greetings from tibet...we've been here for two days...and it's been amazing! only thing is , is that i feel as old as a 60 year old, the elevation has been hard for me, i've even taken some medecine but i still have a perpetual headache and get short of breath jus by going up one flight of stairs...it's quite sad to be panting and out of breath and walking in slow motion....but otherwise it's been very neato.. and it's not really that rugged at all. in tibet there are two modern cities, right now we are in the main one called lassa, and in two days we will be going to the second small one. it's actually very odd of a place...the population here is half han chinese, and half tibetan. and it actually looks very much like china china. crazy thing is , is that the tibetans are so damn intense. i've been having a hard time taking pics of the people cuz when they are walking on the street they are constantly praying. i've travelled to a lot of countries which have very religious people. but i dont think any where can top tibet. they have these things called prayer wheels that are basically these big metal things that you carry and spin (they have a prayer scroll inside - so when u spin it, ur like going thru the prayer). tibetans walk and spin the entire day...the prayer wheel in one hand, and the prayer beads in the other hand (buddha beads are like rosary beads used to count ur prayers). so i dont feel right taking pics of people on the street cuz they are constantly praying and i feel like it's very intrusive. also, there are some super dupe devout people here who have embarked on a pilgramage to circle around lassa (which is pretty big) they do this by kowtowing every third step...and they dont kowtow on their knees like chinese people, they pretty much lay completely flat on the ground. to circle lassa, it takes 22 days. some even more loyal folks do this pilgramage from their home village to lassa and this takes around 2-3 years. it really blows my mind, this religious obsession...i honestly dont know what to think of it.

we also went to the patola palace which is this huge castle built on a mountain...looks magnificent. basically it's where the dalai lama has always lived in till this one. it houses 8 out of the 15 tombs of the previous dalai lamas. and it has 1000 rooms and is 13 floors, obviously it was craziness to go thru there. i also got to visit the 8 stupas (tombs) of the dalai lamas.we also went to a village temple, and that was really neat cuz they have this one buddhist shrine/bust thingie, that the founder of buddhism actually made himself 3000 years ago! it came from india and was placed in tibet 1000 years ago. although i'm not really religious, i really felt something standing in front of it (you can get up to 5 feet away from it). after going to this shrine and the patola palace, i'm finding that i'm actually quite frightened by some of it ...sometimes there are lifesized statues and they are quite intimidating and scary. i dont know really what to think of all this.

anyway, tomorow we are going to have a picnic and ride horses, it should be cool except that i'm kinda scared of riding horses. i've only gone once, and i am jus plain scared of big animals. then i'm goin to meet up with my chinese adopted family who is also in lassa for dinner! then i will go to the second city the next day.

i'm really having a good time! even though  i really do not enjoy tours, this tour has been great...our tour guide is this really adorable/kinda sexy tibetan man  who is also an english teacher. the people in our tour are also from all over china so it's cool cuz i know i can call them up if i go to their towns...actually one woman is from nanjing. i think when i get back to shanghai, me , my sis, and my cousin are prolly gonna hop on a train and head over to nanjing, i dont know why i didn't think of this before since the rape of nanjing is really important to me. i'm scared to go to the rape of nanjing memorial museum (i have a weak stomache for this kinda stuff) but i jus gotta do it.
i really love having this freedom to go wherever in china and wheneve....it's really something.

with every time i go to china (i've ben 4 times in the past 5 years) the more i love it. i can really see myself working here in the near future. haha, truant clothing goes international!

anyway, my hour is up here. gotta go. email me ya laggers!

jus had some time....here are some pics!

this is my cousin jonathan and his pup sammie.  he's such a cutie patootie. he and elaine are my fave cousins that moved to shanghai.

and this is my cousins elaine/jonathon, me, and my mom's mom:

and moving on to the wuxi folks who i worked with. and yes i know i look so haggardly in all these wuxi pics... was the oily food and mosquito bites :(

here is my pal LAM, he's from hong kong and is the main hairdresser, he has cut all the major chinese/hk stars hair...from jet li, jackie chan, maggie cheung, u name it...he's the nicest guy, always blowdries my hair for me so i dont' catch a cold:

and here is my homies that i regularly hang with....wei wei (she's a hair dresser), Allay (the chinese director's assistant who i follow every day at work), me, and Lam (the main hairdresser):

and here are pics from my goodbye party. mind you we all were very buzzed and so, very silly of course.

here is me and dou dou, she is one of our leading ladies in the show, and she plays a killer. she's really good at gung fu and is a wild one, which makes things always fun.

here is my favorite korean pal, she and i adore each other, but it's funny since we have never said more 2 sentences to eachother due to our lack of similar language, basically she and i jus squeeze eachother's shoulders and smile and wave and give high fives.

here are some of the gals:

here is me being shy cuz on the right is a chinese actor i have a crush on (everyone knew and invited him to come out). he plays the mongolian son on the show. and he's very not photogenic. i promise u he is quite cute. jus not here in this pic and he actually has very cute hair...but u couldn't tell i guess.

here are Allay and Mongolian crush boy acting like lovers cuz i told them to. chinese folks are aok with being affectionate, as long as it's not with the opposite sex . they are soooo cute together. makes me smile every time!

and of course. me and allay. he's adorable and quite angelic looking. unfortunately i'm not so much in this pic. ha.

ok folks, thats' it for now....even though i ended up having a blast in wuxi i've snuck out a little early relatively unscathed...(20 mosquito bites later, a week of beer gut, and a new slew of chinese pals!)  and am now living in shanghai waiting for orlena to get over here so we can start our trip to tibet. anyway. i've had a great time. and am very very happy....like beaming. but also miss home, email/im me. i'll just be watching the 35 dvd's i bought. and will be at the gym working off the beer belly. peace out folks.

hey folks. i'm officially the mosquito bite queen. for some reason i'm the only one that gets bitten here....people like hanging out with me cuz they know they wont get bitten cuz the bugs bite me instead...the count is now up to 11. sigh. the locals say it's cuz i'm so white, and tender. ew. they make me sound like the new chicken mcnuggets. hahaha.

anyway, things are a little better here now...although folks here still work 12 - 15 hours a day, today we had our first shoot outside. (as opposed to indoor studio which is so boring). in wuxi there are old school chinese castles EVERYWHERE, all for filming these tv soap operas. it was fun cuz we had 100 extras...60 of them were little boys that were sposed to be soldiers...omg these boys were sooo imature and unruly. we also had horses that diareahed everywhere....

speaking of which. today i used a squat toilet....jus when i thought i would never have to do that again as china's progress is so great....and whaddya know... i made the near fatal error of eating a fudgcicle...and man i'm so lactose intolerant. hahaha. what a memorable squat. sigh.

so things are more interesting. i'm meeting more people. the problem is , is that everyone remembers MY name, but i can't remember anyone elses...they are all chinese and korean names that i cant remember. sigh. my favorite people are ALLAY (thats how his chinese name is pronounced ) who  i follow around. he's the chinese assistant director ( in addition to the 3 other korean ones), his roomate who helps me with EVERYTHING (from fixing the toilet to showing me how the washing machine works to reminding me when to get on the bus), the main cameraman/cinematographer...he is from hong kong and is super nice, reminds me of uncle benny, the 2 stunt choreograhpers and their apprentice (they are the funnest and all have their noses or belly buttons pierced and so we are all kindred spirits). anyway the language barrier is still very difficult cuz they all say that i look very very chinese, like they cant believe i'm from the states, and so they seriously jus think i'm a retard for not being able to read or write since i obviously look like one of them. sigh.

anyway, email me! i miss home sometimes and i love reading emails from you folks when i get the chance to get online.

oman...from wuxi.

hmm.perhaps i'm being a little too american, but wuxi is slightly ghetttoooo. i'm living with cast and crew in a dorm, and it's on this hill, away from all the main streets. they have advised me not to walk down this hill by myslef as people have gotten robbed and is very dangerous. great. no access to taxis, internet cafe, restaurants etc. sigh. i'm basically stuck in the dorm. and it's super rainy and muddy here, i had no idea it was rain season...so i'm completely unprepared, i have one long sleeve, only shorts /flip flops, and one pair of socks. sigh.  i'm eating in the cafeteria at the dorm, and man, they serve their food in tehse big ass barrels. and all was fine until i tried some mystery meat....i thought it was beef, but all of a sudden i saw a chicken foot (only 2 fingers left and the toenails wer ehangin off). if u haven't eaten/seen chicken feet before, they look exactly like they do on the chicken... i eat lots of chinese food, but chicken feet scare me a lot. i seriously screamed in my head and then tossed the foot out my window and watched it fall six floors. sigh. i guess i'll finally be able to be a vegeterian this summer... no more chicken feet/meat for me.

i honestly do not know how long i will last here, i've been on set twice...and they want me to be the assis.director #2, but honestly i do not know if i can cuz i cannot speak chinese/korean. the director speaks english, he's a korean guy and is super nice. hmm i might cut this trip short, but i dunno, i feel like a sissy if i do that... and u know how i hate sissies. anyway, the show is a old era movie with kung fu. hahaha. it's actually a korean one. the main characters/directors are all korean, and supporting actruesses are chinese...suposedly the korean folks are pretty big...jinmo jyung, and jeeyung kim (some pop singer)  they are filming the really boring scenes indoors right now (it's raining a lot here in wuxi) and they have already filmed most of the outdoor action shots...boo. i saw the trailer and it looks actually pretty good. jus funny to see how ghetto everything really is tho, and how that ghettoness is totally hidden on screen.

anyway, i have very limited access to internet (i'm in the ceo's office - but feel weird asking him to use his internet)

bai bai for now.