The Amazing Yak

So the trip begins in the wonderful city of San Francisco...

As our plane takes off from SFO to Beijing, it suddenly hits me that i will be in a tiny enclosed space for over 12 hours. i would later learn that airplane food would be the last "normal" american-style meal for a long time. oh goody. The plan ride wasn't all that bad, i slept on and off, watched some crazy hong kong film and listened to two wild little kids fight in the seats next to me. Upon arrival in Beijing we were met by our new friend Raymond, and brought to dinner at a very nice western-china style restaurant and then to the Beijing Train Station for our 48 hour train ride to Lhasa, Tibet. The humidity and temperature was about 100% and 97 degrees at 9pm...putting a new meaning to the song, its getting hot in here.

The train ride to Lhasa was awesome. We lucked out and got a 4 person soft-sleeper cart that Pat, Pat's dad, Diogo and I were able to share. the first night we spent sleeping and desperately trying to adjust to the time difference. (14hr difference from Colorado)
The first day on the train the food was awesome. the waitresses knew absolutely no english, but thanks to a few guys from Washington who were on the train with us and who happened to be pretty much fluent in chinese, they translated a lot for us. As the train continues on, we stop briefly in Xi'ian...the city with the Terracotta Warriors. unfortunately our train stop was about 10 minutes long, so there was no time to see the warriors. bummer. but on the bright side, we saw our first Yak outside the train. Yaks are cool. Oh and Diogo decides 'Rihanna - Umbrella' was going to be the official song of the trip...Pat is thrilled! haha
The second day on the train was interesting, we be friended an Australian priest named Ken and got to know the guys from Washington, who happened to also be middle school teachers and were going to do a bike ride from Lhasa to base camp of Everest. pretty sweet.

More on our travels in Lhasa soon...