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These last two days have just seemed to melt together. Yesterday (which is my Thursday), there was a Dragon Boat Festival that several of the hostel patrons decided to attend. Some left quite early and then the rest of us left about 1.5 hours later. The festival was outside Beijing, so we had to take a bus (Bus #919) to get to the location. So, we took a taxi to the place where the buses were located for this special event. I've put several pictures to show you the crowd that had gathered. A bus was leaving every 5 minutes or so. I think this is more of a bedroom community - where the people live outside, i.e., a suburb, and take a bus into town (Beijing) everday to go to work. Anyway, the travel time was about 1.5 hours and went very close the the Great Wall - in fact we could see the Great Wall from the window. It was an overcast, cloudy day and spitted rain throughout the entire event. I had a light jacket and between 5 of us, we had one umbrella.

Once we got off the bus, we "hiked" to the lake and started to ask questions regarding where the event was held. We were advised that most of the races had taken place in the morning, but the winners of those races would be racing this afternoon. I still had no idea of the type of "races" anyone was talking about - I had pictured in my mind a lake full of little boats that floated downstream - like we would see in a movie or something. No one else knew what to expect either.

After about a 3 mile hike, we located where the boats would be racing -- there are actually five boats in one race and about 8 men rowing them. So, it was a competition (between universities, I think) about which group could row the fastest. As you see, I managed to get some pictures of the boats as they came across the finish line. Notice, the front part of the boat is fashioned after a dragon.

What was interesting is the amount of people who were there. We were a bit early and had to wait over an hour for the races to begin. I don't know what was more the center of attention - the boat races or the foreigners (us). People stared and one small boy came over and began talking to me. He was so shy, but his mother pushed him over and made him begin to speak English. He was in the eighth grade and had been learning English for six years.

What is more amazing is that a matriarch invited me to sit next to her. I didn't know it at the time, but it was such an honor to be invited. She asked me my age and when I told her, she said I was still very young. She was 74. We talked a bit (using an interpreter). We discussed our children and grandchildern. It seemed to make her very happy talking to me and it also seemed to please the whole crowd who was taking our picture.

After the boat races, the walked the three miles back to catch the 1.5 hour-long bus ride home and decided to walk to the subway and take it home instead of hiring a taxi. Subways equal stairs and more stairs and more stairs. By this time I was quite tired and my feet hurt and my back hurt. I had changed shoes, so my back was not as sore as before, which made it easier to feel our sore my feet were -- and knees -- did I mention stairs? A lot of stairs. My back hurts (although not quite as bad), my feet hurt and my knees hurt. My knees are stiff -- you know the feeling - after you've had a long workout and worked out too long? That stiff feeling. We walked another 2 maybe 3 miles to the subway, from the subway to the hostel. And, I managed to make it up the stairs to the first floor where I could get the elevator to take me to my room, which is on the third floor.

We made it home around 8:00ish -- the rest of the group decided to go out to eat -- I made it up to my room and collapsed. I didn't have the energy to put needles in my knees - although they needed it terribly. It was all I could do to make it to bed. Oh, the group that was supposed to join us? The got on the bus that stoped at every stop possible (ours was an express bus). They were about 1.5 hours behind us. How funny was that?

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