12 October 2006

lhas@!

I made it to Lhasa. This city is great, but the Chinese are quickly ruining it. There is a lot to do during the day, but the town kind of closes up at night. I went to one place that was supposed to be a bar/internet cafe last night, but it had closed down. No one around understood English, so it was useless to ask. I ended up watching some bad Chinese tv in my super plush hotel room last night. Tonight I'm just here at an internet cafe/closet listening to some a punk Tibetan play the guitar (badly).

My office has already emailed me twice. You know, can't I take a fucking vacation?!? I was so incredibly irritated when I got the first email. The executive assistant had the nerve to send me a 3 page pdf file because the VP wanted my feedback on it. You know, I'll give her my feedback when I'm in the fucking country and I'm sitting at my fucking desk. Why would she bother me with that when I'm on the other sid eof the world? I sent a really harsh email back to the executive assistant and then after a few minutes I sent another nicer one. It's not her fault, she's just doing her job.

The sights here are really amazing. Pot0la Palace completely took my breath away. I don't understand Tibetan Buddhism at all, but I'm learning. The market is huge and I think tomorrow afternoon I'm going to dive in and buy a bunch of things.

I saw some jewelry that looked great and I saw a really awesome statue of Buddha that I think I have to have. The only problem is that it's not in the market, it's in a shop and that means they're not going to really bargain with me. I'm really good at bargaining, but I'm not sure I can get them down from the $125 asking price. That is so outrageously expensive for this city.

The altitude here was hard to adjust to at first. I had some major problems yesterday, but today is better. Tomorrow we move up to a higher altitude and I'm a little anxious about that, but our guide assures me that since I've acclimated here, the altitude tomorrow will be a breeze.