Up Before Dawn

Yep, we were up before dawn yesterday. Waaay before. We left the house a little after 5 and headed to Taichung. As Josh got ready for the race, I watched some hilarious warm-ups led by a 20+ woman with a microphone and followed by some scantily clad older runners. I am now an excellent counter to 8 in Chinese. The gun went off and I searched the 9000 runners for a bearded foreigner with no luck, and I spent the next hour on the scooter driving around Taipei trying to find a place where I could watch the race and/or the finish. I was having no luck until I would take off my helmet, the cops would see a hopeless foreigner, and let me go around the cones to the next cop who would do the same thing. Finally I got a few blocks away from the finish and walked there to watch Josh finish. With a final burst of speed (so fast that as I was running back to the finish line to get a picture, he passed two guys and signaled he was finished with a resounding grunt). He took 109th out of 2000 and I am very proud. We stayed to watch the Kenyans finish the marathon (insane) and we met a few expats.
Then home for a nap, to lunch (teppenyaki again!), flower buying and cloth shopping (our walls are two white), and then home to watch a movie. Josh's boss invited us to dinner last night. She lives on the top of a Mt. Washington-esque overlook of the city in a beautiful house. Dinner was chicken and mashed potatoes and vegetables and extra delicious. The perfect post-race meal for Josh and the perfect I-know-what-I'm-eating meal for me.
Overall a good and exhausting day that leads to Monday which is a work day. I didn't grade any homework or get any applications under way, but it was a great weekend.