This is our third and final day in China. It's been a whirlwind for Team Silver. This morning David, Emmanuel and I went with our guide Kelly and photographers Chris and Polly to the Great Wall of Badaling, just above the Shugin Gate. We arrived before 7:30 am and the Wall was already swarming with people, mostly Chinese and alot of school kids. We noticed that the Wall to the south was less populated than to the north and headed in that direction. We soon discovered why. The climb to the top was much steeper. In fact the steepness surprised us all. We huffed and puffed in the hot, humid and polluted air, jesting that we were getting in our hill and aerobic workouts. I was very cautious. The many steps, the steepness and uneven surfaces were ripe for stumbles.

The construction and massiveness of the Wall is mind boggling. I know it was built in BC as a fortress against the dynasty wars and that it is over a thousand miles long. It is also one of the seven manmade wonders of the world. Vendors galore are lined up along the lower elevations of the wall and in the square where you enter through the gate selling all sorts of Chinese mementoes, and bartering over every item. I did not negotiate well on the few items I purchased. Emmanuel on the other hand really cleaned house so to speak. How he is going to get all his acquisitions back home is going to be a small challenge. He even wanted my pair of running shoes I was ready to discard because, by the time we reach the finish line in New York, those shoes will have traveled around the world.

The Chinese continue to be one of the friendliest peoples I have met. They gathered around me as I was sitting in the square below the Wall waiting for the others, wanting to take photos with me and making me feel like a celebrity. I later determined that word had traveled about a photo shoot with us on the Wall and they were eyeballing my Blue Planet Run team outfit and muscles. Some thought I was there to train for the Olympics. They were clueless but very flattering. I stickered lots of the kids and took some photos with them. The Chinese are good dressers, very neat and also a bit glittery. Many of them carry parasols for sun protection. They are also shutterbugs, taking photos of everything and many of each other in corny poses, such as the two fingers above the head without your subject knowing gesture.

After the Wall we had to drop Emmanuel off, supposedly nearby, to run for a member of the Green Team. Many of our team members have been struck down by food poisoning. Ironically the worst bout hit just across the China border after a meal at a hotel which Team Silver luckily did not stay at since we were on our marathon drive to Beijing. The teams have been dwindled and many of us are covering extra miles until they all recover. The close dropoff of Emmanuel ended up being a three hour frustration as we hit traffic and struggled with communications between us and our guide, the guide and our driver, and us and the pilot van on the course. Our GPS was not working. We thought that would have simplified matters but found out differently later. After finally dropping off Emmanuel, our guide took us to a restaurant for lunch. We were late and although it was purported to be on the way back to our Beijing hotel it really was not. But our guide was wanting to please us and took us there because of the discount store and cloisonne and copper inlay factory attached to it. Our lunch was a disappointment to me, more of mass production Chinese than another of the local places with original and yummy Chinese dishes and spices. It was pretty bland and greasy but it filled our bellies and none of us got sick. The drinks were ice cold. Alas, we had no time to "shop" but we did breeze through for a quick look at the artisans working in the factory.

Cloisonne originated in Beijing during the Yuan Dynasty, a surprise to me as I always for some reason assumed it was an Italian art. It became prevalent during the Ming Dynasty and the reign of Jing Tai (1450-1456), and has become known as the "Blue of Jing Tai." It is ornate, colorful and expensive, and most often applied to vases. I was pleased that there were no taboos against photographing the pieces and so took pictures of a number of the vases, and other art pieces on display for sale in the factory and market place. I was happy to see that I was not taken advantage of as much as I had suspected at the Wall. Some chopsticks I purchased at the Wall were actually more expensive at this discount place.

After the day's activities we arrived back at the hotel at 5pm where a photographer was waiting to take us on another photo shoot for the BPR book. Polly and Chris, the team photographers, joined us. David, Shiri and I posed in a market place that was surrounded by another juxtaposition of new and old buildings, architecture, and stages of construction projects. In the midst of all of this was a local marketplace teeming with activity and products from foods to clothes. Masses of people on and off their bicycles streamed past. We did some running shots to depict what it's been like to run through the streets of a city like Beijing, weaving and dodging, ever alert to the dangers of traffic and people hurrying in throngs. At one point today we were stopped for a red light and I looked out the car window and gasped. There was not one square foot of open space in view. Every inch of territory around us was covered in cars, people and motorcycles. It was a sea of humanity. I never saw a collision while in China and I have no idea why not. The way the bicycles, particulary the rickshaw bikes, weave in and out narrowly missing objects and people is astonishing. They don't even appear to be paying attention. And often the bikes are loaded down with materials sized ten times wider than the bike and biker and just as high, yet the rider is balanced. The bikes are old classics, not in great condition, which makes it even more interesting and amazing that they can maneuver so well.

After this shoot we headed over to Tiananmen Square in front of the portrait of deceased Chairman Mao and the Gate to Heavenly Peace. The plan had been to do the exchange point inside the Forbidden City but it was closed. Plan two was to meet at what I think was the southern wall but we could not get there because of traffic and closed down areas. So we communicated our whereabouts to the pilot van and waited. I was the next runner. Because of logistical problems Sunila arrived late and I took off only to be stopped until we could reroute the pilot van and get to a safe place to run. Finally we were on our way and as we moved through the outskirts and finally into the suburbs the smog thinned out along with the traffic. Up until then it had been a nightmarish scene for everyone, trying to breathe and dodge in and out of the pedestrians, bikes, rickshaws and vehicles. With my asthmatic problems I was lucky to be running at night. It is tricky for the pilot van to keep an eye on you in a city like this one with everyithing that is going on around you. They did a great job. But also, I have felt very secure in China and have felt that if anything happened to me these people would probably assist.

Tiananmen Square and the Parliament buildings around that area are lit up like enormous shimmering gems, with colored water fountains and kites flying in the air around. People flock to this area and this was a Friday night so it was packed. One of our Italian drivers who lives here now, Fulvio, came out to see us. There are service or bike roads next to many of the main avenues and we were able to run these. As I ran out of Beijing I was on a wide sidewalk of mosaic stamped concrete in what appeared in the night to be sienna brown coloring. The architecture of the sidewalks and streets is functional and attractive. Most of the way beyond the City was along small green parks with memorials and benches, and small homes and stores. In one area I encountered numerous homeless people sleeping in rows along the sidewalk, in their underwear and in full garb, on sleeping bags or just cardboard beds, with normal activity proceeding all around them. Although I had to stop several times to safely cross major intersections and check in with the pilot car, I found my run passed swifty with all the activity. The humidity in conjunction with the pollution made me breath starved at times, but nothing like it would have been had I run during the day. The pollution index while we were in Beijing was at one of its all time highest. The photos we took, even up at the Wall, look as though we are fogged in.

The real craziness started after our run shift which ended at 3am. We then had to high tail it to the airport. By high tail I mean an hour or so drive, followed by endless machinations to get ourselves into the terminal, to the right ticket counter, checked in, secured and boarded. Our guide and driver could not even figure out how to drop us off. We lost all patience with them. Our guide was very sweet but just could not speak English well enough to understand or communicate what we were trying to do efficiently as a group, the main goal at this point being to make our plane. The society here is complex as I said before but it is also highly inefficient from a time perspective. Everyone was on edge, grumpy and tired. We would not get a shower before boarding our plane. We all had run and the sweat was pouring off when we finished. We met the Green Team at the airport along with some of the technical staff and made it onto the plane with seven minutes to spare. The absurdity of what we went through, and the fact that without our pushy Italian Wally taking over and flirting with the airline clerks got us through on time, was third world in a country that is greatly advanced technologically. Mind boggling, like the Great China Wall, only not from a labor intensive perspective. This was sheer frustration. It was exacerbated by the fact that our guide and driver would fall deep asleep whenever we stopped the van, and our guide slept through most of the drives. The guide stories on this journey are for the BPR history books.

So I am writing this on the plane to Saporo, Japan. We will layover there for three hours and then fly to Hiroshima, while losing another hour for a time change. We are totally exhausted and may not get much rest as we don't arrive until 5pm and then drive to our hotel to sleep. We are due out on the course and ready to run at 9am on Sunday. Our Saturday is spent flying and driving. It's even worse for the Green Team who needs to run at 3am to hand off to us at 9am on Sunday. So what is my inspiration today? Well, one of the joys of this last day in China is that I have been able to see our runner Sunila from India quite a bit and converse with him more than has been my opportunity since we left New York. So I think of the Village of Wankute in the Ahmednagar District of India. This district is one of the driest in all of India and only receives a very few inches of rain per year during its "rainy season." BPR funded a well project implemented and run by the Watershed Organizational Trust. This well project has made it possible for 350 persons from 19 families to access safe drinking water from a well which so far will provide enough water from one rainy season's rainfall to last two years. Previous to having this well the women and men, mostly the women, had to walk four to five kilometers daily over steep slopes to carry water back for their consumption and sanitary needs.

On to Japan, place of my birth. Water is life. Pass it on!