Laputa (mass email 2.0)
Woke up at 4 pm day before yesterday to the driver’s companion energetically scraping frost from the front windshield. Defrosting system to be installed. Hadn’t taken out my contacts in 3 days. Hadn’t showered in 7, Gobi grime scrubbed into my epithelium through and through. Freezing and cramped next to the window in a smaller than Chinese average sleeper bunk, 9 hours until touchdown, and stomach troubles brewing ominously.
A lot has happened since my last mass email nearly a month and a half ago, and I am sure your lives have been equally busy although not necessarily as variegated, nyak nyak! We have frozen in September frosts and transformed into super-pissed ninjas on more than one occasion; partaken of more lamb you could shake a hoof at or baa’h at, juicy Dark Emperor figs, female grapes plucked from tree branch awnings, pomegranates more radiantly red than rubies; proven psuedo-empirically that fate (Chinese: yuan2 fen4) does exist in unexpectedly running into some of our favorite travelers again on the road; swallowed, chewed on, inhaled, and otherwise allowed vast amounts of sand to pass through our systems; half-heartedly entertained marriage proposals by serious others; watched a crappy VCD version of a certain crappy Alien vs. Predator, cursed out one internet cafe after another for inopportune power outages, “internet policeman” software, Internet Explorer, stupid hacked and virus-infested versions of Windows 98, and gamers smoking diesel exhaust cigarettes, all in equal share; leapt cerulean gorges and dragged through Martian desertscapes, and have been left out of breath from the exhilaration of living. After carving out our unlikely (or insane), meandering path from Sichuan to Qinghai to Gansu then allll the way around Xinjiang, we have finally landed here in Lhasa, Tibet, and are curry Nepal-bound. Back to cloudless skies, out of sand-stormm country. A floating city in my book.
“Florida and Ohio, with a combined 47 electoral votes, top the list of swing states, with Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Colorado right behind.” -Reuters
Thanks. To all non-Americans who are tickled by my voice, witness indirect democracy at work!
Up to the minute report: health okay, but hands some shade of freezing now that the unbridled sun is shining on the other side of the street. Stomach seems to be producing less nasty gaseous interruptions since I got some rest andpiggedd out on some local yogurt, which by the way is ultra amazing, fresh and not over-sweetened by artificial cup bottom jams. I washed my sole pair of pants yesterday night, and quick-dry though they may be, they were dismally damp this morning. I had to wear them anyway; it would have been unseemly toputzz around this intensely spiritual city in ribbed long johns. A pound of dirt flew out of my pants as soon as I put them to the wash basin. My sweater was a gift from my Uygur friend Kasimjahn from Kashgar, who speaks very little Mandarin and who I can barely communicate with; we somehow make our mutual goodwill apparent, and surprisingly easily too. His Mandarin is not as bad as my Uygur, though! For the record, I have washed up since the bus trip from Golmud here; after that brutal 25 hourtrystt we had to splurge on a patently comfortable abode, however temporary. Now the ticker has been reset, and currently rests at 48 hours since last full bodyscrub-downwn.
Okay, now that you know I am pretty much still alive and kicking you should be satisfied! Of course, I always love receiving news from you guys, however verbose or terse, and wish you the best of times as well as lots of inspiration! Me, I’m taking notes in my precious “Especially for You” notebook that is now in tatters, too many pages having been brutishly ripped from its spine, and will shoot myself if it every gets lost. “I have dreams and hopes. I feel happiness. I am fall in love.” Superstar!
如果你一句都没看懂，知道我现在旅游玩得十分开心足够了！祝你一样开心，哪话多话少希望能够和你保持联系！
Warmly,
Haw-Bin Chai, a.k.a. Bino 柴皓斌
P.S. If interested, please take a look at some writing I’ve done when internet cafes abroad have not let me down, and when these miraculous events have coincided with my good mood. This is not a blog.
http://www.livejournal.com/~gyrm/