Archive for November, 2009

First Snow

November 11th, 2009

Last night and this morning we had our first snow of the season. I’ve since decided I need to buy myself a winter jacket! A winter jacket was something I just couldn’t fit in my luggage when I moved here, and with the ~15º F temperature, wind and wet snow, I’m wishing I had one. With the wet, slushy mess on the ground, I don’t even want to go outside because my feet will be wet and cold almost instantaneously.

Snowy Campus

Snowy Campus

I also discovered something very interesting today, the beautiful marble sidewalks (as can be seen in this photo) around campus are super slippery when coupled with a wet snow fall. I nearly fell twice, and witnessed many students falling down in the wet slush. Clearly when designing some parts of this campus they had their mind on beauty over functionality. Oops.

Wet, slushy mess.

Wet, slushy mess.

Xi’an City Wall International Marathon

November 6th, 2009

Raising the flagNearly 2,000 athletes turned out for the races today in Xi’an as the 15th annual City Wall International Marathon took place. The event consisted of 5 different races; half-marathon, 13.7 km, 5 km, 13.7 km relay, and family fun run.  I decided before my move to Xi’an that I wanted to run in this event, at the very least as a goal to keep myself in running shape since the Fargo Half-Marathon in May. For this event I elected to run the 13.7 km race, which for those of you who have no idea how far a kilometer is (like me) I’ll do some math for you.

1 km = 0.62 miles  >> 13.7 km = 8.51 miles

» Read more: Xi’an City Wall International Marathon