Mark’s Writings, the Marathon & Beijing:

Susan and I took advantage of the opportunity to tour Beijing, while we were nearby, running the Great Wall marathon. We took the new high speed train from Shanghai to Beijing. Yep, the same train that had the disastrous collision a few months back…didn’t tell Susan about that until we returned from our trip. The train zips along at about 190 miles per hour, smooth and quite. It’s almost 5 hours to Beijing. It takes a couple hours to get out of the densely populated area surrounding Shanghai. The countryside turns agricultural; every acre that’s flat is a rice field. Interesting that nearly every field had at least one person tending to it. There are some roads, but they’re only wide enough for walking or biking. Quite a contrast from Shanghai.  But, just like Shanghai (and all of China, I think), it is clear that the common, majority of people are working hard to earn only a very basic living with no help from modern resources. The industrial revolution doesn’t seem to have benefitted common Chinese people.
The Marathon was a couple hours bus ride east of Beijing, near Jixian. We did a required marathon course walk-through Thursday at the wall. We walked about 2 miles of the wall that afternoon. We met runners from all over the world. We traveled with the same bus-load of people throughout the week. We met a 70+ year-old from South Africa, who has nearly completed his collection of marathons on every continent (he’s wait-listed for Antarctica). We met a couple from Slovakia who run 20+ marathons per year, everywhere in the world. They’re fast! They both passed me at mile 22, while they were just coming up to speed, and I was near collapse. We met runners from everywhere…except Asia!

The race was a fantastic experience. About ¼ of the course is on the Wall. The Wall, and the mountains and rural villages were a great course. It took me almost 5 hours to run this thing. The hills and the wall are quite a challenge.
The day before the race, we took a bus tour to the Qing dynasty tombs.

We learned, again (and often in China), the saga (tragedy) of the Chinese emperor dynasties. From Qin to Qing, there were 557 emperors. Emperors with multiple wives, dozens of children, building the Great Wall to keep out the Mongolians&Manchurians, years of starvation, ruling class atrocities over the common people…it’s enough to make communism look good. Maybe that’s why communism still hangs on here. Susan, a child of the Cold War, suspected the Wall was to keep the Chinese IN (still a valid theory).

The day after the race we went back to Beijing and toured Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Tiananmen Square.  Kind of an awkward moment when western'ers quizzed our tour guide about the '89 Tiananmen Square Massacres.  Like most Chinese, they won't remember something they never knew happened.  She pointed out that every morning there is a mile long line to see Mao's tomb. 

Below is a picture of us in Tiananmen Square with the gate of the Forbidden City in the background: 

Guards in Tiananment Square:

The Forbidden City is very well preserved. There are many courtyards and ornate buildings inside the walls of the forbidden city:

 
 
 
 

The male lion has the world under his front paw, while the matching female lion has a child under her front paw.  So, men can try to control the world, but women control mankind.

Our tour group had a very good Chinese dinner, including Peking Duck, which was ceremoniously prepared.  Any direction you travel from Shanghai, the food gets better.