加油 Tibet!

In August, after summer classes are over, is a two week lull where students are visiting their hometowns and squeezing in last-minute vacations before the start of school (I'm sure many of them will go to the Expo). That and the few weeks around the Dragon Boat Festival in late April/ early May are the best opportunities I have to travel in China, and I have no class and they don't coincide with national holidays like October 1st and Spring Festival.

Last year I spent a couple of eventful days in Beijing, and after guiding my parents around the city a few months later I'm pretty content to avoid it. Beijing is like the Orlando of China; it's very clean and orderly and there are lots of impressive cultural things to see (the Great Wall, Forbidden City, the Ming Tombs, the Summer Palace), all swathed with a veneer of fresh, post-Cultural Revolution paint. It's brimming with foreigners, fancy restaurants, good shopping and lots of English speakers for tourists. I'm not really interested in any of that, and it doesn't have any of the nitty-gritty or wacky things that make China such a cool place to travel. I was thinking this year I'd make a trip to Qingdao to drink beer on the beach, but last night my friends invited me to go with them to Tibet.

It's two days each way by train on a hard sleeper, with seven days of a closely-guided tour. I believe there's a police escort. We found out that for only 300 kuai extra we could buy a package with only two sales stops instead of eight (the worst part about tours in China are the sales pitches they make you sit through, especially when it's at the expense of sleeping in a little or enjoying the sights you're seeing). I know very about the itinerary so far (it's all in Chinese), but I'm getting really excited. I want to drink some yak butter tea and pass out from altitude sickness. I'll supposedly leave in two weeks.