Much to Say

Today I went on a bit of a journey. I left ChengDu via airplane, and flew north to a place named Jiu Zhai Gou. I was picked up at 7 in the morning (really damned early, considering I went to bed at 5am. Stupid friend... making me go out to bars just because it was my last night in town...) by a driver from the airline. I slept on the way to the airport, and I honestly dont remember falling asleep. Afterwards, I got to the airport, checked in and boarded the plane. It was really odd to be the only foreigner on the plane. It was a really small plane, that had no televisions or anything of the sort, so the safety announcement had to be done by an actual person. Its was kinda funny that they would say it in Chineese, and repeat what they said in English, just for me. Im special. So the plane took off, and shortly afterwards I was falling asleep again. I wake up and the captain says something really long in Chinese. He then says in English, "Please prepare for landing." I coulnt help but think to myself, "Damn, I missed the whole flight!" I looked at my watch, and realized only 15 minutes had passed. I looked out the window, and we were landing in the same city we took off from. About 5 minutes later, I get an English explanation, "Bad weather." That's it. The entire explanation to me consisted of those 2 words. Fantastic. We went back into the airport and were told where to hang out. I fell asleep on a bench in the terminal.

Ill take this moment to let you all know that Ive been feeling somewhat sick to my stomach for the past couple days. Not anything serious (or wet, for that matter) but just kinda queezy. Not a very pleasant feeling, and it comes and goes. Its actually been lingering now, which really sucks, but sleeping makes me not feel anything. Anyway, back to the plot.

I woke up, and when I looked around, there was no one in the terminal. I kinda freaked. Then I heard the someone say Jiu Zhai Gou. The announcement was made in Chinese, and that was the only part I caught from it. I picked up my bag, and started heading towards the voice. I was the last person to get on the bus that went to the plane. Lucky me. So we take off again, 2.5 hours after the origianl take off, and head out. Deja Vu. Exact same safety announcement with a special English translation. I quickly fell asleep once again. I woke up and looked out the window, and saw the most spectacular mountain landscape. Ive never seen such a beautiful landscape. We were flying above an endless mountain range. There were mountains all around as far as I could see. In the distance were giant monoliths, and all around were smaller beauties. Every single peak was covered in snow, and in between the mountains were beautiful cloud filled valleys. At this point, the ride was a little bumpy. My stomach was not happy. I decided to try and go back to sleep, where things were better in my belly, but I couldnt. We were doing alot of turning, and we were starting to decend. I have to admit, I got a little worried as we decended. We were coming pretty close to the mountains, and I started to wonder if the captain was a bit drunk. Then I saw this really big mountain directly ahead of us. It was getting closer and closer, and it looked to me like the captain wanted to skim the peak with the bottom of the plane. Just as it looked like we were gonna hit, we did. Luckily, there was an airstrip there. Now, when I say airstrip, I dont want you to imagine an airport. All it really was, was an airstrip. An airstrip, and bunch of buses. So 45 minutes after take off, I was finally near my goal. I caught a van to my destination, got some cool shots out the window. It was a 2.5 hour van ride, so I decided to go to sleep. It wasnt 'till after I woke up that I started taking a couple photos here and there. When I got to the area Im in now, I had a really wierd first impression. It was like something out of Resident Evil. Imagine something similar to the Grove shopping center, but empty. It is a very beatiful commercial area, but all the stores, except 2 markets, are devoid of life. VERY odd. I walked around for a bit, and I can very well picture people filling the area and doing all sorts of shopping, except its like a ghost town now. I was told it is because of the season, but it doesnt make it any less wierd. Now, here I am. Ill be here for a couple days. Oh, by the way, it is literally freezing here. It is cold as hell. I am not looking forward to sleeping tonight, as it means leaving the warmth of the bar. And when I say warmth, I mean 3 degrees cesius. The room is probably 10 to 15 degrees colder. *whimper* I hope to be able to keep up the updates, but only time will tell. By the way, 20 pts of cool if you read the whole post. I know its long, but I hadnt posted anything substantial in a bit, and a lot happened today. Anyway, here is the photo for those of you who just scrolled down. Enjoy.


Tibetan Tower