Shanghai'd

I wanted to add to Tim's post a bit.


One exciting thing he forgot to mention is that we flew over Everest on the way from Lhasa to Kathmandu! The flight attendants announced that Oomalangma Feng (Chinese for Everest) was visible on the right side of the plane. Immediately everyone jumped out of their seats and into the laps of those on the right side. I could see this being a weight-balance challenge for the pilots, so as I was on my way to the bathroom, I chose the one on the left. Tim got some pictures of the massively tall peak coming out of the clouds, and I got a glimpse of it after my bathroom break. Really beautiful. We get to make the trip past it at least once, possibly 3 more times (pending the visa!) this trip.

The guys on the tour seem really nice. All either from the UK or Australia, I know I will be using words like "loo" and "mossies", "fantastic" and "literally" way too much by the end of this thing, and last night I almost tried to get someone's attention with an "Oy!" which I haven't done since my days in blue-collar Wollongong. I don't know if I mentioned that I am the only woman on the trip (unless some of the sherpas are female... not likely). Instead of being intimidated, Tim has assured me that I will be the princess. So I am on my best behavior to get that treatment. But then, probably everyone is on their best behaviour (see - those Brits are getting to me!), so we'll see how "cool" everyone is at 5000m altitude...

Visa update later by Tim. I am really trying to stay out of this one. :-/