Greetings from the rooftop of the world!!

although i have had a 48 hour headache from the altitude and temperature adjustments between inside and outside, its definitely been worth it.

thursday we started at the Portala Palace which is in the center of Lhasa- it is the highest palace in the world considering it is in Tibet AND on top of a huge hill/mountain. it was built in the 7th century as the Dalai Lama's winter palace. Different sections of the building are painted different colors: white for living quarters, red for religious areas, and yellow for libraries. there are three major colors used on the palaces/temples as well: red for wisdom, white for compassion, and black for protection. locals who live in Lhasa go there to pray every day, including clockwise circumbulation around the city and palace, as well as offerings of money, incense, and butter which is added to candles throughout the palace. people who do not live nearby come about once a year to pray here. the palace is huge- 330 something stairs to get up- and we explored almost the entire place. room after room are filled with gold statues of buddhas and abbots and monks and protectors (only to be told apart by their hats (yellow means they are an abbot) or their facial expressions (scary face= protector), and mural after mural telling story after story. i could have stayed there for years and still not have seen everything. there are also tombs of 6 Dalai Lamas in the palace- including the 5th Dalai Lama  who has 3721 kilos of gold on his tomb as well as precious stones, diamonds, and other things as decoration. 

we also learned about the five types of burials done in Tibet: 

-sky burial: where the body is taken up a mountain, chopped up on a flagstone, and the birds are called to eat it- being the final sacrifice in that one's body does not go to waste

-water: same as the sky but in the water

-cremation: usually for the monks and abbots- the ashes are either scattered or put in an urn

-cemetery: the usual..

-tomb: like we saw in the palace, huge and above ground

after all of this we went to the Sera monastary- built in the 15th century- it is a school, a temple, a living area, home to 800 monks. some parts were destroyed during the rebellion/cultural revolution and there are many less monks than there used to be- but it is still fully functioning.  after that we came home to relax and then went to dinner at this cute place where we ate the night before. after dinner a few of us went to "mingle with the locals" which ended up meaning mingling with ourselves but we had fun hanging out, talking, trying the "local beer" - and dancing to NSYNC which came on the stereo for some amazing reason.. 

this morning we woke up and went to the Dalai Lama's summer palace- Norbulingka- it was built in the 18th century by the 7th Dalai Lama- he, as well as the 13th and 14th Dalai Lamas lived at this palace. it was build in this particular spot because healing water (aka a hot spring) was found and the 7th Dalai Lama was sick at the time. the 14th Dalai Lama, who is currently in India, left the palace in a hurry so all of his belongings are still there. we were able to walk through his chambers and see all of his belongings including a radio and record player that he received as gifts from Russia and India. there is also a lama who is below the Dalai Lama called the Panchen Lama but he is a young boy in Beijing getting his education. also at the summer palace- there is the banquet of yogurt festival where people go to the monastery to pray and then head to the palace for two or three days to picnic, play mahjong and cards and just enjoy themselves. 

after the palace we went to lunch and had buffet style tibetan food aka delicious- and then went to visit the hospital that practices Tibetan, herbal medicine. the doctor who spoke to us told us all about the menzika hospital - 5000 years old style of medicine astrological study/research- which funding by the 13th Dalai Lama. there are 80 medicinal charts showing how to treat each ailment or to diagnose problems. they really focus on the mind/body equilibrium which i totally agree with- and he made a good point in saying just cause you can give someone pills for a headache doesn't mean you've cured them of their headache- there is a reason for it. the Tibetans base their medicines on three basic elements: long, represented by the color blue, which is the nervous system; tiba, yellow, which is diabetes, high blood pressure, and other types of ailments; and begen, white, which are things like arthritis and indigestion. each of the three elements also represent those who are hot blooded or cold blooded or more neutral blooded. he went into a lot of detail about this one chart that had a tree on it with one root, three trunks, and many branches. the root represented the diagnosis. the trunk represented the measures/parts of the diagnosis: visual (observing symptoms), touching (pulse, etc), and interrogation (asking questions). after the diagnosis, there are four measures of therapy. under prevention there is food and diet, as well as behavior and lifestyle.  under treatment there is oral medications (powder, tea, hash) or external therapy (massage, acupuncture). he showed us cool sculptures of the founding Lama, the first doctor, and the Buddhas that protect the hospital.

after that we went to the Jokhang Temple which is in the middle of the square where the Bhakor bazaar is (this is also a spot that was pretty much destroyed in the riots pre-olympics..) . the temple is very beautiful and we got to go on the roof where you can see all of Lhasa. at this point we were all so exhausted so thats about all i got for descriptions of the temple. it was cool- and had one of the most elaborate main hall- where all of the praying takes place- with tons of thankas, buddhas, butter candles, murals- it was probably the coolest one we've seen yet- sorry no pics in these places allowed!   

now we are just relaxing, headed to dinner and a cultural show in a little while- tomorrow, nunnery in the morning and our flight to LiJiang! City # 5 here we come!  i cant believe its only been 10 days since i left- we have done SO much in such a short period of time its insane. ive met a lot of really cool people too and its so nice to know that they'll all be at Elon when i get back!! unlike ghana where we all went our separate ways..  leg bruise is still nasty and hand is still swollen but everyone keeps telling me my face bruise is practically non-existent so thats nice?