Hangzhou Marathon

Hello again!

So, it's been a crazy couple of days. I'll start at the beginning, I'm told it's a very good place to start.

Last week ended on a pretty good note. Teaching on Friday consisted of coloring... and who doesn't love coloring. (some Chinese four year olds don't, but that's moot) They colored in teapots to correspond with teaching them to sing and dance to 'I'm a little teapot.' It was super cute. *pics above*

Then, I headed out to the train station to grab tickets for Seth and I to go to Hangzhou on Saturday morning. We stayed for study, but because the power didn't get fixed, we ended up canceling it. Oh, well! The evening was then concluded by going for dinner with Shaw, and watching the Great Gatsby. I've never read the book (and I'm thinking I should) but the movie was alright. I enjoyed the settings and costumes. But, I've strayed from the point.

Saturday morning our train ended up being late, and we waited an extra hour at the train station. But as a perk we got some snacks on the train. Yay! Once in Hangzhou, we met up with our people. There are  10 or so HZ-ers (Hangzhou-ers), 6 of us SX-ers (Shaoxing-ers) and then 4 from Wuhan, and 7 from Shanghai. Oh, and Tony's parents were there and Chuck another visitor. It was a good group. We went out to visit the tea fields and they were just wonderful. Nothing super specific to see or do, but we walked through a little town and climbed up into the tea plants. The clouds (pollution) was low so it made the mountains/hills disappear into the mist. Very cool. *pics above*

Then, we had ch.rch at 5 and one of the HZ Chinese friends was washed. My first one here, and it was quite the sight. Also, because there were so many Americans the sound was awesome, we even had one a cappella song.

Then, (not to diminish the importance of the last activity) we went out for MEXICAN!! Now, when I'm at home I do not go out for real Mexican all that often - but the concept of non-chinese food is just so wonderful. For those of you who are in America, I don't know if you realize the wonderfulness of being able to choose between Western, Chinese, Mexican, Greek and other ethnic foods.... I mean even the choices of Panera, Culvers, Taco Bell, and Panda Express. Everything here is of a singular background. I'm not complaining (yet) because I love all of it so far. But going out for Mexican was great. I had some nachos with shredded chicken and a strawberry margarita. And yes, it was de-lish!!! After dinner we went back to the Flying H (the girls apartment) and played games with friends. Fun times had by all.

Sunday morning was an early one. We were up at 6 and out by 640 or so. We met the boys and headed for the starting line of the 2013 Hangzhou International Marathon. Two of our friends, Nate and Hannah, ran the full, and two of our friends, Jen and Dan, ran the half. I didn't see them before the race started but we saw all the runners start, and gave high fives to a whole bunch of Chinese runners and clapped and cheered and made noise. =) Then, I got coffee with Tony's parents while we waited for Tony to meet the landlord of Zion (still no power). A quick taxi ride to the finish line, and we waited for Nate. We missed Dan and Jen finish, but they both did well and finished under the times they wanted. Whoo! Nate came it just about 3 hours. He was very focused as he came to the last half kilometer but gave us a little fist pump as we cheered loud. He set a new personal best I think... He's pretty awesome. Then about 45 minutes later came time for Hannah. We cheered and hollered again, and ushered her to the finish. She finished about 4 hours and was happy with it.

Then, I went with some of the guys to get Cold Stone ice cream. They all biked along with the marathoners so they were going to bike back to the apartment. I got some directions and set off for home on my own. And believe it or not, I 'china' pretty well. (china: verb; to be native in China successfully) Made it back and then Seth and I headed out for the train station. We wanted to get home before the busses in SX stopped running. Well, we got to the subway station that takes us to the train station and got a phone call.... All train tickets to SX sold out. Internal monologue at this moment went like this: Well, shooooot! We headed back and stayed the night, caught an early train this morning and made it back in time to teach at 9. Whew....

Needless to say, "I'm so ti-ard"

And that folks is a not so typical weekend in China. We'll do it all over again, sorta, in a month when we go to Shanghai for the marathon there.

Until next time.