Mark Moran - my official artist profile -alivenotdead.com

Beijing – Day 11: Weight Lifting, the Forbidden City and Hutong Pizza

Finally our last 8:00 am training was here. I will not be sad to see those be a thing of the past. Next week all our trainings are at 9:00 and 3:30 in the wushu hall.

Jennifer eating breakfast

Pierre enjoys some cereal

We were in the lower wushu hall for basics and forms. Also a bit of basket brawl to warm up. But after a while he took us to the weight room / fitness center to do some strength training. It was my first time in the room. It was pretty nice. Like a 24 Hour Fitness type of thing with lots of modern equipment; mostly Life Fitness if memory serves.

We did circuit training and my legs got a good workout. Myles was helping several of the kids who hadn’t done any weight training before. After the workout we went back to shower and eat.

When I got back to my room I saw some of the athletes working out on the track so I snapped a few shots with my telefoto lens.

athletes talking

LIu Qi works through her form

The girl squatting in white was my nanquan “student”

Yay! Practice is over!

Then it was time for lunch. And after lunch everyone was supposed to meet up for the trip to the Forbidden City. But before that I had to take Pierre and Jennifer to the bank to change their money. That didn’t take too long and we were joined by Loren and Ryan as well. Everyone met in the lobby and they took off for their excursion.

Going to the Forbidden City

I was told that they took a lot of pictures and Pierre said he would try to write up a quick blog about the experience, so I will post those when I have them ready. Keep your eyes peeled for that.

While they were all out at the Forbidden City I was tempted to take a nap, but I hadn’t fully unpacked from my move to the new room (actually, I hadn’t even fully unpacked since arriving in China since I’ve been busy the whole time) so I spent 3 hours doing that. I finished just as Pierre walked back in the room.

The comments I got from the Forbidden City ranged from “amazing” to “boring”. I guess it isn’t for everyone.

In the evening we were doing a group dinner at Hutong Pizza, which was just around the corner in Hou Hai. Joining us were some friends of Patti. Liu Yan, her former teammate with her husband Chris. Anthony Chan, one of the original American wushu athletes from the 80’s, and his daughter (his wife was also a team-mate of Patti’s — in fact Patti, Liu Yan and her got a gold medal for their sparring set in 1984). Two other people whom I don’t know met us at the Pizza place. I think the man’s name was Henry. The pizza was pretty good, but I spent some time taking pictures outside in the Hutong. After a while I escorted the kids back to the hotel while the adults stayed to chat.