Great Wall Marathon & Beijing in Magical Realism

If you couldn't tell from my last entry - I was on a total endorphin high after the marathon. It carried me through almost the rest of our trip! The city of Beijing and the Great Wall Marathon were definitely an interesting experience. The marathon itself is run by a Danish travel company, so even after a lot of research, the only way for non-China residents to register was to buy a package tour, which meant you had to do their hotel, sightseeing trips, food, transport, etc. The hotel was comfortable enough, but the location was not the most central and there was no air conditioning. The windows didn't open but even if they did, I don't think I would have opened them - the pollution in Beijing is no joke.

On Monday morning we were supposed to leave at 10am, but the flight was delayed until 3pm. I kind of appreciated the extra time to wrap up loose ends before we left, but then the flight was delayed again until 1:30pm the next day. They sent us to a hotel which make things a bit nicer. We were able to have lunch/dinner, use the hotel gym, shower, and hang out until heading out for the flight again. Everything after that went smoothly, although we lost our first night/day in Beijing, which included a tour of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. We got in on Wednesday instead, and didn't do much the first day but check in, walk around a bit, and go to sleep early.

The next day was inspection day for the marathon. We had breakfast buffet at the hotel, which was quite nice with lots of Western and local breakfast options. After breakfast we got on a bus, drove 3 hours to Huangyaguan where we were briefed at Yin-Yang Square and got to walk about 3 miles of the marathon course. It was a super hot day and kind of made me nervous for the run the next day. Pulling up to the Wall, the terrain was kind of intimidating!

But the whole area around the Wall is really beautiful. There are temples on the Wall itself and all around are rolling green hills and man-made lakes.

A was obviously very excited!

I was still kind of nervous but enjoying the scenery and sense of history. (That is me in the white hat - hope you like it because it's in basically every photo from this trip...I hate sun!)

After the walk we got back on the bus and went back to the hotel in Beijing. The people on this trip were very interesting. There were supposedly over 60 countries represented in terms of participants, but most of the people we met were teaching English in China, Korea, or Taiwan, or had various affiliations with the US military. Very weird bunch. Usually when we travel we meet great people and end up keeping in touch with a good amount of them, but there wasn't anyone we clicked with here. I wondered if if had something to do with getting on and off a bus all the time, being told when/where to eat...overall it was kind of frustrating. We had dinner at the hotel which was 8 dishes, served family style. It was decent, which was good because we then proceeded to have those same 8 dishes at pretty much every single lunch and dinner during the tour, even though we went to a different restaurant pretty much every meal!

Thursday we had the Cloisonne factory and Ming Tombs tour. I was not excited for the factory thing because I assumed it would be a sales/shopping type thing (we had a pretty funny experience with a tapestry store in Tangier once) but it was neat to watch them design/fire the enamel. The Imperial Tombs were really stunning. There was this incredible peaceful walkway leading up to the mausoleums, with beautiful weeping willow trees and different statues guarding the path. First there were animal statues, lions, xiezhi (mythical unicorn lion creature), camels, elephants, and kilin (imaginary dragon/ox like animal)! There were 4 of each type of animal - each statue was mirrored by an identical statue across the way, and each animal statue was represented both sitting and standing. (I asked our guide about this and he told me the animals became tired from guarding the way, and needed to sit down...I have not found any confirmation of this though! After the animals came different warrior figures, and then the different memorial archways, gates, and the tombs.

A with elephant friend!

Me with Mr. Ziehi (he is good luck and known to fight injustice by biting/ramming people who are in the wrong during arguments...next time you're pissed at someone just picture him coming to your aid and doing that to your adversary!)

Guardian creature at the Chang Mausoleum - maybe a relative of George Rodrigue's Blue Dog?

After the Mausoleum we took the bus back, then had our pre-race dinner at another hotel, which was supposed to be full of extra carbs, but in actuality was the same exact 8 dishes we'd been having the past few days. Blah. Walked back, went to sleep, then woke up at 3am for our 3:30am departure the next day. Picked up a breakfast box on the way out, which contained a muffin, two hardboiled eggs, and a pickle. Luckily they made a stop at a rest stop on the way there, so we each had a snickers bar. Excellent pre-marathon nutrition, I know.

We started in Yin-Yang Square again...a highlight of the pre-race waiting were port-a-potties that displayed how long each person had been inside on the outside of the cubicle! We like to time people in the port-a-let lines at the NYC Marathon, so this was an excellent innovation. Even so, we so loads of dudes PISSING on the Wall itself, right behind the toilets. Unbelievable.

Then it was time for our wave, we started with a lovely (horrible) 5k steep uphill to the Wall, then onto the Wall with lots of ups and downs. Each Wall section was about 2 miles I think. There were some backups on the first Wall section, mostly from people taking photos on single file stairs! Not cool - they also had the half marathoners mixed in with us which backed things up and they had a lot more time to finish before the time limit!

After we got down off the Wall the first time, we did a long loop of about 16 miles - this was all different terrain: well-trafficked roads full of cars and carts, but also mountain paths, and gravel trails. Lots of townspeople were watching from the roadside, and it was fun to see them. I was not a fan of people snapping photos of us (I was red and sweaty and gross as you can see here) but there were some sweet kids giving us flowers, very cute! The course was always changing which kept it interesting.

At about 20 miles in, you go back onto the Wall, and do the same section again, this time backwards. It was really rough. The steps are so steep, there are so many of them and it was mentally super-hard. The same section of only about 2 miles seemed to take forever. We saw so many people stopped, sitting, super out of it. I found it hard to keep going, but we just kept doing one step at a time until it was over. A went through some hard spots too, but luckily we did not hit bottom at the same time and so were able to motivate each other through.

One we reached the top, we had some downstairs and rolling stairs sections, which felt great on the legs. Then we were finally off the Wall and got to do that initial uphill 5k downhill this time which was glorious. After the downhill, there was one more (flat) mile and we were at the finish line!

Woohoo - DONE!

After we finished we hung out for a bit, cheered some other finishers on. There was a marriage proposal right after us - so funny, but makes for a good story I guess! A conked out on the bus ride home, but I was buzzing so I listened to music on my iPod, danced in my seat, and looked out the window. It was a loooong ride home in Beijing traffic. Showered, did dinner of cup noodle and wine, hung out for a bit, then went to sleep.

The next day we woke up around 7am local time, then went to breakfast. I didn't schedule anything for this day because I wasn't sure how we'd feel, but we felt good so we went for a nice long walk around town. Since we missed the group tour, we went to Tiananmen Square (big, kind of scary feeling, and TONS of security people and cameras.) Saw a few kids shit right on the ground, and noticed that many male children (up to the age of 9 or so I'd say) were wearing sweatpants with a slit cut into the crotch for easy elimination. I had read about this years ago, but always assumed it was a rural thing, and for younger children. The things you learn!

Then we walked up to the Forbidden City, which was much much nicer. There were still loads of people, but much calmer feeling. And water! And shade! There was a moat, and something like 1000 separate buildings within the walls. The City/Palace was the home of Chinese Emperors and government for over 500 years, and is now officially a museum for Imperial history and artifacts. Very beautiful place.

Here I am by the moat - please notice how top of picture is totally faded out...from the smog!

After the Forbidden City we walked up to the Bell and Drum Towers area to see some of the traditional Hutongs. The Hutongs are the traditional alleyway neighborhoods of China - basically enclosed pedestrian streets with tons of stores, restaurants, etc. These were teeming with people, food, shops. By this time it was close to lunchtime so as soon as we hit Nanluoguxiang, we ducked into Pass By Bar. This was a cute courtyard bar - we sat on the rooftop, had a beer and a bite and just enjoyed the shade. After being with the tour group for 4 days, it was great to do things at our own pace, eat what we wanted, go wherever we wanted. The downside is we ended up walking like 13 miles the day after a pretty intense marathon, but it was lovely. We walked back which was hot and tiring, but perked up after a shower and got ready to go out for the night.

Our guide told us the rest of the group was going to be late, so we went and had a drink at the hotel bar, 1918 Coffee House. I liked this place, it had a pretty courtyard (courtyards seem to be a big thing in Beijing) and the inside was Shanghai film noir style - lots of antiques, patterned furniture, and vintage photos of all the Chinese movie stars who had stayed at the hotel. After that we got on the bus and drove out to the Gala, which was right by the 2008 Olympic stadium (Bird's Nest) and natatorium (Aqua Cube.) It was pretty at night:

When we arrived at the Gala, we were greeted with champagne (yay!), and sat with our tour group yet again (bah.) The food was finally different from the 8 dishes we had been eating all week, so that was good. They played a video, announced all the winners, and people seemed in a festive mood. Overall it was a pretty good event!

(I never wear color but red seemed like it might bring us luck in China - it did!)

We went out for the official afterparty to the Sanlitun Bar Street and had some drinks on the terrace at Bar Blu. There was a cover band, which was completely bizarre, but funny to watch. Overall it was kind of underwhelming, we were both getting hit on by weird people and a mosquito bit me, so we left early. The girl who was hitting on A was a super-crazy Italian girl living in midtown NYC, so I am betting we will see her around somewhere. Very funny experience with a crazy but nice Beijing cab driver, and then home again. The next day we slept in and flew back to HK.

I will write about HK and Macau later - this one is long and picture laden enough!