On Tuesday May 15, after a thunder storm delay, we left
Okinawa for Beijing China arriving to our hotel at 1:30am. We were up bright and early the next day (and
every day!) to tour with the other race participants staying at our hotel. This group from all around the world is who
we spent the whole week touring with our lovely guide Sunny. Most of our time was spent near/around
Beijing the northern capital which has a population of 10 million with another
10 million who “float”/work in the city! We saw so many beautiful places during
our time in China, but I might bore you if I talk too much about each place, so
I have listed all of the tour locations we saw during the week below.
- Tian An Men Square – largest public square in the world
- Forbidden City – largest imperial palace ever built -more than 800 buildings and 9,000 rooms.
- Temple of Heaven – Emperors from Ming & Qing dynasties worshiped heaven here
- Silk Exhibition Hall – saw reeling of silk from cocoons
- Cloisonne Factory – saw artists creating and painting beautiful works of art
- Sacred Road – leads to the entrance of the Changling – tomb of Emperor Yongle – 24 life size stone creatures line the roadway
- Chang Tomb of the Ming Tombs – the largest and best preserved of the Ming tombs – Hall of Eminent Favor
- The Summer Palace – built as a summer retreat for royal families – after walking through the extensive gardens and buildings we took a dragon boat ride across the lake back to the beginning of the park
- Pearl Exhibition Hall – learned about different pearls and how to tell if they are real
- Beijing Zoo – we only visited the Panda section of the zoo
- Olympic Game 2008 Bird’s Nest Stadium
- Chinese Tea Ceremony
The Main Event
– the foremost reason we went to China
was to do the Great Wall Half Marathon.
Two days prior to the race all participants take the 2 ½ hour drive from
Beijing to the section of the Wall that we will be running on. After a one hour briefing at the square,
buses drive us to the wall entrance. On
race day we all have to run the 3 miles up the mountain to the start of the wall,
but on inspection day they are kind enough to drive us there! We spent almost 3 hours on the wall that day –
taking photos and talking to all the participants – the views were Amazing! There are several spots on the wall that are
single file that were logged jammed both on inspection day and unfortunately on
race day too. On race day our bus left
the hotel at 3:30am to drive back to the wall.
We are tired, but excited to do the race. By this time we have made great friends with
everyone in our group and it is a special bonding time for all of us throughout
race day to cheer for each other along the route. The race starts at 7:30am and we are off –
running the first three miles up the mountain was tough – but surprisingly for
those of you who know how much I hate running hills – it was easier than
expected. (I think I have all the hills
in Okinawa to thank for that). It took
us 45 minutes on the wall – which is longer than we had hoped but many sections
we had to wait to pass and walk because of those in front of us. All of the stairs were actually pretty easy
for us after so much stair work training we did leading up to the race. After coming down the goat path, we ran the
wall surrounding the square and pass through the square (finish line area) to
head into the little villages. This is
when we have the most fun high-fiving all the locals and stopping to get photos
with them along the way. The terrain at
this point has become pretty rough as we are on dirt surfaces through fields,
dried up river beds, and alley ways through the village. The locals are out on race day to support the
runners and many help with the water stations along the course. The locals carried 15,000 water bottles onto
the wall for race day. The day proved to
be extremely hot and we had to drink so much water along the course. We crossed the finish line with a respectable
3:07 time. We spent the afternoon with
others from our group cheering and at one point Jake actually went back up on
the wall to check on our one teammates who was struggling with the
marathon. The winner of the marathon was
in our group – Luis Alonso from Spain with a time of 3:39. The day after the race there was a huge Gala
Event for all 2,300 race participants with an extensive buffet and entertainment.
We saw the craziest transportation scenarios with
pedestrians, bike, cars, buses, etc all turning at once at major
intersections. We had some really good
food, some crazy spicy, and some not so good food in China. Although it took us awhile, we were able to
find Diet Coke for me as well. We had
many people hound us on the streets to buy everything from postcards to Rolex
watches. But we both agree that the
group of wonderful people from all over the world was the best part of our trip
to China. We have made so many new
friends and they helped to make our trip to China the delight that it was. We took almost 3,000 photos on our trip - I have selected one or two from each location to share with you and full albums are on my facebook page. Later this week I will post about week two in Thailand.
Until then,
Natasha and Jake
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