Two years later, I'm looking into going to Everest. My scape started with me leaving the heck out of Japan. And the Japanese really makes this hard because airfare from Japan to China is around $800. It's only a two-hour flight! You can fly from East Coast USA to China for less. I was stunned. My next option -- to China by boat. Oh yes, 26 hours of boat ride from Shimonoseki to Qingdao. I coordinated my cousins and relatives and off I went. Conditions on the boat weren't bad, it needed a renovation, but everything was clean -- and that's all I could have asked.
Qingdao is the home to the famous Tsingdao beer, the only famous Chinese beer outside of China. I never knew there were so many different brews, but my cousin made sure I tried every one of them with an expansive and delicious seafood dinner on the beer street strip of the city. Afterwards, it's only reasonable to do a little karaoke and a little shopping on the city's late night street market.
The next day with a slight hangover, we hopped on the train from Qingdao and headed towards Beijing. If Beijing were like Washington, DC, Shanghai would be its New York City. I'm from Shanghai, so I'm not a huge fan of Beijing -- but Beijing has changed so much in the past 10 years. Some for the good and some not so good. There are a lot of new construction that were built for the 2008 Olympics, and a lot of old houses and historical parts of the city were destroyed as a consequence.
I stayed in Beijing for about a week. My cousin showed me the pet street (an incredible place where they sell dogs, cats, to scorpions as a pet), we had mongolian BBQ dinners and beers, and ending the night with a massage and cupping. Please note that cupping should not be attempted at home, and it was extremely painful -- see pictures below. Raymond caught up with me later on in the week, and we visit the good o' Great Wall, Forbidden Palace, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven... the usual suspects. And we were off... next stop Xi'An.
Xi'An was not pleasant. It was dirty (but so is the rest of the China), crowded (yes, also the rest of China), humid as heck, and extremely touristy. It was the perfect timing for me to get sick, so I stayed at our hotel for two days while recovering from my cold. Food in Xi'An was great. We went to a few restaurants that were recommended by my cousin, and then tried a few muslim street vendors, all excellent. When I did feel better, we visited the Terra Cotta Warriors outside of the city. And then we hopped on a flight straight to Lhasa, Tibet.
I was forewarned about Lhasa about 100 times by my family to not visit there. My mom insisted that I would get high altitude sickness, that I almost believed her that I would die there. And my girl cousin insisted that it is extremely dangerous territory and Tibetans are violent people and would kidnap foreigners. Neither happened. As soon as I arrived in Tibet, I easily noticed that the air was cleaner and brighter. Not the smog in Beijing or dust in Xi'An. Clean air to breath was a refreshing change in China. The air did feel thin, but as long as I wasn't trying to run 6 miles under an hour, I was feeling quite fine.
We spent 3 days in Lhasa, visiting temples, palaces, me taking a ton of pictures, and Raymond buying souvenirs for his friends. I picked up a pretty but an over priced bracelet that I would probably never ever wear. And we dined in hole in the wall restaurants trying yak butter tea, yak fried rice, yak fried noodles, stir fried yak, yak yak yak, until we were yak-ed out. Yak is almost like a high-altitude buffalo, the meat is very lean and healthy, but not necessarily tasteful. We just had to try everything, of course.
After our bodies have climatized to the current high altitude, we were ready for our ascend to Mt. Everest. We had hired a driver and a guide for our tour in Tibet, not because we wanted to but it was required by the Chinese government. And we headed west towards our destination. The journey was roughly two days, and along the way, we made stops at temples, temples, and more temples, lakes, stone carvings, sky burial grounds, prayer flag posts, etc.
This happy Tibetan lady is carrying a basket full of yak dung, but she is happier than all the faces I've seen in China.
We finally reached Everest at dusk on day three. The air was already chilly, and I wrapped myself in a heavy jacket and cashmere blanket to keep warm. I was happy. The mountain had barely a cloud in sight and the sun was slowly setting. The air was chilly but clear and clean. It just felt great.
Before I get too far entertaining you with how great Tibet is, I'd like to add a few things I don't like about Tibet. The air is dry -- very dry. I drink about a gazillion bottles of water all day, but my mouth is still thirsty. The food is no gourmet. I suppose it would be hard to cook in such high altitude, so don't expect much. Even fancy looking restaurant food aren't good, they just charge you more. TOILETS, or lack of what we think are toilets. It's just a hole in the ground, literally. The nice ones will provide you with a shovel and some dirt to filling the hole after your done for the next occupant. After my first bathroom break, I was kind of glad that even with all the water I was drinking, I still rarely needed to use the toilet.
There isn't much to do at the foot hill of Mt. Everest except to bask in its glory. We were extremely lucky that the two days we were there, there wasn't a cloud in sight and the mountain was just amazing. Some unfortunate souls often have to endure the rough ride there without ever setting their eyes on the mountain after days or even a whole week here. On day two, Raymond started to feel the effects of high altitude. It started with insomnia, headache, vomiting, and just general feeling of death and then contemplating if death is actually better. After he took a few high altitude medicine offered by a friend from Amsterdam, he felt better and decided he will go hiking with me.
The hike was not hard from our base camp to the other base camp closer to the mountain. But no matter how hard we try, we were always lagging behind our tour guides. The air was thin, making breathing slightly harder, and us more tired, but we persevered no matter. After our hike, we were ready to head back down the mountain towards Nepal. After a week of the dry Tibetan climate, it was a nice change of scenery to see green grass, waterfalls, and puffy white clouds. By the second day, we have reached Zhangmu, the Chinese border city with Nepal.
Zhangmu would have been a great resort city, built on the side of a mountain, just gorgeous. From our hotel window, we could see the border and straight into Nepal. The surrounding is lush and full of life. Unfortunately, the city looks more like a dump. Trash piles are everywhere and the general feeling is DIRTY. We got up extra early the next day to be the first ones in line to cross the Chinese-Nepalese border. The process went rather smoothly, and quickly we were shuttled towards the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu.
Along the way, we stopped at a great homey Nepalese restaurant for some lunch and another for a quick banana lassi, and then I fell into a deep slumber in the car. When I woke up, I found myself in another world. Where the countryside of Nepal was lush, green, beautiful, full of wheat field terraces, quant villages, the city of Kathmandu was dirty, dusty, full of noise and traffic, it was like waking up to a nightmare.
I was disgusted immediately. The traffic in the city was so bad, that we didn't arrive to our hotel until late in the afternoon. Since we were only going to be in Nepal/Kathmandu for one night, we hurried off to see the major sights. Wait, what major sights? The UNESCO world heritage sight was in the middle of the city grid. Ancient temples that are supposed to be protected, were in the middle of a 6-way traffic corner. The temples weren't protected, restoration has obviously not ever taken place, and the city just ate it all up. It was sad to see the temples in such bad condition.
Oh a brighter note, I was happy to have found good and cheap indian food, yummy lassi, a nice massage, a good enough bakery, and a million cheap freshly squeezed juice stands. I immediately begged Raymond to take money out of the ATM and bought myself two freshly squeezed whatever fruit I felt like having fruit juice. It was delicious going down my throat. And I was in my nirvana.
The next day, we decided to visit a near by municipal called Bhaktapur. The entire walled in city of Bhaktapur is pedestrian only. If you can ignore all the touts that are attracted to you immediately like moth to flame, you would find this place to be a real gem. The Hindu/Buddhist temples are well preserved, the locals are known to sell cheap and simple crafts. It's just a beautiful place to wonder and spend your morning/afternoon. And a quiet place to recollect your thoughts.
That night when we arrived back at the hotel, we were ready to make our next stop -- Shanghai. It will be nice to be back in civilization, where I will be able to find a decent cup of coffee and pastry, and enjoy the city where I was born and know "somewhat" well.
That weekend, we took mom back to Hiroshima airport where she flew back to Daegu, Korea. And on the way back from the airport, Ray and I decided to go into Hiroshima city for lunch and to walk around. The cherry blossom is just at its peak at Hiroshima castle. We sat on the bench by the moat, under the sun, and relaxed as many Japanese had their hanami (flower viewing) party. Where they sit under the cherry blossom trees and enjoy their sake and bento boxes.
The usually crowded Kintai Bridge was more crowded than ever -- almost like a bridge made of people. We enjoyed takoyaki and yakisoba under the cherry blossom trees and had our own little hanami party. 
