Bootstrappin’

Today my friend Tee and I were walking along the shore of Namtso Lake here in Tibet, and we were approached by these two young “monks.” They were boys, around 12 or 13 years old, adorned in red Tibetan Buddhist robes, but there was something off and un-monklike about them. Maybe it was the fact […]

I didn’t know that iPods could get altitude sickness, but my iPod has been pretty sick ever since I arrived in Tibet. I’ve got a fifth generation 60GB Video iPod, and whenever I get above about 3,500 meters in elevation (a little over 10,000) feet, it wonks out. Its poor hard drive starts making those […]

There are few places in the world that I’ve had a more romantic view of than the “rooftop of the world,” Tibet. Tibet! It’s the home of the Dalai Lama, rainbows of prayer flags, yak’s milk tea, and the devoutest Buddhist monks. It’s one of those magical, lost-in-time places where tradition trumps all, a place […]

…it pours. I love the ponchos that everyone in China has, especially these special bike ponchos. The moment it starts raining, the streets become a sea of plastic reds, blues, pinks and purples. The pedestrians, of course, whip out their umbrellas (which appear instantaneously, out of nowhere). There are even bicyclists that ride bikes with […]

I just got back from the Giant Panda Research Center in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China…and holy crap, pandas are cute! The video above shows a few of them munching on bamboo early this morning. But having spent the morning learning about the panda bear, I’ve come to the conclusion that pandas are an anomaly of […]

The Chinese sure love order and discipline. I was walking down the street in Xi’an this afternoon, when I heard the distinct call-and-reply of a drill sergeant and his troops, only it was all in Chinese, and the voices were a whole lot daintier than anything you’d hear coming out of the Army. A few […]

This afternoon, I was wandering around Xi’an when I came across a lovely little art market, wedged into the alleys just inside the South City Wall. It’s one of those things I really should have discovered sooner, having spent the last three days walking all over the blocks just surrounding the market, but somehow I […]

There have been a few times on this trip where, while wandering a city, just minding my own business, I’ve turned a corner… and inadvertently stepped into a completely different world. Today was one of those days. I stumbled into Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter this morning, and felt instantly like I was 1,000 miles away from […]

Subway. When I arrived in Xi’an, my stomach was a-rumblin’ — and when I spotted the city’s Subway restaurant, I made a b-line for it. I’ve been craving a sub ever since I left the States, and this was the first Subway I’d seen in all of Asia. Upon entering the store, I felt instantly […]

Yep, this pretty much sums it up.