Athens Half-Marathon

Athens Half-Marathon took place this morning and you might be wondering what's the connection to China. Wait for it.
Sunday morning, end of March is the perfect time to run through the city. Unlike other regions of the world where it is still cold and snowing, here it is quite pleasant. Athens doesn't have a real winter and if it gets cold, then it usually does for a short time in February. Sunday morning is perfect, because the streets are empty and can easily be closed for such an event. So, today, the entire centre was closed to traffic all morning and more than 23,000 people participated in various runs. There were a 21.1 km, a 5 km, a 3 km and a 1 km run. The latter was for children and disabled people.
Over a month ago, I saw an ad on Facebook posted by the WWF. I clicked on it and some basic info about the half-marathon appeared. A few clicks later I was done with my registration and was very excited about it. There were no infos regarding the event up until a few days ago. A few emails with detailed information arrived and among them was a map and a detailed description of the route. Start and finish was on Syntagma Square in front of the parliament. The route passed very close to my house, so the thought of cheating arose. I looked closely at the map and found out that it is quite a scenic route, but at the same time a demanding one and we would have to go round the city twice.
Starting with the parliament on the right and the Syntagma Square on the left, we soon passed the National Library, the old university building and a church, all next to each other. After a turn, we passed by the old parliament, a Russian Orthodox church, Zappeion, the Panathanaikon Stadium where the first olympic games took place back in 1896, the iconic Hilton hotel, the Megaron Mousikis (THE place to go to listen to classical concerts, opera, ballet, etc), the US embassy, the archeological museum, many other museums and churches and old, stunning buildings, Hadrian's Gate, the Temple of Olympic Zeus, the police HQ, and much more.
In those emails was a link to the official website of the half-marathon with lots of useful information, such as: you have 3 hours and 10 minutes to finish. If you don't finish within this time, you'll either be escorted by the police or collected by a car and brought to the finish. If you feel unwell find the next volunteer or paramedic and they'll take care of you. My friends and I joked a little about it and said that after the first kilometre, I would dramatically fall on the floor and wave a volunteer to come rescue me and take me back to the start. Or I could cheat by taking the metro a few stops or go home to have a quick nap since the route was very close to my house. Or enter a church, light a candle and pray for strength and support.
I also had to go to the WWF headquarters to collect my BIB number with the chip, a plastic bag to put all my stuff in, the white jersey with the WWF logo and some leaflets from the sponsors.
My day started shortly after 6am. I got ready and walked to the nearby metro station. I was amazed to see that most people were athletes and volunteers. Many runners, apparently over 500 were foreigners. The biggest group, with 56 were Britons. Among the foreigners were Germans, Poles, Italians and even Brazilians.
We athletes had to be there before 8.30am in order to leave our belongings with the volunteers and take our positions before the starting line. For this we had to walk to the garden of the Zappeion and find the spot with our racing or BIB number as it is called. Then we had to go to the right block and wait.
The top athletes were in the first block, like winners of past runs, professional athletes, etc. In the second and third block were runners who participated in past runs and didn't have a good running time as the top athletes. I was in the fourth and last block with people who never participated in a marathon or simply did rubbish times.
While walking towards my block, I saw some Chinese tourists entering the gardens and smiling at the person walking in front of me. When I overtook that person, I saw that he was Chinese.
I moved to block 4 and went to the very back. From there I had a great view to all blocks in front, to the several thousand runners and I used my time to observe the runners around me. Some were there in professional gear with expensive clothes, the official jersey, bumbags for runners. Some looked well trained and full of muscles, while others weren't. I looked to find any other people from the WWF team and spotted only two, a woman around my age and a very tall grey haired man. I spotted another one man later in the run. TV cameras were also everywhere and along the route as it was broadcast live on TV.
Since this was my first time in such an event, I was quite touched. It was a great and emotional feeling to see all those people ready to give their best to make it across the finishing line.
Some 20 minutes later the run started with a gun shot and block 1 crossed the line. Blocks 2, 3 and 4 followed in one minute intervalls. I put my headphones on to listen to motivational music to keep me going through the next two and a half hours. What was on my playlist? I started with some Chinese songs. You can watch two of them here and here. I then listened to a Russian DJ called Bobina and then to a Greek DJ called Halaros (you can listen to his music here), who is my cousin.
A few kilometres later, I overtook a Chinese man and asked him: 你是中国人吗？Are you Chinese? He looked at me with a blank expression and didn't answer. I asked: 是不是？Are you? Again no answer. So I said 再见 - goodbye and continued. No idea why he didn't answer. Either I was mistaken and he wasn't Chinese or he found it strange that a westerner speaks his language.
The weather was almost perfect for running. It was cloudy, cool and sometimes windy with some strong winds at times. Despite being one of the last to cross the starting line I managed to overtake many of my fellow runners and my XiaoMi wristband was telling me over the headphones some good times. 谢谢你童童和第3组的礼物!
There were policemen, volunteers, paramedics and people from the sponsors everywhere along the way. Many spectators waved at us and screamed 'Bravo guys!' There were some children with their parents taking photos and some runners, me included, hi-fived them, which they found very exciting and got even happier.
Running on tarmac isn't easy and for me it was the first time. I usually run on treadmills or around 400 m tracks. I trained in the park the last few weeks to get used to it, but the park has a brand-new tarmac and not one with potholes and of rather bad quality. In the meantime I was taken by the sheer beauty of the car-free city and all the marvellous buildings.
My wristband was interrupting the music every kilometre by telling me something like this: You have run 5 km in 31.36 minutes. The last kilometre took you 5 minutes 23. Your current heart rate is 167. And the music continued.
While running, I had time to thing about and observe many things. For example I noticed that most people took bottles of water at the various stations and threw the empty bottles in the blue bins for recycling when they found one on the way. They didn't litter the streets. I noticed many little groups who were running and talking and wearing the same jerseys. They were teams from either running or sports clubs, hospitals or companies. There was even one man running barefoot. While I was at kilometre 8, I heard people behind me clapping their hands and turned around to see why. I soon realised that the first runners were overtaking us on the lane next to the traffic island escorted by the police. So I too joined the clapping and cheering. Amazing how fast they were running. The first finished the 21.1 km in 1:08:30!!!!!!! When they overtook us they had another 3 km to go and we had another 13. Can you imagine that? Great respect ladies and gents!
I have to admit that I walked part of the way, especially after I drinking something at the various stations or when running uphill. I also walked while passing the stations, because the road surface was wet and slippery and I didn't want to fall. I also walked most of the last straight because it was going uphill, it was very windy and it had started to rain a little.
Running across the finishing line made me feel like a hero, even though I did rather rubbish as you can see from my lap times further down. It was the cheering of the many spectators that made me feel good and positive. And then suddenly it was all over. What a great feeling that was! I would have liked to stay a little more to enjoy the event, but had to leave due to the bad weather. I collected my medal and went back to the gardens to get my belongings.
Many special thanks to all the volunteers, the traffic police (some were standing along the way with a cup of coffee in their hands), the paramedics, the teams by the sponsors who performed live music at various points along the route and everyone else who made this event possible and unforgettable.

My BIB number

WWF jersey front

WWF jersey back

around 8.20am at the start

Hellenic Parliament

Syntagma Square

Start and finish

sea of runners

Me before the run waiting for the gun shot

Me after 21.1 km

The medal I got

Lap times. To quote Jeremy Clarkson: You did it in ...

The route. My house is close to the green dot on the top left

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狗年快乐！

狗年快乐！
Gǒu nián kuàilè!
Happy year of the dog!

February 16 was New Year's Day in China and the first day of the year of the dog. The Chinese calendar follows the moon, that's why the first day of the year moves from year to year, but it's always sometime between the second half of January and the middle of February. The week around New Year's Day is a holiday for nearly everyone. It's the time of year people don't have to work and everything shuts down. If you are a westerner and don't know that, you might suffer from starvation, because you won't find any open restaurants or supermarkets to buy food or whatever you need. The entire country is on the move and it is difficult to find tickets to go places. So plan ahead if you want to travel and book your rooms and tickets well in advance. And if you are a foreigner, make sure the hotel you want to stay at, accepts you. Not all hotels have a licence to accommodate foreigners. So ask before you book, otherwise you'll end up staying at reception with your luggage and won't know what to do, because it will be nearly impossible to find a room or even a ticket home.
The Chinese call it Spring Festival and say that it is the beginning of the spring season. It's hard to believe that if you are somewhere in the north where everything is covered with snow and temperatures are subzero. But spring is usually not very far and at least in the south it gets warmer towards the end of the month. 
The change of the year is very colourful and there are many celebrations in each province. In Hong Kong for example, many celebrations take place on the water. There's fireworks, tigers, dragons, music, dances, etc.
The dominant colour is red. There are red lanterns, blessings on red paper, banners or posters, the zodiac, be it Monkey (2016), Rooster (2017) or Dog (2018) is red too. People decorate their windows and doors and put a Fu (福) outside their door. Many people like to put it upside down.
A 福 (fu) character is a indispensable decoration item for every Chinese family’s New Year decoration. Fu (福) means good fortune, blessing, and happiness. You will see that many Chinese people put their 福 (fu) upside down, no matter whether on the doors or on the windows. 
This interesting tradition came from a romantic mistake.
One Chinese New Year’s day (the exact year is not known now), a family attached their 福 (fu) upside down as a careless mistake. On the first day of Chinese New Year, their first guest came to visit, and saw the upside-down 福, and kindly shouted to them: "你们的福倒了!" ('Your fu is upside down!').
倒 (dao /daoww/) means 'upside down', but has the same pronunciation as 到 (dao /daoww/), which means 'to arrive'. So "你们的福倒了" could be understood as ‘Your fu (blessing) has arrived’ (你们的福到了).
People liked the alternative meaning so much that they started fixing their fu decoration upside down to "invoke" an arrival of blessings.
Source: https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/special-report/chinese-new-year/paper-cutting.htm
There are more stories about the upside down Fu, which you can read here. and here.
People gather together and have a festive meal, which includes dumplings as you can see in the photos below. Sometime in the early hours of the new year, people play Mahjong. A very good friend is quite good at it and always wins a small fortune.
Of course many 红包 - Hong Bao - Red Packets change hands. As the name says, the packets/bags are red and the writing on them (blessing of any kind) is yellow or golden. People put money in them and give them each other not only at New Year's Day, but on various occasions during the year. The amount can be small or large. It depends on you and how close you are with the person you want to give it to. Make sure the amount contains at least once the number 8, let's say 80 Yuan. Since 8 is the lucky number, you better but at least 88 Yuan in the Hong Bao.
Not only the calendar is different in China, but also the zodiac system is different too. Like ours, there are twelve zodiacs, but each one lasts for an entire year. 
If you were born in the year of the dog, it might be a hard year for you. But you can turn it into a good year by wearing something red. That's why you see many Chinese wearing red shoes for example.

You can read about the year of the dog here.

And you can read about the Chinese zodiac system here. or here. or here.

A little joke with Snoop Dogg

That's my Fu - 福 with my name in Chinese under it.

One of the various Hong Baos I've received

Learning how to make dumplings

Here is a small video (may not show or play on iPhones and iPads)

If you would like to read more by me, find the following two books on Amazon by typing my name Theodore Goumas into the Amazon search bar.

Wanderlust

A dear friend of mine says about us that we are gypsies, homeless and our bum itches when we stay too long in one place, that's why we are always on the move. I couldn't agree more with him. It really seems like we are always around and about with a suitcase and a rucksack and in our pockets, a ticket to somewhere. The more you travel and move around, the more people like you, you meet. 

I met at least two of those wonderful people when I moved to Guiyang in the southwest of China. One of them is Cindy, a Canadian lady who was the penultimate teacher to arrive at the school I was working at and Catherine who followed a week or so later. Cindy spent a few years in the Gulf region and since I lived and worked in Saudi for a while, we had this in common. For the others we were the 'desert people'.

I mentioned Catherine in my last post (you can read it here - opens in a new window). Catherine took the last desk with PC available in our small but cosy staff room and since we were facing each other, we had the opportunity to get to know each other better. 

Catherine is French, got married at the age of 28, got divorced a few years later, has two boys (now adults, one in France the other in Thailand), has a desire for Wanderlust and is also a thoroughbred musician. She has been travelling and moving around the world for many years and is currently living in Canada. During her stay in Guiyang, she was the one with the most interesting life. She went out frequently, despite the long journey from Jinyang to downtown Guiyang and having to take a taxi. She also seized the opportunity to see as much of China as possible and travelled around the country at the weekends, sometimes alone, sometimes with her housemate Breanne. When she travelled alone, she looked out for musicians to perform with. She does that wherever she is as you can see from the photos below. Her favourite instrument is the keyboard, but she also plays the guitar. She bought a keyboard at some point and started jamming with many other people in many different places. Sometime at the end of May, she met two Chinese who performed in a club called Powerhouse in downtown Guiyang and they invited her to play with them that night. Then they asked her if she wanted to perform in a restaurant in Jinyang. She said yes and from then on they played every night outside the restaurant in front of people dining. She took one night off though, to come see me presenting my book about my life in Ar'ar in the Saudi desert (you can read about the presentation here). 

This photo was taken on one on her last nights in Guiyang. I took my friend Yu Rou Shi, (the one with the hat), part of her name means Rain, with me and off we went on my electric scooter from Huaguoyuan to Jinyang. It was a cloudy evening and it seemed like it was going to rain. Unfortunately, somewhere between Guiyang and Jinyang, the first drops started to fall. I stopped and took out the double rain coat and got us covered. A few miles later, we got in the middle of a thunderstorm and arrived at the venue in the pouring rain. I drove to the entrance and when the staff saw us, they rushed to us with massive umbrellas to give us shelter. I parked the scooter under a parasol and we went inside. Catherine and the musicians were sitting at a table next to the entrance and told us that they had performed only a few songs that evening and then had to take all their equipment indoors, due to the rain. They wouldn't be performing that night, so we sat at the table until midnight.

My mobile buzzed at some point and I saw this photo of us. Since Catherine and I were the only foreigners in the restaurant, it was sort of normal that people stared, looked and took photos. Somewhere opposite us was a lady sitting at a table with her friends. When she saw us, she took this photo and sent it to my dear friend Yi, who helped me register at the gym in Jinyang (read the post here), asking her if she knew us, because the lady knew that Yi has a foreign friend. The lady who took the photo is the manager of said gym. So Yi's message read: I know where you are and what you're doing. Yi couldn't be there that night, but went to see and to meet Catherine a few nights later, at her last gig.

That night was the last time I saw Catherine and I hope to see her again somewhere, sometime soon.

Teaching keyboard

 At A la Casa in Aubagne in France

 Jamming in the C-Shop in Guiyang

 In a restaurant in Calgary, Canada

 Also in Calgary

 Also in Calgary

 Edmonton Airport

 Blues Jam Calgary Ironwood

 Jamming on a boat in Marseille

 Wumeng Festival, China, the concert never took place unfortunately, because it started to rain just after the sound check.

 With Manzana, Rock band from Finland (in Guiyang)

 In Chiang Mai, Thailand

 Also in Chiang Mai (player on the left is from Hawaii, player on the right from the UK)

 Jamming with reggae musicians from Dali

 Selkirk College, British Columbia

 Bangkok. Queen Bee jam

If you like to read more by me, put my name, Theodore Goumas, in the Amazon search bar and the following two should appear in English and German.