Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Thanksgiving and Ready for Christmas

The girls helping get the pumpkin pies ready for Thanksgiving Day.

My very first turkey.

Our group for the feast.

Wishbone tug.



The all important job of stringing the lights. The girls supervised.





It's kinda cold in our house.


Decorating at the office.



Merry Christmas!

Friday, November 6, 2009

My pictures from our October trip

Okay, this is not from the trip but it was on the camera card and so here it is.
Husking corn and setting it out to dry
Building a mosque. There are tons of mosques in the area dominated by the DX minority.
Morning in XH. I won't be using full names of places because I don't care to have people stumble across the blog by searching keywords. If you would like a glossary of abbreviations, email me.

Prayer wheels around L monastery
Artisan workshops across from the monastery




The next shots are all from in and around L monastery


Pilgrims circling.
Russ takes a break.
Newly constructed housing on the right
Frost-covered prayer papers
A view of L monastery
Monks' quarters

In the town of XH

Pilgrim prostrating himself
I walked up and along this ridge
Pilgrims circling a stupa
L monastery was very empty. There were hardly any tourists, as you can see from the parking lot.

The hills are strewn with paper squares
A ruin on the hill above L monastery.

A few monks walking down the main road there
A couple tossing papers to the wind
Prayer flags

The part of XH where most non-monk T people live
Army troops practicing martial arts
Free car wash

In the T half of XH
Back in the monastery
Using whitewash/chalk to draw on the ground
Dusk in the monastery
If only the hotel we stayed at put as much effort into their bathrooms as they did their ceillings...
Sheep on the hills
Yaks on the hills
Govt provided housing, ready to resettle nomads
LMS
The sky was blue when we arrived and by evening it was grey and snowy

Washing clothes in the stream

Supervising the cattle
Horses at pasture in the valley
Russ is down there at the bend in the road.

Fairly common style of T house. Two doors, glassed in front to catch the heat of the sun, solar cooker...
A little temple on the SC side of LMS.
Looking from the SC side of the river to the GS side. There are two monasteries, one in each province.
A wall
Prayer wheels
Cows and schoolchildren heading home after a long day
SC side of LMS

Very interesting rig to keep the wall from collapsing outward

Not reading T, I can only guess that this says "om mani padme hum."
Having departed T areas and entered Hui areas
Threshing beans

The dusty, dirty town of LT
An old building right next to the church
On our way out to a hillside village, about to cross the Tao on that bridge
The bridge - iron frame laid over with logs and then rocks and dirt
LBS
A friend's house in LBS
On the way from LT to another LT
Traffic jam


Mountain at rest Trying to figure out where the new rattling clunk is coming from

Russ calls me back to the car
The village repair shop Decent scenery while we wait for repairs to be finished
Stoves for sale
At LT
They built a new church in 2006 but salvaged and reassembled the roof from the original building, which was built in the late 1800s.
Big plastic chickens approve of Russ.
Boxes of tea
Russ makes a baby happy.
Russ manfully resists the airport parking lot pear-seller's insistent pitch to buy more pears.