During the trip, other activities will be organized together with the groups. This include sightseeing in Beijing, longer sightseeing trips (possibly to Shanghai or Xian) and other social activities.

A trip to China should not be only about playing go. Beijing has a great cultural heritage, and China has almost every possible landscape type you can imagine, diverse food culture, and lost of places listed on World cultural heritage lists.

A traditional Chinese temple

Therefore, we try to arrange a number of excursions and events (on average, at least one excursion or event per week) in addition to the regular scheduled go lessons. This gives the participants a chance to relax, as well as to get to know each other better.

Acrobatic performance

The trips we have arranged in previous years include:

• Day trips to the great wall (more than 5 different sections, often those not so well known by tourists)
• Day trips to the major sightseeing spots in Beijing: The Summer Palace, The Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven
• Weekend trip to the Shaolin temple near Luoyang, with opportunities to play go at the local go clubs
• Weekend trips to the seaside (Beidaihe) with opportunities to go swimming and sightseeing

We have also helped participants with bookings or arranged trips to Shanghai and Xian. The organizers have a lot of experience with travel in China, so if you are interested in seeing more of China as part of the trip, we are usually able to help you with bookings, arrangements, and advice.

The activities arranged include:

• Basic Chinese lessons (organized every year)
• Taichi lessons
• Chinese painting

Taichi training, 2005

We have also considered organizing basic lessons in Chinese culture or Chinese cooking; you can sign up for these activities when registering, and if enough people are interested, we will arrange them.

Social activities that we have arranged include karaoke, acrobatic shows, dinners and other night-time activities.

2008 is also an Olympic year in Beijing, so there will be a lot of actitivities planned in Beijing around the Olympic Games. We plan to have the trip overlap with the Olympic Games for at least one week, so that the participants who want can experience some of the Olympic spirit.

For those of you who are interested in staying longer, there will be a Mind Games Olympiad organized in Beijing in September/October, with go as one of the 5 games represented.