The sprint WRE race was held in the Old Summer Palace (圆明园). The terrain was mainly open, but there were impassable bodies of water separating various areas requiring the use of bridges between. At the beginning of the race, I couldn’t match the map and the terrain quickly and wasted a lot of time, and there were some little hills in the middle of the course where I couldn’t get on quickly and need time to recognise the shape. Also,…
Sprint race continued in Qinglonghu Park in conjunction with Beijing Students Orienteering Championships. After breakfast, we took a Fangshan taxi to the park. There were many participants in multiple classes in that race. I made minor mistakes and finished the race in 28 minutes and 36 seconds, while the winning time was 13 minutes and 46 seconds. After the race, we took a bus to Fengtai Dongdajie where we would be staying the following night.
After the middle distance race, we had a rest day. As there were no attractions in Fangshan, we went back to the city. We originally wanted to visit the Military Museum, but it was closed for renovation. We then visited the Capital Museum. It is a large museum with multiple floors, with free entry. We then went to Wangfujing, where I visited 7 years before as part of a family trip. However, it was uninteresting and we left after having…
The only middle-distance race in the series was held on day 4 in Qinglonghu Forest Park, which was a world ranking event. The hotel I was staying was near the long-distance bus station. I first took an express bus to Fangshan to meet my friend Eric Wong, and caught a taxi to the event centre. Qinglonghu Forest Park was a new place which wasn’t even on any maps I found. It is located in the region of the map below….
Day 3 was designated as the sightseeing day. I visited Nanluoguxiang, Tian’anmen, Zhongshan Park and China Railway Museum in order. As I stayed at a hotel in Nanluoguxiang the preceding night, Nanluoguxiang was the first place I visited. It is an old walled village from ancient times, with residents and schools inside. Afterwards, I visited Tian’anmen. Here is a standard photo taken there: Then I went to Zhongshan Park: Finally, I visited China Railway Museum. It introduced the railway history…
The opening ceremony was held the day after the first race in the National Swimming Centre (Water Cube). It was more direct to take a motorway bus than to take a train from Huairou to Beijing in order to transfer to there. After having lunch, I took the express bus 916 fast back to Beijing, which took about 45 minutes from Huairou to Beijing. That bus was very frequent, with departures in every 2 minutes. It was very popular to…
When I woke up in the morning, I received a message that my hotel booking on that night was cancelled because the hotel couldn’t accept foreigners. However, I ain’t a foreigner so I called the hotel for clarification. The hotel replied it could accept me, and I called Ctrip afterwards. Ctrip tried to recover my booking but it couldn’t because the refund was already made. I called the hotel again and was told to walk-in in the evening. The first…
After I arrived Beijing West, I bought a train ticket to Huairou, where I would be staying that night. I then had breakfast, bought a transport card, and took the metro to Tiantandongmen, about 1 km from Tiantan Hotel. The transport card costs CNY 20 as the deposit which can be refunded by returning it at designated stations, including the airport and train station. By using that card, 50% discount is applied on most bus travel, effectively making buses in…
Beijing O Week this year was held from 23 October to 31 October, in Beijing and surrounding areas, in conjunction with Park World China Tour. This was the first overseas (outside of Hong Kong – Macau – Guangdong) competition that I participated on my own (not as part of a federation / institution / team), the first international event where I arranged travel all by myself, and also the first overseas travel where I incorporated tourism into my trip for…
The second ranking event in October was held around Aberdeen Reservoir on 22nd October. This was a relatively long event with the expected winning time about 55 minutes. When I got the map, WTF?! 5.5 km with 6 CONTROLS ONLY?! This is just a cross-country run with route choices! IS THIS REALLY ORIENTEERING AT ALL??? I couldn’t finish this “cross-country run” within the time limit of 2 hours because I took a bad route choice. I attempted to go 1-A-B-3-C-D-2,…