Hanghzou International Marathon

Dear All,

Well, I wanted to post last weekend because Chase and I went on a long hike around the West Lake and saw some wonderful sights. We hiked around the western half and down the Su Causeway and found some interesting and beautiful spots. I took plenty of pictures but Chase has pretty much hijacked the camera and I don't have those pictures at the moment.

But I can tell you about this weekend. Our friend, Lisa, from Shanghai came on Saturday morning to stay in Hangzhou because she ran the Hangzhou 1/2 Marathon this morning. We spent most of the morning tidying up and I shopped for a few breakfast foods such as bread, honey, coffee, etc. so she could have something to eat before the run. She has run the Great Wall Marathon a couple of times as well as some other long races, so she's definitely in shape, but we just wanted to be good hosts. So when she arrived, we went to lunch and then got her registration packet. At the same time, I hoped to register, but unfortunately, it was all full or since I didn't already register online, I couldn't. I didn't understand the chinese they were speaking well enough.

So we went to an extremely long dinner at a restaurant called Valentino's last night. The food was well-prepared and I would go back, but by the time we got out, I was was falling asleep in the cab.

We woke up this morning and Chase and I decided to run the 6.8 km (mini-marathon, they called it) even though we weren't legally registered. Mind you, anything is possible in China. Sometimes you just play the "wai guo ren" card (foreigner card) and you have the rights to pretty much do anything. So we ran. Chase kept pace with me for the first 15 minutes and then took off at his speed for the rest of the 5kms or so. I had a great time running and I am proud that I didn't stop for the whole 6.8 kms. That is certainly a great accomplishment as I am not built to be a runner.

Lisa also finished the half-marathon in good time and we met up with her new guy who also lives in Shanghai. He just came in for the day. So we went to brunch. Going to brunch is a big deal in the ex-pat world of China and people make a huge fuss over it. But I'm ok with a little bit of gorging once a month especially when there's free-flow champagne (in our case, Proseco). We feasted and then took a stroll over to the banks of the West Lake before they had to catch their train back.

We hope to go to Shanghai during the Thanksgiving weekend and really eat at the Mother of all Brunches at the Westin-Shanghai. It's supposed to be intense. I can't hardly wait. We also might to go to Beijing to visit our friends there, so we'll keep you updated on what we decide to do.