Wed Aug 13 -- going jogging

Today, we started out fresh with energy to “do it all”. First, we went out jogging in the morning. Our hotel and our location appear to be in a location where not many foreign tourists stay, which is great. Our jog lasted almost an hour, and I think we saw two Caucasian people the whole time (versus tens of thousands of Chinese). The map looked like we were pretty close to Tiannemen Square, so we asked our hotel attendants how to get there and began our run. The main street was full of small Chinese shops of all types of merchandise, services, and food. It was a great way to see a slice of Beijing while we ran. The attendant told us “just three lights” – those lights were pretty far apart. By the time we approached the third light, we were no longer sure whether we had understood the directions correctly or not. We stopped at a huge intersection with massive buildings lining the street on all four sides – but looked down all directions and couldn’t see a logical place where we thought the buildings would stop and a massive square would begin. So we turned back and ran home, knowing we had time yet to find Tiannemen. The humidity, however, was a different story. We were soaked and dripping. We had to walk for 15 minutes just to cool down enough that we could walk in the hotel lobby. We then showed and got ready for the rest of the day.