World Women's 9Ball Championships Shenyang China
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas & may 2010 bring you all you could possibly wish for.
Back in mid 2009 I found out I had a spot to the World Women’s 9Ball Championships in Shenyang, China in November. Well if you could have seen me when I found this out you would have seen a crazy woman jumping around her lounge room. I was so excited as China was a country I had always hoped to visit. The next few weeks were spent with endless hours of research of where to go & what to see. This was not only going to be a trip to play pool but also a sightseeing adventure with my BFF my Mum.
We decide to fly into Shanghai & out of Beijing. We would only have 1 ½ days in Shanghai but we figured it was better to see a little than to see none at all. In Beijing we had 4 ½ days which we knew would be a rush to try & fit everything in.
As the time was getting closer it seemed like departure day would never arrive, I think this was due to how excited we were. My days were very busy with fitting in a few hours practice, going to the gym & looking after my family.
Finally on Saturday 14th November it was time to go. We left at 3pm Adelaide time & 18 hours later we finally arrived in Shanghai.
As this could be a once in a lifetime trip we decided to splurge on our hotels instead of staying in the usual run of the mill places. We arrived at our hotel Radisson New World approximately 8am & were very surprised to be able to check in. This was much appreciated after flying all night. Our 1st port of call was to a food street to get some Breakfast. 9am may have been too early for Pork Dumplings but they were best I have ever eaten. Next we had a little rest before heading out to Remnin Park & a visit to the Shanghai Museum. After here we headed over to Pudong & walked amongst the many skyscrapers. By this time it was dark so we headed to a restaurant for Huangpu River & Bund night views. After a delicious meal we went back to the hotel for a well deserved rest after being up for around 40 hours.
Next morning we headed to the Yu Yuan Gardens. Unfortunately for us it rained all day we kept as dry as we could & had a great morning. We then attempted to find our way back to the hotel & stumbled across some great cheap bargains. We decided we needed to have a rest before going to watch the famous Shanghai Acrobats. What an amazing show, it was definitely the highlight of Shanghai.
Tuesday 17th was our last morning in Shanghai so we went across from our hotel to Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition. This is amazing, a massive scale model of what the government envisage Shanghai to look like in 2020.
We got up early next morning, went to breakfast & then went back to the practice tables for another hit. After this we decided to go to the Imperial Palace. Shenyang used to be the Ancient Capital of China. This was very interesting, I’m not sure of the weather but it was below zero & this made us cut the visit short. Getting a cold the day before the tournament would not have been much fun. It was then time to go get a few supplies at a Supermarket & then back to the Hotel to get ready for the Press Conference.
What an occasion this was. There were so many TV & Press Camera’s, everywhere you looked the room was full of them. The draw was done at this stage. Surprise surprise I drew Jasmin Ouschan from Austria. I think out of the 5 World Titles I had now played Jasmin in 3. After the draw it was time to have a Welcome Banquet, Drinks & a 20 course meal, with a small Acrobatic show as the entertainment. This was quite an event that we got to attend.
Finally the day of the tournament Thursday 19th November.
Playing Jasmin is always a daunting task but I felt if I could start out strong, keep her under pressure & bring my best game to the table that maybe just maybe I had a slight chance.
I did start out well winning the 1st game, then Jasmin won the 2nd, I won the next & Jasmin then won the 4th. Score 2-2. I felt quite confident with my game but alas it just was not good enough. From then on Jasmin stepped up a gear & all of a sudden the match was over with a 7-2 score line in her favour. I was reasonably happy with how I played & appreciated Jasmin’s comments after the match about how she thought my game had improved over the last couple of years.
It was now time to head outside, play in the snow for the first time in my life & regroup before my next match. Minus degrees is very cold LOL so I didn’t stay out for long. 
At 7.30 it was time for my 2nd game against Erin McManus USA. I was hoping I would be able to reproduce the form I had against Jasmin. If that happened I was confident I would win this match.
By 7.45 Erin still had not appeared so the Head Referee & his Interpreter came to me & declared my match a Walkover. We later found out she had slept in. I was in 2 different minds about this result, 1 was relieved to still be in the tournament & 1 match away from the prize money but I was most disappointed that I didn’t get any table time or an extra match under my belt. Thems the breaks I guess.
As we were preparing to leave the venue for the night the volunteers where telling us to make sure we rug up before going outside. It did feel rather cold but it wasn’t until we got back to the hotel that we knew why. Thermometer was showing -19. Bbrr no wonder it felt so cold. :-P
Day 2 Friday 20th Today was going to be the biggest day of my Pool Career to date. I had 1 chance to qualify for the last 32 & make the Single Elimination stage.
I was playing Angeline Ticoalu Indonesia’s No1. It was an extremely nerve racking match. I started this match very slowly. 0-2 down. Then I managed to win 4 racks in a row to go 4-2 up. The score was 5-4 after we had both missed 1 simple 9 each & I managed to win the last 2 racks to come out the eventual winner 7-4. In the last frame I had a fairly simple run out, my toughest shot was from the 4-5 if I got the correct position all I had to do was stun the next 3 balls. I’m not sure if you could see me shaking but I sure was on the inside. I don’t think I have ever felt so nervous. My stomach was churning so I took a bit of extra time & had a few deep breaths to try & control my emotions. It must have worked as I landed perfectly on the 5. From there it was a simple finish but under the amount of pressure I was feeling it was the toughest finish I have ever had to do. It was such a relief to have finally won. This was definitely the biggest win of my life.
It was now time to wait around for all of the matches to finish so the Last 32 draw could be done.
The 16 players on the Winner’s side were seeded which meant the 16 players on the loser’s side would play a winner. I drew Shu Pin Gao from Taiwan. I knew this meant an extremely tough match as all Taiwanese players are very good. I was scheduled to play at 9.30pm so it was now time to head back to the hotel for some rest.
I went into my Last 16 match feeling very relaxed which at the time I thought was great. How wrong that turned out to be. I played terrible. I missed 4 easyish shots in the 1st 6 racks & was 6-0 down. I ended up losing 9-3. I did have some chances which I didn’t take advantage of. However I did only have 5 chances in the match. Shu Pin played great. She did not miss many shots at all.
I learned a lot about myself in this match & I am looking forward to putting those things into play at my next tournament.
I was very happy with how I handled the extreme pressure I felt at times. It felt great to win a match of such importance against a world class player.
Now it was time to sit back, relax & enjoy watching the finals.
Congratulations to Shasha Liu 16yo from China who defeated Karen Corr from Ireland in the final 9-5.
Monday 22nd it was now time to go to Beijing for 5 nights & enjoy some sightseeing with my BFF my Mum.
We arrived at our hotel the Park Plaza Wangfujing around 12pm & once again were pleasantly surprised to get an early check in. We had some room service for lunch & then went for an orientation walk around our hotel. What a great area. Right above a subway stop & 5 min walk from the shopping area.
Our 1st major destination was Tiananmen Square. How enormous was this place. It was late afternoon so we decided to stay & watch the Flag Lowering Ceremony. What an occasion. Must’ve been at least 50 guards who marched across the road from Forbidden City to come & escort the flag to its home for the night. There would’ve been 1000’s of people crammed in to watch this ceremony, which happens twice a day at Sunrise & Sunset. After this we slowly started to walk back to the Hotel as it was dark & becoming quite cold. We had also been up very early & had a big day ahead visiting the Great Wall.
We chose to go to the Great Wall at Mutianyu which is a bit further from Beijing than Badaling but that makes it have less tourists. It also has a Cable Car up to the top which after climbing stairs to the Car we were very grateful for & a fun Toboggan ride to come down. We spent approximately 3 hours walking along the wall. It was fairly easy for most of the way except for the steep section towards the end. All the time I had spent on the Stepper at the gym didn’t help 1 little bit :-P this has to be 1 of the best sights I have ever seen. It was breathtaking & hard to imagine how tough it would have been to build especially after seeing the steepness of the mountains around it.
We were all quite apprehensive about the Toboggan ride but we shouldn’t have been. It was a great 15 minutes of fun & my only wish was that I could’ve gone down faster. Even my Mum had a ball.
It took about an hour to get back to Beijing & we drove past the Olympic Park. The Water Cube looked great all lit up & changing colours. From there we headed to Donghuamen Night Market where I was brave enough to try Silk Worms & Scorpions. My advice is don’t bother with the Silk Worms they were all mushy & had a horrible taste. The Scorpions were ok, just crunchy & salty. I had a few people watching me eat them which was a bit of extra fun. Phew that was a very long day so we went back to the hotel for an early night ready to take on our next full day of sightseeing.
On our 3rd day we went to explore the Forbidden City also known as the Imperial Palace. This place is massive we spent around 2 hours & wouldn’t have even covered a 1/3 of it. Part of the problem on this day was how cold it was. My nose felt like it was frozen. It was roughly 4 degrees our coldest day in Beijing. It was interesting to see how the Emperor & his staff lived. Had the weather been better I could’ve easily spent the whole day there.
Next we headed to a restaurant to try Peking Duck. I don’t know what I expect this to taste like but it was nothing like I expected. LOL. It was nice but not as tasty as I thought it would be. We also had some other dishes that were good.
Having filled out tummies & warmed our bodies we went to the Temple of Heaven. This is where the people would come to pray to the Gods for a good harvest. This place has an extremely long corridor where the local people come to play cards, sing opera, play games & in general just hang out with their friends. It was lively & very fun to watch.
After this we headed to our last stop for the day, the crazy Pearl Markets. This market is full of fake handbags, shoes, clothes etc. Don’t forget heaps of pearls. It was fun haggling with them for prices & also seeing other people doing the same. It was very hot inside & we were tired from our long day so we stayed about 1 hour then headed back to the hotel for the night.
On our 4th day we decided to have a much deserved sleep in. We got up around 11 went & got some food before meeting our tour guide to take us to the Hutong Tour. This is where we hopped into a Rickshaw & were ridden around a local neighbourhood. We got to go into a local’s home & have tea with them. After this I climbed the very steep steps up to the top of the Bell Tower. This gave me a good view of the surrounding area.
From there we headed to Jingshan Park for a bird’s eye view of the Forbidden City. It was hard to see how big it actually is due to the Smog & low cloud but you got a rough idea of its enormity.
This is where we got dressed up in some traditional clothes & had our touristy photos taken.
By now it was starting to get dark & quite cold so we went back to Wangfujing area & found a Sizzlers Restaurant. It was great to finally eat some western food after a few days.
Our 5th day was to be our last & we had saved the Summer Palace for this day. We caught the Metro out to it rather than risk being stuck in traffic in a taxi. It took around 40mins & was so cheap. When we got outside we couldn’t believe what we saw. The sky was actually blue& the sun was shining. It’s amazing to find such a difference in the air only a 40 minute train ride from the city. Finally clean air to breathe. This day turned out to be the best day we had spent in Beijing & I can see why so many Beijingers flock to the Summer Palace.
It was beautiful the buildings were great, the parks were great & the lake was great. We got to sit & enjoy a few cultural shows that would have been shown to the Emperors all those years ago. We took some lunch with us & enjoyed a picnic in the sun overlooking the lake. It was a very relaxing & enjoyable day.
We left Summer Palace & caught the metro back to the city & decided we would take a closer look at the Olympic Park. We saw the Bird’s Nest & Watercube along with a number of interesting sculptures. 
By now we were back into the Smog & the views were not so great. It was also early evening & the Park is very open so gets very cold. We had a group of young people looking at us & laughing & I wondered what they were up to. Then 1 of the boys approached me & asked if he could have his photo taken with me. His friends were still laughing. I obliged & we came to the conclusion that they had dared him to come over & ask. We left there with big smiles.
Our very last stop in Beijing was to go to the famous Ghost street for dinner. This is a street that has lots of red lanterns along it. It mainly has Schezuan Restaurants which have very spicy food.
We managed to find a restaurant with an English Menu but they did not speak any English. We did get many stares as we were the only Western people there, but it was full of Chinese people so we think we made a good choice.
Mum can’t eat any spicy food but we did find a few dishes that she could have. I decided on a Spicy Prawn dish & Mum had Chicken along with some spring rolls & fried rice. These were all delicious choices & my Prawns were very Spicy. Luckily I ordered a Large Coke but was still surprised when I was given a 1.25 Litre bottle. This made us laugh a lot. I was a bit concerned about the cost of our food as it is hard to work out when it’s written in Chinese but I shouldn’t have worried it all came to around $25AU. I couldn’t believe how cheap it was in such a nice restaurant. Back home in Australia my meal alone would’ve been more than that. I just had to hope the spicy food wouldn’t be causing any problems the next day. LOL. Now back to the hotel to finish packing & get to bed ready to get up early for our flight home.
WOW what a trip of a lifetime. Firstly to go to a City with more people in it than my entire Country, then to a very cold City for my best ever result in a Tournament & then to Beijing withl its 1000’s of years of culture & all done with my Best Friend Forever my Mum.
My only wish for this trip was that the weather would have been warmer. Oh well there’s always this year, hopefully!!!!! :-D
Til next time
Keep potting
