return to qinghai

september is over and it was a blur. i arrived in beijing fresh from 3 weeks of independent travel in western china. experienced some reverse culture-shock meeting my 20 new classmates from america (but became fast friends nevertheless!!!). sat through orientation #2. spent a week getting vaguely acclimated, then poof! andrew was here. a day later, mom and dad came for two weeks. a whirlwind trip to qingdao, a few more days in beijing, then on a friday afternoon they were gone.

that friday night, i nursed a sinus infection (exhaustion, no doubt) and packed for an 8 day journey around qinghai province with my director and classmates. on saturday morning (sept 25), we were off!

i had ended up in qinghai by accident over the summer. i couldn't buy a train ticket directly from lhasa to xian, so i had to buy one to xining and then continue to xian. turned out to be the greatest blessing in disguise that i have ever received. i spent what may have been the most carefree day of my life playing in xining with hong and liu.. friends made in lhasa.. then continued on xian that night. needless to say, i could not wait to return to xining and see them, as well as fully experience the city.

because our director han bing is AMAZING and packed so many INCREDIBLE activities into this week, i cannot possibly write about the entire trip. i will try to have a few pictures a day, with captions.

DAY 1
-raced to the airport after peter and alex failed to wake up for the meeting time (hilarious in hindsight), flew from beijing to xining (3 hours)
- met our driver, wang shifu, and tour guide, wei xiansheng. throughout this week, these two men became our heroes...
- wandered the produce market across the bridge from our hotel, vendors were so much friendlier than in beijing! the photos below are indicative of my chinese baby obsession... the little ones learn how to bargain for bbq snacks at an adorably early age
- group dinner at an amazing muslim restaurant, hands-down best lamb skewers i have ever eaten
- had a joyful reunion with hong at a tibetan tea house





DAY 2
- jen and i met up with hong and other teachers from her school for yangrou pao breakfast! mmm
- the group toured kumbum monastery.. my second time! the smell of tibetan brush incense made me "homesick" for lhasa
- a lama hosted us for lunch in his home and let us ask questions about his life at the monastery. he came when he was 10 years old, because he didn't like school and wanted to run away from home! now he is 27 and one of the monastery's leaders. he also has a REALLY nice canon SLR camera...
- went for dinner and hit the bars with hong and her friends! peter and sam joined and essentially got hazed by a bunch of elementary school teachers






DAY 3
-toured xining's great mosque and listened to an a-hong (leader) talk about it's history and current use. if i remember right, it has about 20,000 members. in a city of 2.2 million, that's a good number!
-toured a tuzu (chinese ethnic minority that follows tibetan buddhism) "culture park." an eerie look into the way minorities are often presented in china. the "village" was completely deserted, the hosts were grumpy and unenthused. then we watched a blaring techno performance of local customs! ai ya.






DAY 4
-a dream come true. we left xining early in the morning, bound for kanbula national geological park. passed by takster, the birthplace of the 14th dalai lama. it was pouring rain but we convinced bing that we wanted to go through with our hike...
-weather miraculously got better as the day went on, our picnic lunch was lots of fun, and the views were more awe-inspiring by the minute
-stayed in small tibetan city of tongren over night





DAY 5
-i thought nothing could be better than kanbula but i was mistaken! we spent the morning at a tibetan elementary school and experienced something like pure joy...
-we broke up into groups and went to different classes. my group participated in P.E. exercises with the little ones (toooo cute), then "taught" class for a bit (helped kids choose english names, sat in a circle and let everyone introduce themselves in english, and let them teach us tibetan words). in younger classes, they sang "head shoulders knees and toes" ha!
-a 12 year old girl, "becca," gave me a tibetan name in return, "say rang la mo" after the buddhist goddess of letters and music. can't really explain how happy that made me :) she also named caroline "say rang joh ma," after the goddess of feminine beauty and longevity
-in the afternoon, toured longwu and wutun monasteries. our guides were 12-15 year old monks! playful keepers of the keys...
-at wutun we were able to buy some gorgeous tibetan thangkas, hand-painted scrolls of buddhist deities. i bought one of my namesake... la mo






THIS POST TO BE CONTINUED! too too much. biking in the gobi desert, riding horses at a tibetan settlement near qinghai lake, and digging potatoes to roast on a farm... all to come