Tibet part 1!

hellooo readers. i am sitting here at 11PM and i am very lonely :( and i've decided to write a little bit about tibet so you'll know what to expect when you go! because i strongly recommend going once in your life :P preferably with a tour guide you understand completely :P

1. my friend and i stayed at the pullman, this really nice hotel in dongguan for a night after our trek across hong kong and entering chinese borders. this was quite difficult as we carry american and canadian passports but anyhow! we spent the day eating, sleeping, and catching up on facebook -_____- we awoke at the wonderful hour of 4AM the next day and showered (long story) and hurried to the airport to catch our flight.
2. we took a connecting flight to xining. there, we met one of our tourguides who took us to this...lake. which wasn't exactly spectacular considering it was very rainy the day we went and we were all really groggy and it took like 2.5 hours just to drive there and we only spent like half an hour there -___- lawl. then we hurried back and ate a 5-minute dinner to catch our 9PM 24 hour train to lhasa <3
3. we were lucky to leave the restaurant when we did because we encountered some difficulties when we got on the train. at the end, we managed to get all 6 of our travel group in one 6-bed cabin and it was a happy ending! or so my friend and i thought. this part was the most uncomfortable part of our journey -___- there wasn't much to see after 9PM so my friend and i climbed up to the very top bunk, being the youngest, and slept the night away. kind of. we woke up and the old people made us do productive things such as look at the scenery siighhh still 13 hours :(
4. we traveled through BEAUTIFUL scenery, lots of animals, and wonderful snow-capped mountains. we also passed through altitudes of 5,000 meters, intense right?? they have emergency oxygen supplies in case you pass out (someone in our group did but was saved by a laptop-wielding man!) and there is rumored to be an ice box to put the dead bodies O_O anyway. let me tell you the reasoning behind this train ride. this would be your wisest decision because if you were to take a plane, i would gurantee that you would pass out the minute you stepped off the plane as your body has not adjusted to the high altitudes. although the train was supplied a bit with oxygen, you could still definitely feel the effects :X
5. we finally arrived in lhasa at around 10 PM and met our tourguide WANG DAO lawl what a funny man. anyway, he gave us these white silk scarves, a traditional sign of respect, and we were on our way to the lhasa four points sheraton.
i love this hotel.
6. even this night, after two plane rides, a long road trip, and a 24 hour train where the toilet was a hole and no one bothered to undress for "bed," we were still not allowed to shower because of the danger it posed. wang dao said we could shower the next NIGHT sighhh and even then, we had to leave the door open to let steam out and stuff -___-
tibetans rarely shower anyhow (and no, they don't smell) but there are three important bathing events in their lives. at their birth, their marriage, and their death (in preparation for the sky burial, to be explained later.)

anyhow. that was day one/two of our wonderful journey through the mystic orient. lawl.

until latar!