In June I was in China again. Yantai, a beach resort town one hour flying South-East of Beijing. Remember that the Chinese search engines only returned Abingdon in the UK when I tried to locate a MG dealer the last time I was in China? This time I Googled it before I left. That worked a lot better and I found a dealer in town. I saved the link to their website, with the address on my iPad, so that I could take a look in their showroom. I was even dreaming of a test ride in one of their sporty passenger vehicles. Unfortunately we stayed in one of the strangest hotels I’ve seen. It was originally only for the government, probably for political party meetings and conventions - six large building in a fenced compound with a police station at the gate. One of the buildings was opened this year for non-government guests, mainly company meetings etc. The rooms were very luxurious and a there were a lot of very large meeting spaces. Most of the entire complex was empty as we were the only corporate event and there was no political or government event either. Without car park, real lobby, restaurant or coffee shop, it was almost a ghost hotel. There was not even a bar and no English at all. And no WiFi to retrieve the MG dealer address from my iPad. Again no MG dealer visit. But while walking through town, we saw several MG’s, similar to the ones in Shanghai and Beijing during my last trip. But these two looked a little different.

The yellow car (the above-right picture) has a map painted on the roof and the hood. It looked much like the map of the London subway system. It made me think of a Mini with the Union Jack on the roof. Also note the MG license plate.

The white car was a little bit larger and sported gold MG octagons on the grill and on the trunk. With the black roof it looked a little bit like a Toyota Corolla - dealer equipped with a fabric fake soft top and the gold livery.

Hopefully I will make it to China once more to visit a dealer ship. Three is a charm!

~~ Reinout Vogt       

(Continued from page10)

Peninsula of Michigan (your handy fact for the day). Nabbing a National forest, getting briefly lost in White Cloud, seeing a peacock in the wild, and getting our fill of dirt roads, we pointed Steve's trusty GT along the coast, passing through Ludington on our way to Muskegon. After a filling lunch of a few handfuls of nuts and a granola bar each, it started getting late, so navigator Steve came up with the brilliant idea of using the SatNav to look for a few more churches and/or schools to bag before the punchy driver, yours truly, high-tailed it back to Grand Rapids.

We arrived back at HQ with mere minutes to spare. At which points we dice were rolled to find the "multiplier" which each team’s categories would be multiplied by. Afterwards, it was decided Team A.S.B.O. wasn't very fond of the multiplier principal.

None the less, we finished a respectable 3rd place! Upholding the Chicagoland MG Club's, now, 2-year long reign of 3rd place finishes! Wait until next year!

~~ Steve Skegg & David Novak