heading for the roof of the world!

what is china without the bicycles rite? been having fun hitching rides on jasmin's bicycle n borrowing it for a qinghua tour. we were sooo tempted to buy a bike to complete our china experience. BUT time is running out! we have 4 weekends before the exam weeks :( and then it's home to 7% GST :(:(




but before that - we're heading for the rooftop of the world!!!
plans for semester-end travelling keeps changing and very much uncertain, because
1. people -including me- keep changing their mind or just have no plans
2. china uni's have no idea when their exams will be, it's useless asking the prof/classmates, so that makes it pretty hard for us to plan and coordinate across the different beijing/shanghai uni's and to singapore frens joining in (thank you Best Friend for being so patient about the uncertainty).

tibet was the -only- "plan" before 12 of us law pple started out in february. but the emails, even a macdonald's meetup wasn't all that productive. so we went ahead with our mini-trips first. after jiangnan's 5 eventful train trips, i got train phobia! after inner mongolia, spending half the time sitting on the bus to get to ulu breathtaking places, i got bus phobia! and maybe after watching 2 seasons of Lost, i'm getting plane phobia! but u can't exactly sail to tibet.

wanted to go to chengdu-sichuan to see jiuzhaigou - apparently where they filmed Hero and all the artsy out-of-a-painting scenes. but seems that that's flooded with tourists (esp erm domestic ones) all the time which can be pretty sha feng jing 杀风景, and prob have too many expectations after looking at pretty pictures of the blue/green/red/yellow dreamlike colors, which is mostly in autumm.

and yes! happened to talk to Xuanrong who actually went there before the railway was even built - he took a 4 day bus all the way to Lhasa. that kinda makes the 48 hour train (board on the first night, reach on 3rd day morn) ride sound somewhat better. 48 hour train ride to the rooftop of the world!
maybe it only sounds exotic. maybe it's a pilgrim's tour with so many lama temples, etc (Lhasa means "holy land of Buddha"). maybe the high altitude sickness will be so bad i just can't wait to get out of the place. but i'll keep wondering if we don't go!!