An Outback Sneak Peek

Full report coming soon - I am planning to write it up on the plane back to Sydney. Thank you for the support you've shown: it's lovely to get emails saying, "Hey, I really missed your blog and I'm excited to read about the things you do," because it serves as motivation to write more. Even when my mother leaves me voicemails in the middle of the nights to the effect of, "I really encourage you to write about your trip!"

In the meantime, here is a photo of Kata Tjuta, where you can see the effect of the sun's movement on the color of the rocks. Click to enlarge.

Good morning, 5774.

Have a happy and sweet new year. Shanah tova!

A brief history of the last week

Whew! I'm way behind on posting, and I'm pretty exhausted for a Sunday evening, but for good reason. I'm trying to find the line between living and blogging, and when I double, I'm choosing doing rather than writing.

However, it's September 1st, and it's almost Rosh Hashanah, so what better way to ring in the new year than diving back into the blog. I'll throw some pictures in for those of you who are here to skim.

When I arrived last Friday, I struggled through customs (15 hours on a plane will do that to you). Australia has a "fast pass" where you can scan your passport (if you have a electronic passport) and get a ticket, then go to a quicker line where a computer scans your face and lets your into the country. After 3 tries, I got my passport to scan, got two tickets, and eventually made it through the gates without a passport stamp.

I know some of you are bored already. Have a photo of the Sydney Opera House.

From the air

Written from my window seat on my 15 hour flight:

We have 20 minutes until landing, which is quite a feat given how long I’ve been on this plane. It’s been long enough that my ipod is dead – I switched to listening to my phone, which will become a glorified ipod anyway, and I’ve switched again to local files on the computer to save battery. The view from the window, unfortunately, has mostly been black. The best part (when I woke up this morning at approximately 4 am Sydney time) was seeing the full moon reflected in the water. The sky is just changing from black to a deep, rich blue, and I can just make out the pink clouds on the horizon if I stretch to look backwards past the wing. 

Nbd

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On the subway

I don't even know what to say.

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"I think the real point of a parasol is to look ridiculous."

Right, Kathryn. Not to shade you or anything.

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Loud and sonorous

The temple of heaven has a circular stone set of steps that puts you higher towards the heavens. If you stand at the exact center, it boosts your voice to make it particularly loud and sonorous. I need the help, so I tried it out.

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Temple of Heaven

K and I in front of the Temple of Heaven. We had to pay to get into a park, which I am morally opposed to doing, and then pay again to get into the temple, but it's gorgeous.

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Wine

Ancient Chinese wine glass. Not a joke. I don't even know how this is supposed to work.

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Lama Temple

The Lama Temple includes a sandalwood Buddha statue four stories high. It is enormous. Unfortunately, photos are not allowed. I tried to take one anyway, but it didn't come out. Take my word for it-it belongs in the book.

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Language

At the Lama Temple, the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet, we saw signs in four different languages. From right to left, Mongolian, Chinese, Tibetan, and possibly Uighur (unclear on the far left.) Also, the people here speak a very different dialect, with a lot more Rs at the end of words. Even though I don't speak Chinese I can tell the difference and it sounds funny.

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Breakfast in Beijing

Beijing is famous for a special yogurt that comes in a porcelain jar, so after we got off the train we had some for breakfast. C and I really liked it.

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Warrior

This is just an excuse for a close-up soldier photo. Seeing the warriors was my first encounter with large-scale Chinese tourism: a lot of people and a lot of tour groups. The census reports don't lie. There are a lot of people here. In the streets I don't really notice, but tourist attractions and buses are definitely more crowded than I'm used to, even in India. It seems especially weird because everything is nice here-the roads are paved, there are stoplights, the buses sometimes have air conditioning-but the masses shatter the idea of order I would expect.

In unrelated news, they checked our tickets three times in order to enter the space, and I had to pull out a fake student ID card at some of the checkpoints (I bought a student fee using K's legitimate student ID card). Chinese security also failed to confiscate C's pocket knife even though we had to put our bags through screener. I love beating the communists.

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The site

The terra cotta warriors are underground, but the government built buildings around the pits so tourists can come and look down on working archaeological sites, as well as see the soldiers where they were initially found, instead of in a museum. K and I had some interesting discussions on whether or not this creates ideal conditions for excavation, so I'll have to call Kelly to figure out the answer on that one. C commented on the difficulty of constructing a building without damaging the pottery in the ground below.

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Xi'an: terra cotta warriors

Kathryn and her friend Catherine (hereafter referred to as K and C) and I flew from Kunming to Xi'an last night. Xi'an isn't really near anything else, but has an underground terra cotta army that some farmers stumbled upon when digging a well. The soldiers are amazingly detailed and were once painted. They also held bronze weapons, directed chariots, and generally commanded troops.

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The biggest monastary in Southwest China

I went to visit this Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Shangri-La, which is called Gyalthan (I think) in Tibetan. It houses over 600 monks and was undergoing some construction while I was there. I also had to pay a lot of money (comparatively) to get access, which really differed from the donation based model I found in India.

The next day, back in Kunming, Kathryn and I went to the Western Hills with another friend, where we climbed hills (obviously) to get a great view of the city and the lake. The dragon gate was supposed to be the big attraction, but there was a stone forest that caught my eye. Supposedly the entire region was under water at some point, leaving these huge stone formations on top of the mountains.

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Cutest announcers ever

Adorable. They spoke in Chinese, which I could infer because I picked out one of the three Mandarin words I know. Also, I saw their notes.

You will be treated to an insanely long blog post since the lights on the overnight bus don't work so I can't read my book, and it's officially too dark to look out the window meaningfully.

Almost no one could understand any of the Tibetan I tried to use, except one thanka painter from Lhasa who proposed to me. I feel like this is par for the course in any Tibetan area.

I also hiked to a temple with the name "1000 chicken temple." I saw decidedly less than 1000 chickens, but took some great photos of the town. From the top, you can see the two sides of Shangri-La. One side looks like a city-it's built up with restaurants and hotels and places to buy cell phones. The other side is still a village. It's mostly green with some houses and one road. They haven't finished the road over the hill connecting the two sides of town, but from the temple you can see the huge contrast in living conditions.

I also visited the largest monastery in the area, and I think in all of southwest China. It houses 600 monks and has a lot of temples. I scaled a wall to reach a far-off sputa, and a lovely old Tibetan lady had to help me down because I misjudged the height of the wall. Oops. Hopefully I'll have learned my lesson by the time I reach the great wall.

The square in old town hosts Tibetan dancing every night, so I watched that. During the day, people sell trinkets, and there are barbecues set up everywhere. I tried grilled yak and peppers, which comes served on a skewer with a spicy, tangy sauce. I would love to replicate the recipe for my family but I'm pretty sure it contains MSG and am not at all sure I could find yak meat anywhere in North America. How different are yaks from bison?

I met many, many travelers and expats. Apparently there are 12 expats in the whole city, which I thought was a lot because it's a pretty small place. I also met a woman from New Jersey! She lives off exit 135. Yes, she asked me what exit I lived off of, even in China.

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Wednesday

I have no idea what's happening, except a large number of schoolchildren and their families have gathered in the square to sing and dance. They're all wearing Tibetan clothes and have been out since at least nine in the morning. The temple and enormous golden prayer wheel loom on the hill above.

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Construction

China is crazy, part two: This post brought to you by China Construction Bank, the one place Bank of America partners with so I can retrieve money sans atm fees! I can't believe they have no partner banks in India. Alright, I'm ending my bitterness.

On my first day in China, we went to a store to pick up a dress Kathryn had tailored. She got it refitted and was told to come back today.

We came back today, and this is what the storefront looked like. (If the picture didn't load, it's because my phone is acting funky, but imagine the inside of a store looking like a construction site, with exposed wires and wooden planks and men sawing and hammering everywhere.)

Two days ago, dresses and fabric filled the whole place, and today it was covered in sawdust. Apparently it will be finished in four days! Then they can move the inventory back. That is the quickest construction I've ever heard about, anywhere.

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