By Heather Cigas
Our trip has finally calmed down enough for me to get to sit down and blog and sleep (!!) and think about what I’m actually doing aka studying abroad for 4 months.
Yesterday was by far the most “zen” and top 10 days that I’ve had in my life ever which is why it gets it’s own post. We traveled to a town in the GanSu province called Xia’he, which, is a significant Tibetan monastery town.
We started off the day by waking up at 6:30 am (well some of us) and walking to the Labrang Monastery, which attracts Tibetan pilgrims in the thousands. Here, we joined a local pilgrimage by circling the 1.5 mile long Monastery wall and turning the thousands of prayer wheels. While I didn’t go the entire way, it was amazing to see people in their element. To think of all the work that goes into making each wheel and even just the dedication of people who walk that route every morning is astounding.
Then, after eating breakfast at our hotel, we went back to tour the inside of the Monestary. While we were not able to take pictures inside each temple, I can assure you that each temple was so colorful and elaborately decorated.
Then we had some free time to roam the city and barter for clothes and eat. This brings me to my interesting point: the Yak. This city had yak everything from yak milk to yak meat, seems to be their staple which has lead to our running joke of yak style.
After family style lunch we visited a nunnery again near the monastery, except this time we were able to hike up to where they would do a sky burial and all the way back to the city. While we didn’t see a sky burial (which consists of chopping up a body, sprinkling it with spices, and letting it sit so that vultures can eat it and then poop it out all over the world) we were still able to climb up very high and look out over the entire monestary.
Then we treated ourselves to a nice snack of homemade dumplings (my favorite) and went for a picnic/ Tibetan pop party and bonfire in the grasslands. I’ve learned how to channel my sound of music self, but unfortunately cannot dance Tibetan style.
Another one of the more irreplaceable experiences we have in China as students is the amount of cultural exchange we get to participate in. While The Beijing Center organizes plenty of culture-based events, from tourist activities to arts workshops, there’s something about engaging with other people our own age in cultural exchange that’s really special.
Over this past weekend, some of our students enrolled at Minzu University of China took their annual Spring Outing – this year, to Gubei Water Town. Situated about a 2-hour drive northeast of Beijing, the April weather made it absolutely perfect to explore for a spring outing. It surrounds various canals and offshoots of Yuanyang lake.