Back Home

---

This has gotta be my last entry (ever?) since I'm back home now which means my adventure in China is over.

To Sum Up My Experience:

Only In China, I...

*Spent the night in a tent at the base camp of Mount Everest.
*Rode a camel through the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang.
*Partook in a massive snowball fight on Heavenly Mountain.
*Took in all of China from atop the massive Great Wall.
*Luged down the Great Wall.
*Went scuba diving at a National Coral Reserve in Hainan.
*Saw the Potala Palace, and the tombs of many past Dalai Lama.
*Watched monks in the middle of a heated debate in a monastery in Lhasa.
*Spent hours hiking around Hangzhou only to stumble upon a real, functioning Daoist compound with mom and dad.
*Avoided a dinner ceremony involving the sacrifice of a lamb, by eating in the room with our busdrivers in Xinjiang.
*Cried as we pulled into the livestock market in Kashgar, again as we had to ride a donkey cart through the Gobi Desert, and yet again when I was told the only way up to Everest base camp was to ride in a horsecart.
*Peed next to a Yak in the middle of the night in Tibet.
*Peed in the Gobi desert, from behind Santana's coat on the side of the highway many times in Tibet, and in some of the worst squatters imaginable. I did however, refuse to pee on the side of the highway next to a barbed wire fence, although Dragon, our tourguide in Xinjiang, suggested it.
*Woke up in the middle of the night at Everest to see the stars and listen to the Tibetans performing a ceremonial ritual.
*Slept in my clothes and shoes on the sleeper train to Tai Shan, the night we spent in the monastery, and the night we spent at Everest Base Camp.
*Went for 3 days driving through Tibet without any meals besides Chinese snacks from a convenience store.
*Went almost 72 hours in Tibet without being able to shower.
*Talked to monks my age (in Chinese!) at a monastic school on the drive to Everest, who had been sent there by their families since the age of 4 or 5.
*Bonded with many, many cabdrivers (我的中国朋友).
*Bargained for a rug in the Kashgar marketplace.
*Became accustomed to the smell of Yak butter.
*Offended the Buddha numerous times by "stepping on his shoulder" as we entered temples and monasteries in Tibet.
*Woke up to my friends crying as I spent the scariest night of my life sleeping in a dungeon room of a monastery, with the monks chatting, slurping their yak butter tea, and the stove burning coal all through the night.


I am going to miss this place, all of my friends, and everything we went through so much.

---