generally hate me pointing my camera anywhere near in their direction I have to pretty much resort to "stalking" them from a long distance away.

So that you know they do exist, here's some photos of them at Le Pub (on campus) last night and relaxing tonight in the warm evening air.

Breakfast routine
Breakfast is at 7.30am. The cafetaria is in another building about a 100 metre walk from here. Starting this morning we set up the datashow (kindly loaned to us by Greg Skinner from Epson) and show the previous day's photos plus the new messages from the website. It's a great way to get everyone excited for the day. This morning we also played Jeremy's Impact video compilation which went down a treat. You can watch it from the "Highlight Reel" on the Impact website.

Have you seen the other teams?
Most of the other teams are staying in hotels a few miles away from us so we have had very little contact with them. This afternoon the juniors headed down to the mall for a while and they saw a few other teams wondering around in their track suits.

Here at the university there are 83 kiwis and maybe 20 others. Peru and Columbia teams arrived here a couple of days ago. Today we were joined by Spain (x4) who have another 3 arriving from another region of Spain tomorrow. Carolina helped me have a short conversation with them - she's amazing at Spanish! Paraguay also appeared here today.

We expect to see more teams come and check out the PEPS sports centre tomorrow.

Are the team members allowed to try out the climbing wall?
No, for obvious reasons ;-)

Hair dying
You may have noticed a few remaining members of the team having their hair "professionally" dyed in-house. I don't know much about it but I think there's been a bit of halarity surrounding the process.

When does the competition action start?
Tomorrow is our last "preparation day" as the tournament opens on Thursday 31st and goes through until the end of Sunday. Now, this is our time here in Quebec but for you kiwis back home, your first news will be on Friday morning your time which will be about 3pm our time. We hope to sedn through news flashes from my mobile phone with full reports being produced in our evening. So late afternoon, evening you'll have the full story.

Time converter

When will you know the draws etc?
I don't know the answer to this yet. I suspect we'll learn tomorrow.

Supporter’s trip to an Indian Reservation

Today a group of the supporters took a trip to an Indian Reservation that Suzy had found out about. I didn’t go, but here’s the story as it’s being told to me.

We were told to catch bus 87 until the end of the line. When the bus finally stopped we were in the middle of nowhere with no sign of any reservation.



We asked the bus driver where the reservation was and he said we were supposed to catch another bus and he’d take us back in half an hour after he’d had his lunch break. So, later on he came back for us and dropped us at the right stop. Again there was nothing there.

We found a sign on a modern tepee that said the reservation was 5 minutes away. Then further down the sign we realised that 5 minutes meant by car. We walked 2.8kms to get to the reservation!

At the reservation we paid $26.50 and got a guided tour and a three course traditional Indian meal.



Check out the photos…

Tuesday 29 - morning training

Both the seniors and juniors had training this morning over at the PEPS arena where the competition will be. It's good for them to get used to the venue.

I felt like I had falled into a rut with what I'd been photographing. Actually I was getting a bit bored with it. So played around a bit more trying to capture a different viewpoint and playing with the strong light.

Then it was back for lunch and either a kip or a trip to the mall.

A few of us are still suffering from jet lag and are having trouble sleeping. Mr Pellow is definately off-colour today too.

More pictures...

3 more picks of the pix...

Doug's picks of the pix...

Just wanted to keep with tradition (established in Honduras last year) and publish my picks of the pix taken on tour. I'll update them each day and you can check them out by clicking on the Doug's picks of the pix on the LINKS menu to the right.

Ok, I'm going to bed now. It's 00.40am in Quebec.

Because you asked…

We love your messages in the Message Book! At breakfast and again at dinner we now download the guest book onto laptops and huddle around reading your messages while we eat. That is hugely appreciated so please keep them coming.

You have asked a few questions in the message book so here goes on a few observations, answers…

The university is empty because it’s the summer vacation – that’s why there are no cars and people around.

The weather is changeable… very similar to Auckland actually (occasional sun, occasional showers, occasional wind, and sometimes warm then cold). We’re mostly wearing shorts and T shirts but always take a jacket which is either on because of a cold wind or off because you have stepped into a double insulated, double glazed building. They’re all “warm as” inside.

The locals are very friendly and are happy to speak to us in English when we ask “parlez vous anglais”. They are very helpful people.

We’re well serviced for buses here… they go past the university every few minutes. It costs $2.50 to go anywhere on the bus for up to a couple of hours.

Some things are surprisingly cheap. I bought a round of coffee for 3 of us the other day at the university café and it cost just over $5 for the lot. A large bottle of water is $1.50, a dozen small bottles of water in a pack are 2 packs for $5. I’m sure some of the team have found the expensive stuff too though!

All our meals are held in the university cafeteria. Good wholesome food and plenty of it.

We have shared bathroom facilities – they’re clean and we just have to be quick to shower and patient if waiting a turn. Our linen and towels are changed every couple of days. There’s a large laundry with a bank of washing machines and dryers.

Everything its tidy. The landscaping around the city is very clean and tidy with no rubbish to be seen.

The guys and gals wearing hoodies while training are doing so to loose weight. This morning DJ had two pairs of pants and a hoodie and was literally leaving a trail of water in his foot steps.

We’ve met some of the Australian team, and a couple from Argentina who now live in (brain freeze – somewhere in Europe). Other teams are staying in Hotels so we’re only really meeting up with others who are also at the university.

Internet access is hard for us from the university. We haven’t found a handy internet café and it was only today that three (out of 83) of us were able to gain cable internet to our laptops in our rooms. So, if you haven’t had a reply to your message it doesn’t mean that it’s not appreciated… we just don’t have easy access to reply. I guess most students at the uni have their own laptops, hense the apparent lack of an internet café.

Monday 28th – Visit to Old Quebec City

The scouts went out yesterday and figured out which bus to take to get to the old part of Quebec City so at about 10.30am about 25 (I guess) of the juniors and parents jumped on an 801 bus into the old town.

Upon arrival the girls disappeared into some of the boutique women’s clothing stores. Actually “stores” seems too cheap a word for this part of town. Everything oozes personality, history, tradition, craft and quality… such a contrast to the malls of yesterday.

Shortly after the boys spotted a sports store and the men walked the streets before shooting into a wonderful [very French] bakery/café.

Large lattés, short blacks and cakes we’re the order of the day.

I’m afraid I can’t pretend to do justice to describe this part of the city but you can read what National Geographic say about Quebec City it to learn more.

See all the photos...

Monday 28 - afternoon seniors training...

The seniors trained twice today, from 10am this morning and again late this afternoon. They’re looking good too. I love the photo above of the woman’s team patterns. (I just figured out the reason why the photos I’ve been publishing have only come out ¾ size… from now on you’ll get the wider versions again.)

The senior team have been taking the opportunity to train in the gym where the tournament will be held. It’s a massive area as you can see from this photo (which doesn’t cover the whole area either).


We ran into some members of the Aussy team today here at the university. They said they’ve been following our build-up progress from our website. Neil… for Argentina can we “block” overseas IP addresses? Just kidding. For any other teams out there in cyber space watching us… welcome. We look forward to meeting you just 500 metres away from where we are based here at Laval University in Quebec City.



Rose’s little boy Luke had a great time playing (and did a bit of warm up training with the team too). He’s quite a stunts man…

Lastly, here's one of my favourite pics for the day... Jon Sawden

More photos...

Monday 28 - 6am training for juniors...

The interweb has been turned on in my room at last. Ahhhh, it’s like getting my caffeine fix. It’s fast too so I can upload tons of photos without it taking too long.

This morning was an early start for the juniors.

Captains Candice and Johs were responsible for waking their team mates at 5.30am. Only problem was Candice woke at 2.00am and, thinking she’d slept in, proceeded to wake her mates. They soon sorted her out!!

At the real wake-up time Donna shot across the hall to the loo in her PJs and the door gently closed behind her, leaving her locked out of her room for half an hour while security were summoned to let her back in.

I took lots of photos but the dim light made it hard for the camera to focus and some are pretty blurry due to the slow exposures. However, I tried hard to get some good shots of everyone who was training…

The better photos…

More (but not all good) photos…

Sorry that this is so short… it’s now 2.45pm and the seniors go for their second training session for the day in 15 minutes time and I want to take a few photos of them for you.

Went to Old Quebec this morning… will tell you about it later.

Sunday 27th May - afternoon and evening

After my laptop battery was finally wrung dry I packed up and then spent 20 minutes walking around in the mall just soaking it in.

The mall was pretty up-market. I could see the French influence with elegant but simple window and shop design. Interestingly none of the shops had dual language signs with their names proudly displayed in French only.


I was particularly impressed with the shoe shop above and set about taking some “busy shopper” photos to impress the ladies back home. A very pretty shop assistant came out and stood in front of the window for me. You can just see her on the left behind the woman walking past me. I thought it was really sweet for her to pose for me then, on enquiry, I realised she was trying to hide the windows display from my pesky camera. She thought I was steeling her marketing ideas. After a little explanation that I was just a tourist she looked like she half believed me and let me go. I then realised that walking around with a laptop case and a camera made me look a little suspicious. Ah well.


I went into the mall in warm sunshine and when I came out about 3 hours later (2 ½ spent getting my fix on the laptop!) it was cool, heavily overcast and drizzling. Just like home!

Getting back to our quarters from the shopping mall was interesting for a bus phobic person like me (I’m not known for being a great user of any form of public transport).. There were about 20 different bus numbers to choose from at the bus stop. As I’ve found here, the people are really friendly and very helpful. “Parles vous Anglei” (excuse the spelling, it’s bound to be terribly wrong) usually gets a smile and “Yes, I speak English”. I soon got to know which bus number to look for. $2.50 gets you as much bus ride as you like for a couple of hours. After 5 minutes I recognised the university building we’re staying at and had to cut another conversation short and jump off.

Before coming we’d heard on the grape vine that the French speaking Quebecan people like you to speak French, but once you’ve made an attempt everyone so far has been really friendly and helpful at speaking to us in English. I think they’re quite curios about our weird accents. Unlike Americans they generally seem to know about New Zealand. Maybe it’s the Commonwealth influence.

The university digs…
As promised, when I got back to Laval University I took a few photos for you to see where we were staying.


Here’s the entrance to our hostel.


Our rooms are small but comfortable. With concrete walls and floors, you can’t hear your neighbour (unless you are next to the bathroom I’ve been informed). We have communal bathrooms on each floor and male and females are separated onto different levels in the three story building.


I ran into Mr Yates who told me the Juniors were training downstairs so I grabbed my gear and went and took a few photos of them in action. I expected they’d be a bit lethargic after all the travel and the late night last night but I was completely wrong. They were into it with real intensity. And smiles everywhere as they were loving it. I missed the seniors who had gone over to the main sports complex to train in a huge gym. Maybe tomorrow I’ll catch them.

Tonight we had a bit of room swapping to make things run smoother for female and male access to bathrooms etc then it was curfew for the juniors at 9.30am.

Tomorrow…
The plan tomorrow is:

5.30am wakeup for juniors
6.00am junior training until 8.00-8.30am
Breakfast then the rest of the day off for exploring.
Dinner at 6.30pm then possibly a light evening training session I think was the order of the day.

So, hopefully we’ll get some sight seeing in. I’m keen to get down to “Old Quebec” which some from the advance party who went today said it was fantastic.

Time to sign off, it’s 11.35pm here – 3.35pm in NZ. Tomorrow I hope to get internet access to my room (fingers crossed) so I can actually send these despatches when I write them instead of having to wait until the next day to stroll down the road to the mall.

This afternoon’s photos…

Sunday - Master McPhail

As well as look around the old city, Master D, Mark B & I also called down to the Plaza Hotel where they have the "welcome centre".
Master Tran, his two daughters, Mr Kurt Otterson and others welcomed us and we received a packet of bits - tournament program (featuring Carl van Roon), tickets to the various functions etc.
Umpires have food & accommodation paid for 8 days which is more than we were expectng. They have 70 umpires registered for the tournament.
We ran into a few old friends including Master Lan from Germany and Andrew Niven. Germany have a big team here (close to 40 competitors I think).
Apparently around 6 countries could not get visas including Russia, but still there are over 60 countries here. Master CK Choi is here as special guest. He is one of the original masters - some say the best ever. He graded me to 2nd dan in '81 and I have not seen him since... Will be great to meet him!
Day 2 for us started with breakfast and news of the team's late arrival. No doubt they will have a long day ahead as they work through the tournament registration process. We are off on a cup tour this morning then will try and catch up with the team later.

Sunday 27 May - 1st full day in Quebec City - R & R

My battery is running low... I'm sitting in the mall still typing away so need to be quick and get this to you before my laptop dies. I get about 2 1/2 hours without recharging and can't get my internet access at the university sorted out until tomorrow (Monday).

We woke this morning at various times to a fine day with clear skies. It is quite warm and comfortable. I slept in (yay) and nearly missed breakfast in the cafeteria at the university. It was nice... yoghurt, apple juice, scrambled egg, sausages, bacon, toast and tea - made me feel alive again.

We then all met in our new "meeting room" to discuss procedure stuff and plan the day. The juniors and seniors are doing a light training starting about now (3pm).

The Laval University is huge, with lots of big open space between the buildings. The landscape is completely flat which surprised me. For some obscure reason I imagined Quebec to be quite mountenous... perhaps I should have taken a bit more notice of the guide book.

Sorry... no photos of the university yet... promise that I'll do better later on today.

Everything is very clean and tidy.

Mr Burr and I took a walk over to the sports complex where the tournament will be held. I guess it is a 400-500 metre walk from our accommodation. So, while our digs are pretty basic, it's going to be great to be so close to home during the tournament.

The venue is huge with an indoor olympic pool and basket ball courts next door.

Most of the team walked or caught a bus just a couple of kilometers down the road to a set of three huge shopping malls. Heaven for many. By the time we turned up (late) many were in the food hall and all looking very happy.

I stayed on here to post a few articles for you and haven't seen anyone for ages to I'm guessing that they all headed back to get ready for this afternoon's training.

Language hasn't posed a problem. Everyone I've come across so far who serves in shops and the like can speak English. We're trying to use some of our rough French (Vous parlez Anglais) and it's appreciated but they're happy to speak with us in English. The signage is another matter. Fortunately a lot of the food signs and menus have numbers next to them which helps some if us.

I'm going to save this, before my battery runs flat, and head back to the University to see if I can get you some photos of the place and the team training.

Au revoir de la ville du Québec

LA to Quebec City, part 2 (continued).

Yesterday was huge.

The flights were pretty smooth. From LA to Toronto we got to see the landscape below for half an hour or so out of LA... pretty much contonuous desert. Then there was cloud below for the rest of the trip which was a pity and we only sighted land again on our descent into Tronoto. Got a great view of the CBD and Toronto tower on the way in, see the photos.

Lots of the team had a good snooze on the flight after our 3am wake up call in the morning.

I haven't gone out of my way to make friends with the rest of the team after getting my second upgrade to business class in a row. I got lots of "stick" for this. (I fly from Auckland to Wellington a lot for work and so Air NZ gave me a gold card due to my air miles and with Air Canada being part of the Star Alliance network they thought I was special. Hey, I wasn't arguing. They gave me two upgrades and with Jeremy standing next to me he was in to it like a robber's dog.

At Tronoto airport we got through border control and picked up our luggage before boarding our onward flight to Montreal. I wanted to take a photo of the "Welcome to Canada" in lights above border control to show you all but when I raised my camera above my head in the crowd to get the shot I got a reaction from the security staff like I was waving a gun around. Lots of shouting and waving at me. Oops... sorry, I didn't realise this was a capital offence. I'll be more careful in future.

We didn't have long in Toronto, just time for a quick coffee then onto our short flight to Montreal. This time I was in cattle class with the rest of the team.

This flight was only an hour and a half. Again pretty cloudy so we didn't get to see much except on take off and landing.

We made it with no luggage going missing and no other problems which was pretty amazing.

There were two coaches to take us to Quebec City. The first left straight away while the second waited for a hand full of the senior team who had flown LA - Calgary - Montreal and were arriving an hour later.

The bus trip seemed to take a long time. It started at about 5.45pm and we'd been up since 3am. After 20 minutes we were out of the city and onto the motorway to Quebec City. Flat tree-lined landscape with not a lot to look at. After an hour or more some of the senior boys in the back of the bus started singing. They were pretty good and it all got pretty hilarious.

Jeremy had been video taping them then set about editing up bits and pieces of their antics so wen ended up with a dozeon or so huddled around the laptop laughing and cojoling at themselves playing back at half speed, double speed, quadruple speed etc. You get the picture. Anyway, it helped break the trip and give us all somethign to laugh about.

Then Carl and Luke did a great mini-me taekwon-do act. They were hilarious. check out the photos.

We finally arrived at Quebec City at about 8.30pm I think it was. We pulled up at the Plaza Hotel where the tournament organisers were setup ready to receive us.

Mr Burr and Mrs Baigent set about going through the registration details double checking everything and making sure we all had the appropriate neck tags, meal vouchers etc. This took an age and was pretty hard work. The ITF organisers complimented the NZ Team on how well organised we were with our registrations, all sent through well in advance, compared with other teams. Well done to our management team!

The team and supportes tracked across the street to BK for dinner and it was very late by the time the registration process was all complete. ITF didn't want to let us go to our accommodation until all of the details had been completed and everyone's patience was tested.

We finally got on the way yo the university where Mrs Baigent (who, along with the rest of the management team, still hadn't eaten) tried to sort out access to our accommodation with the university people. Again it took ages but eventally we all got to our rooms and collapsed into bed from about 1am.

Les photographies (the photos)...

LA to Quebec City part 2...

Carl Van Roon and Luke Thompson (the legs) entertaining the troops on the 2 1/2 hour + bus trip to Quebec City.

Ok you action picture starved kiwis back home... I've found a random WiFi internet connection in the local shopping mall so I'm getting my fix with a strong coffee and pictures uploading now. I'll write more details about our very interesting trip up here yesterday over the next half an hour... mean time, here are some pictures...

ZZZzzz....

This little brainteaser is intended to let you pick a time of day in NZ and see the equivalent in Canada. As it hits midnight here in NZ, the sun is coming up over our crew breakfasting in Quebec.
The greater part of the day there is nighttime for us, but the plus is that over breakfast in NZ we should be able to read some reports of their activities up til their mid-afternoon.
As Doug Hanna has demonstrated, the combination of current Web Blogs and cellphones with decent screens and text capability means he can send mini-reports direct to the web-page. (reduces the pressure on the Home Editor a tad :o)

During the NZ days, I am hopeful that I will also have received tidbits by text and email from team members to give the news-hungry audience something to go on with.

Then at the end of your day, you will have the main daily reports...

In a few hours, the team will be waking up to their Sunday. They have four days until competition starts on their Thursday morning. (round midnight NZ time Thursday night)

We made it to Quebec City

After getting up at 3am this morning, we have arrived at our rooms at the university 21 hours later at 00.30am!
Fair to say we are shattered.
I'm a bit grumpy after organising, paying for and double checking that my room would have internet access setup and it doesn't work. Grrr.
So no photos able to be uploaded from today and just this short message from my mobile phone.
It is hot tonight.
Now for some sleep?

from Master McPhail in Quebec

Hey NZ. We have finally arrived (Masters Davidson, McPhail, and Mr & Mrs Rimmer travelled more directly than the team).
Took up over 30 hours with all the stop overs!
Trick is now to stay awake another 3 or 4 hours till we hit the sack.
Spending the time taking in the old city - nice. Not seen the team yet.

From Carl van Roon in LA

Just taking this little break to send out a quick email! Not much time!

It's 3.30am here and our team and support unit are all just waking up to catch our flight out to Canada from LA - the team is gradually shuffling into the foyer... a few tired looking faces - moans of desire for coffee and more time to sleep are heard every now and then...
I imagine it must've been something of a challenge for most of our contingent to even consider rousing themselves from their comfortable hotel beds after yesterday: a group of 12 or so senior competitors including myself thought we'd make the most of our time here in LA by jettin down to Hollywood Blvd in a private shuttle.

You'll have to ask us about our crazy driver Steve sometime - needless to say he wasn't the most politically correct of characters which made for a pretty "sweet ride" to the walk of fame (you know - the one with all the gold hollywood stars along the footpath.
Even got a shot of Chuck Norris Star for his No.1 NZ fan... or was that impersonator? - Cam Snelling... )

Anyhow hollywood was good and now it's pretty much time for us to catch our flight - getting pretty busy down in the foyer now. Looks like it's time to check out.

To French Canada we go! - Bon voyage!
Kia kaha.

Carl

A little background...

Flag of Canada		Flag of Quebec City
Canada has a population of around 33 million, in 10 million square kilometers (compared to NZ's 4 million people in 1/4 million square kilometers). Quebec City is one of the oldest cities in North America, with a population of about 1/2 a million (a little more than Wellington) Wellington saw its first Europeans round 170 years ago, (about 800 years after the explorer Kupe). Quebec City was founded 400 years ago, originally under French domain. This heritage can be seen in the ITF Quebec website - it's in French.