Higher than Ever

Well, I know it's been a good long while since I last updated, but I've been busy...and in remote places. As we speak, actually, I'm at the highest elevation I think I've ever been outside of an airplane. My friend from the US, Robin, and I are currently sitting in LiTang in the Western half of the SiChuan province right near Tibet. How high are we? Well the high mountain park (which is mountain terminology for a high valley in the mountains, aka South Park, which does NOT refer to a public park!!!) is situated at about 4680m, or roughly 15,354ft! And this is just cruising altitude. If we want to go up into the mountains (the Himalayas) it's only up from here!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. :o) I guess it's been like a month since I last updated. That's because getting out of town was just crazy! Between judging an English competition that lasted 3 rounds (four nights total!), grading homework, making finals, giving finals, grading finals, finding a new apartment, moving apartments, and planning my summer, it's been busy!

As some of you know, or may have guessed from that last paragraph, I've decided to stay in Kunming next year. It was a tough decision between staying and going to Taiwan, but the university suddenly caved to my requests, so I decided to stay. One of them was the ability to move off campus with a living stipend. The university was quite generous, so I went off apartment hunting the next day.

In China, and I didn't realize this when I started, the real estate agencies charge a full month's rent to the renter for their help in finding a new place. I didn't have any other idea about how to go about it, so I used them, and when I found a place (which is really cool!) I had to bargain them down a lot! The negotiations for the apartment were lots of fun too. The rent started at 1800Y, but we got it down to 1508Y per month. Why fifteen hundred and EIGHT? Because the landlord kept insisting that 8 is a lucky number (which it is in China), so she wanted that in there. She wouldn't go down in either the 12 or 14 hundreds though because both 13 and 4 are unlucky numbers (four in Chinese sounds like the word death). Granted the apartment number is 804...guess having the eight cancels out the four or something. It's a walkup, which will be trecherous, but it's worth it for the view. Overall, I'm really happy about the place!!

To celebrate the new place, and also to bid farewell to some of the teachers, I had a big house-warming party on the 29th of June. I just barely pulled it off, as it was on that day that I moved into the house, and I was delayed by the fact that I couldn't get a bike/cart guy to help me move for a couple hours, and when I finally managed to find one, it started POURING (I'm not talking just rain here, I mean it was just gushing water!). But with the help of my friends Jean and Chesa, and the fact that nobody was very punctual, it all came together.

On the 3rd of July, my friend from both Fort Collins and Whitman, Robin, arrived in town. I wasn't quite done grading or moving, but with her help, we took care of it fairly quickly. On Wednesday I barely managed to get all the grading finished, and then we headed out of town on the night train to Dali. Our basic plan is to go from Kunming NW through Yunnan to Dali, Lijiang, and Zhongdian, then pass up north into Sichuan to XiangCheng, Litang (where we currently are), Yagong Grasslands, Kangding, and back to the capital of Sichuan, Chengdu. From there, it's trains to Xi'an in the center of the country, then on to Beijing.

It's a crazy long trip, but it's been fun so far. I've been to Dali, Lijiang, and Zhongdian several times, but this is my first time up into this part of Sichuan. We had good times there, including a great hike down Tiger Leaping Gorge, and connecting with a group of two Frenchies, to Japanese and a Chinese to go see Emerald Pagoda Lake outside of Zhongdian (where we walked the 8km's out trough beautiful scenery, though I got REALLY muddy). But, it's good to see something new, though I must admit that the bus ride between Zhongdian and XiangCheng was downright scary. We were on a cobbled/dirt road climbing through mountain passes in the fog and rain. Once we arrived and found a hotel, we grabbed some noodles and wontons for dinner, then hiked up the mountain a bit to go to a newly constructed Tibetan Buddhist temple. It was just awe-inspiring--I actually had to hold back tears at one point. The craftsmanship is excellent, and since it's new, it still in great condition. It was great. Then today, we made the 5 hour trek to Litang. In the Lonely Planet, they described it as the Wild West of Sichuan...it really is. We were walking down the street this afternoon and were just astonished at how much it felt like we were walking down the street in a set of a Western movie...though the architecture is a bit different. It's really cold up here (I'm wearing like 5 layers and I'm still cold), but it's worth it.

And now that I'm caught up, I'm going to go explore!