A visit of a lifetime

I realize I have been silent for a long time. I have not lost my desire to blog, don't worry. I just have been incredibly busy at work. Since the beginning of April I have only been home a week here and there. Most of the travel has been business travel but there were two vacations, which are now added to my blog backlog.

But I want to give you a description of the trip we just took. Photos will come later as I need to organize them. I didn't want to wait to record my first impressions so here's a text only post.

We went to Tibet for 6 days. I was very nervous - nervous about the altitude, nervous about bathrooms (yes, I am picky about those), nervous about falling ill. You see, we took a 4 day cruise on the Yangtze river in April and I came home with a horrible case of food poisoning that lasted 4-5 days and needed antibiotics to end it. Fortunately that started right as we returned so I was home for most of the illness. I was afraid that it might repeat while traveling. My fears were all unfounded.

We flew to Xining, which is in a province to the north and east of Tibet. Its altitude is 2200 m/7200 ft. We visited a lovely monastery there - called the Kumbum or Ta'er - which is the birthplace of the founder of the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is the current head of the Yellow Hat sect. Our objective was to start getting used to the altitude gradually. It was tough. The monastery sits on a hill (as many of them do) and climbing was hard, but we took it easy.

Later that afternoon, we took the train to Lhasa. It is a 24 hour train ride that goes over a pass that is 5072 m/16640 ft. I thought I would die as we boarded the train. We kept trying to get to the platform early but the train staff wouldn't let us. Then, when the train pulled in, we found we had to haul our suitcases up a flight of steps and then the length of the platform as we looked for our coach. With the higher altitude in Xining, this meant my heart was racing and I was gasping for breath. But we made it.

We had a soft sleeper which means two berths, one above the other; 4 to a compartment. We were told that the service was good but we didn't notice any service at all. There are announcements about the landscape and locations in Mandarin and English. The service consisted of ticket-checking, passport/permit checking and that was about it. Foreigners have to have a travel permit in addition to a Chinese visa to visit Tibet and have to go with a travel agency - no solo trips.

Oxygen is pumped into the train as it goes over the high pass and we were told we'd get oxygen masks in case the oxygen mixed with the air wasn't enough. No masks materialized, but fortunately we didn't need them! The train provides pillows, sheets and blankets. We had packed food (over packed food) but neither of us had much appetite so we didn't eat much. We tried to drink a lot of water as hydration is important to avoid altitude sickness. We were also taking Diamox for the same reason.

The scenery was everything we had expected. We started in grasslands that fed sheep and cows. Then there were tall mountains, flat plains - mostly devoid of trees - with lots more sheep and yaks, and lakes. I brought books, cards and knitting/spinning to occupy the time but spent it mostly looking at the scenery and taking photos.

On arrival in Lhasa, I experienced my next near-death experience. On the train, we pretty much weren't doing much. But when we got to Lhasa, we had to walk, dragging our suitcases, through a huge, brand-new station, to a police checkpoint where they made copies of our passports, and then out along a long path to where the guide was waiting. Then we had to go a quarter of a mile or so to the car-park. It was around 4 pm and sunny and HOT! Between that and the 3490 m/11450 ft altitude, I was breathless and exhausted. All we did though was go to the hotel and rest. But walking to dinner was taxing.

On the morning of the third day, we want to the Potala Palace - the winter home of the Dalai Lama - if he was in Tibet. Most of Lhasa is flat but the palace is on a hill. And then there are 13 floors of the palace to climb! We took it slowly but were very tired once it was done. The palace was everything I expected and more. Gorgeous views, incredible treasures, sanctity and antiquity. It was poignant to see a picture of the thousand-armed Avalokitesvara  - the Buddha of Compassion - instead of the Dalai Lama.

After lunch we went to the Jokhang temple - which was mercifully flat. I felt really calm and serene in these places, which have had centuries of worship in them. The temple contains a statue of the Buddha which is said to be over 2000 years old - blessed by the Buddha himself. It is the heart of Tibetan Buddhism.

We went to Shigatse by car the next day, climbing over 3 high passes which are around 5000 m. We didn't do much at any of them except get out and take photos. Therefore, there wasn't any altitude issues except for the fact that just getting in and out of the minivan caused hearts to race. It was an 8 hour drive over windy mountain roads with bumps due to frost heaving. We made a brief stop at Gyantse to visit another monastery.

The hotel was quite modern but it was on a main road so it was very noisy and I couldn't open the windows due to the noise. The room was warm so sleep was tough. Tibet gets quite warm during the afternoon - up to 28C/80F - but cools down to 11C/50F at night. The sun is very hot due to the altitude.

Our next visit was to the Tashilhunpo monastery, home to the Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama is second only to the Dalai Lama. The current Panchen Lama is in Beijing but the monastery has the same air of veneration and sanctity that the Potala Palace and the Jokhang temple have. There was climbing here and it wasn't easy but it was getting easier. And it wasn't as high as the Potala Palace!

We then headed back to Lhasa by a flat road that wound along the Brahmaputra river. It was not a bad drive but there are many police checkpoints along these roads. Sometimes they want to see our travel permits and passports. At other times, they assign a time span to cover a certain distance (40 km in 55 mins) and you have to make sure you don't get to the next checkpoint earlier than that or risk a fine. This meant stopping at various pop-up rest areas and waiting for time to pass before heading out again.

Our last morning in Lhasa was spent at Norbulingka, the summer palace of the Dalai Lama. Right before the current Dalai Lama left Tibet, he had just moved into new living quarters here. We saw where he slept, where he meditated, the old-fashioned radio in his sitting room, the room where his mother stayed when she visited (remember, he left home really young to be reared in the monastery), his bathroom, his throne and assembly hall. There is even a painting of him on a wall - the only picture of him anywhere.

Then it was time to fly home.

It is a holy month in Tibet as the Buddha's birth and enlightenment anniversaries occur during this month. The name of the festival is Saka dawa and as a result, there were many people at the monasteries and temples. Tibetans are very devout - offering money and butter (for lamps) as well as prostrating themselves and walking clockwise circuits around the holy places (kora). Some of them even prostate themselves around the circuit. They have a prayer wheel in one hand and a string of beads in the other - chanting and praying as they walk or sit. Because of the festival, many of them were wearing traditional dress, so it wasn't unusual to see a young woman in traditional dress, high heels and a purse.

I was afraid we wouldn't get vegetarian food but it seems many Tibetans are vegetarians these days. Also, due to the festival, many of them are vegetarian this month. So food was not a problem at all. I didn't have much appetite but our regular Lhasa restaurant had a good selection of vegetarian Tibetan, Nepali and Indian dishes, which meant I could get exactly what I felt like. Lunch on vegetable momos, dine on dal makhani, breakfast on fresh yogurt and unfiltered honey. They even eat yogurt and rice, like us South Indians! It wasn't the greatest food but it was tasty and readily available close by and you can't beat that combination.

It is good to be back at sea level again.  I am glad I had the opportunity to visit

Photos will come with time as will photos and write-ups on the other trips that I am still working on. I know I left you in the middle of Australia and part-way through Tokyo but I need to do something better with the photos before I continue. There are just too many of them and I have to find a good organization system so I can find them when I want them. Thank you for staying with me!

There hasn't been a lot of fiber work either. I have been slowly trying to finish up last year's TdF project before this year's starts. I also knitted part of a shawl and ripped it out today because I am not enjoying the lace. I will start another one today or tomorrow with the yarn.

It has been a while

Why do I feel as if I have been saying this again and again? Probably because I have. But this is a travel story, not something boring about my fiber doings, although I will sneak in some of that at the end.

There is so much to write about that I have been overwhelmed as to where to start. But as with all things, the best place to start is just to start with something. So today, I am going to show you the Sydney Opera House from many different angles. I could write this as a story but then you'd see the Opera House over and over again. Today, if you don't want to see it or read about it, you can just skip it and I will not talk about it again.

I have always loved the Sydney Opera House. It is so iconic, so unique and such a graceful building. On our first day in Sydney, we took a tour of the Opera House. You can't photograph many parts of the Opera House for privacy reasons. There are multiple shows a day and there are people getting ready for the shows in the various theaters. Privacy laws say that you can't photograph them because they haven't given consent. There isn't anonymity in numbers as there are usually only one or two people and it isn't a public place like a park. In a way, I understand it but I didn't like not being able to take pictures.

The concrete ribs that hold up the roof have their own beauty as do the tiles on the roof which alternate between shiny and matte. The red theater - one of the smaller ones- had no one working in it so I could take photos. The Opera House rents out this theater and some of the others to both groups (theater, music, etc.) and to private citizens. You could have your reception, your kid's birthday party, a bar/bat mitzvah in this theater.

One of my disappointments was that we couldn't see the theater on the left in the above photo. It is one of the two main ones. There was a singer rehearsing in there who refused to let visitors through as it disturbed her. But, as a consolation, we were able to go through the backstage and were able to see the huge space underneath, where trucks can drive in with sets and music instruments and the like. We saw boxes labeled with the name of symphony orchestras. And we saw the sets for Carmen which was one of the operas that were being staged. In fact, it was the one that night so we saw pieces downstairs and then saw it being raised on a giant elevator to the actual stage when we were up in the theater. Very cool. The theaters don't have wings to store sets and other pieces so there is a lot of movement up and down. There is a giant turntable so they can have sets back-to-back and rotate them into position as needed.

The bottom photo shows the steps leading up. The first time I was in Sydney, I ran up the steps. i also ran up to the Harbor Bridge and ran across this. That was 20 years ago. This time, I just walked sedately up the steps and also across the bridge. Times and bodies change.

Approaching the Opera House from the Circular Quay side.

We left from the other side and went to the Royal Botanical Garden so this is the view from that side.

On our last day in Sydney, we took the ferry to Manly to see the harbor and see the beaches there. On the way back on the ferry, you get fabulous views of the Opera House from the water with the Sydney skyline behind it.

On another day, we went both under and on the Harbor Bridge. What you see below is the view of the Opera House from underneath the Bridge - on the other side of Circular Quay.

And this is the Opera House from the Bridge itself. One of the things that is amazing about a sunny day in Sydney is how blue the sky and the water is. Coming from a Shanghai winter, it was spectacular. We saw a lot of amazing colored water on this vacation and you'll see that as I post the photos.

I leave you with another view from under the Bridge - one that maybe tries to show it as a ship in sail, which is what it is supposed to be, conceptually.

There is a backstage tour at 7:30 am which I may want to take at some point in the future. That is before anyone is working so it might be possible to take pictures then. But we weren't really motivated to get up and get there at 7:30 given we were on holiday AND coming from China which is 3 hours behind Sydney. Mornings were tough for the first few days.

I think I may do this for the Harbor Bridge also as I have the same variety of photos from different angles. I hope you enjoyed this sort of photo gallery rather than as someone tagging along with us on our travels.

I've been making progress on my Tour de Fleece project from last year. I think I want to finish it before the Tour this year.

This is a spindle I just finished. It was getting heavy and I don't enjoy spinning with a heavy spindle. I took this shot to show the colors that are layered underneath the orange. This is a ply-on-the-fly project - which was the technique I was learning last year. So I am getting a chain ply.

This is what I have left to spin. You can see the spindle I just started. There is going to be a lot of orange before I get to the yellow. The fiber has two large sections of purple and orange with the other colors forming a transition between the two. I wonder what I can make with this that won't look like a clown collar.

Ideas are welcome and will be appreciated.

Thank you for being patient. I will try to post at least a couple of times in short order before things catch up with me and I go back into hibernation from blogging.

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TdF 2013 prizes

I was lucky to win a number of prizes in the 2013 Tour de Fleece. I realized I hadn't posted about them, so here goes.

Fiber and spindle courtesy of the Wayward Sheep. The color is a special dye for the Tour de Fleece.

Spunky Eclectic Fiber club selection donated by a fellow Raveler.

And last but not least, a complete set of Trindle shaft and arms by Trindleman

The blue arms and the shaft were my prize. The smoky quartz arms were a gift from Trindleman. I put them all on so you can see the latest Trindles - a 6 socket hub so you can mix and match arms to get even more flexibility with respect to weight.

I also ordered a Jenkins Aegean when Ed Jenkins briefly opened up a window for custom orders. I left the design to him and now am the proud owner of a pear Aegean.

I think my spindle herd is complete. I no longer look at listings and lust after them. I have the spindles I want and now just need to spin on them.

I have been knitting away on Viajante. Nothing exciting to show yet. The triangle is getting bigger.

Project Unlayer

I am so sorry for the long silence. After coming back to Shanghai, I went to Istanbul, Turkey on a business trip. When I got back, I had to go to Beijing for a few days. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of hanging with a Raveler. It was extremely hot so we hung out in my apt and knit and spin. So I just didn't have the brain power to blog. But I have accumulated a lot of photos from Istanbul to post. When I have time, you will be inundated!

But I want to talk about our adventure last Sunday. We went out early in the am to avoid the heat. It was above 100F and humid so we planned to hit the yarn store at 10 am when they opened. We met at a Metro station and went to a road where I had seen 2 yarn stores. I think I showed you pictures of these in my Former French Connection post.

At the first one, we walked around and asked a few questions but the people didn't seem to be interested in us. So we left and went to the other one. Here the staff/owners were much more approachable. I had a list of the Chinese names of fibers that a Ravelry group had put together. I pulled it up on my phone and started to ask about wool and silk and cotton. It was wonderful when the lady we were talking to understood what we wanted and started showing us a cotton/silk blend. But neither that nor the bamboo was anything special.

I asked about silk and cashmere but again, we didn't see anything we liked. Then I asked about mink which is a yarn that is sourced from China. The colors of the yarn glowed and both of us were interested. The price was also right. 6 50 gm balls for about $30. I bought a box of 6 balls.

It was packaged in a box.

One thing we noticed was that the wool had a sheep on it. Cotton did not have the famous cottonimal but the mink had a photo of the mink When you open the box, the yarn is inside a clear plastic lid.

The label of the yarn also has a mink, as you can see. The yarn is inside this plastic lid.

I think the spools of thread are for sewing up.

I have been knitting and spinning a bit. I started unlayering the bobbin that I filled with singles when I didn't have my household shipment. The first yarn was the Fiber Optic Autumn Harvest gradient that I already showed you.

The second yarn was the Blackberry to Raspberry gradient which I finished last week.

I have about 550 yds and it is a nice laceweight.

I continued to spin on the Tour de Fleece project but I have decided not to do the ply on the fly any more. It really slows me down and I think it is more efficient to just ply on the wheel later. I also don't like the joins between the cops. If I am joining singles, the joins get hidden in the plying. Here, they show more and I don't like that. But I started plying on this cop, which is the third cop, so I am going to finish this with plying and then start just spinning singles from the next cop onwards.

I am using this project to practice cop building. I have to wind on the single and then wind on the plied yarn. So I can play with a temporary cop and then proper winding.

On to more unlayering: today I spun the second single of the next fiber on that bobbin. This was a Targhee from Sweet Grass that I had spun from the fold. It is not my favorite color and I am not enthralled by the finished product. It is hanging to dry right now but here is the plied yarn on the bobbin. Yes, I spun a single, plied it all and have finished it all today!

There is some brown in there too so maybe it will be OK once it is knitted up. I wanted a fluffy, squishy, thicker yarn and I did succeed in creating that. It is a soft, squeezable yarn.

There is one more fiber on that bobbin which I spun worsted but thick with a loose twist to create a chunky, lofty yarn. I want to make some mittens with it for the winter. It is a Romney from Into the Whirled and I love this color.

The second single of that fiber is the next spinning project. Maybe even as early as this week.

On the knitting front, I started a shawl with the Fiber Optic Autumn Harvest gradient. I played with the color trying to get it right. I don't think I have it with this photo.

I am adding beads I got from one of my Beijing Raveler friends. You can see it here.

I didn't play with the color temperature on this photo and you can see that it is pretty washed out. The gradient is a very saturated colorway and this doesn't do it justice.

It is a small shawl, called Bryce Canyon, meant to be made with one skein of sock yarn. I have 422 yards so it should be enough. I hope to finish it soon and start a shawl with the mink yarn. I need something fairly simple to knit on my next business trip. Knitting something like Bryce Canyon where you need the chart out all the time isn't practical when traveling because you have to keep taking out and putting things back and one can forget something somewhere quite easy.

In between, I did pull out a sock that I had started years ago and finished the first sock. I have not started the second one as I am finding it rather boring. But I should start it so it will be there for emergencies.

I hope to do another travelogue this week finishing up the Beijing trip so I can go on to Istanbul.

More Tour de Fleece

I want to start off with a big shout-out to my friends who are at Retreat 2.75 in Marshfield this week. I am virtually there with you and dreamed I was there last night.

I have been spinning pretty regularly for the Tour this year. I got off to a late start but then spun every day till I had to travel. As it turned out, my trindle shaft broke on the day I was leaving :-( so that slowed me down a bit.

But fortunately, Trindleman provides a lifetime guarantee on all his trindles so it has gone to him for fixing. In the meantime, I wound off the yarn on the trindle onto a toilet paper roll. I still am not exactly sure how I will join the cops together. I left the loop used for making the next chain open in case I need it. I found a tiny binder clip and used it to keep the loop open.

I also left a long single on the beginning of the second cop. I need to have 3 plies to make this yarn so I will figure something out when it is time to join.

Spinning is continuing on another trindle with the same weight arms. Of course, this trindle is lighter as it is a MicroXL but once you get some fiber on it, the actual weight of the spindle doesn't matter. It gets dwarfed by the weight of the fiber. Here is the wound off cop along with the new spinning.

I have finished the blue and am onto a long length of purple. You can just see the blue under the purple on the trindle.

Yesterday I took a break from spinning and decided to ply instead. I was home for a bit and had nothing else to do during the day barring a couple of errands. So I pulled out the Hansen and plied my Blackberry to Raspberry Fiber Optic gradient.

Part-way in, the battery died :-( So while it was recharging, I plied a bit on the Swan. I call this the never-ending plying project. It doesn't seem to progress no matter how much I ply. But I figure at some point it has to end so I use it to fill in time.

The colors came out a bit retina-searing. I tried adjusting them but it made things worse so I am using the photos as is. They really aren't as bad as they look in this photo.

I should finish the gradient today. One bobbin is done so I have to Andean ply the second bobbin onto itself to finish.  Who knows when the other will be done?

Then it is back to ply-on-the-fly on the trindle. I am in my purple phase for a bit till the colors change.

Back to plying!

Fiberlicious acquisitions

Over the past few months, I have been buying a few fiber related things and having people hold them for me till I was able to collect them. So when I arrived last week, it was like Christmas.

First up, a gorgeous stole kit from Mary Scott Huff. Mary is a very talented fair-isle designer and put these together for a class at Madrona. You can see the finished stole in the blog post that I linked to. But here is the kit.

At some point I have to start knitting the kits I have collected. But I have the Swan pullover in China and will probably knit it this fall/winter.

Then I got a gorgeous Enid Ashcroft Tibetan spindle. The shop is empty because her spindles sell out in minutes. I lucked out and got this on a destash.

She is light but fast. I can't wait to spin on her!

And last but not least, a couple of braids of Fiber Optic's Swamp Muck gradient. I'll bet swamp muck has never looked so good. Someone on the Fiber Optic Ravelry group challenged Kimber with an inspiration picture of swamp muck and Kimber came up with this. I love the colors!

Finally, yesterday's progress on the Tour

I have spun a few more yards of singles since the photo was taken. I have decided that I like to spin a number of yards and then ply it all. It makes for more smooth plying and spinning because you get in a rhythm with each one.

A Tour de Fleece diversion

I am interrupting the Beijing trip details to talk about fiber. The Tour de Fleece started on June 29th. I was in many minds about my goals for this year. I thought I might spindle on a couple of spindles - supported and suspended. But eventually I narrowed it down to a simple goal: learn to do the ply on the fly technique.

I had this Rambouillet braid that has a lot of different colors. Really bright different colors. Really, really bright different colors. Get the picture. It would become quite muddy if I tried to ply it as usual and it just called out for a chain ply.

What is ply on the fly? It is a technique where you spin a length of fiber, make a chain and then ply it as you go. It was invented by Tammy Rizzo a few years ago and I have been intrigued by it but I never had the inclination to sit down and figure it out. Well, the time had come.

I downloaded all the ply on the fly videos that I could find to my iPad. I started spinning the fiber on my trindle and then I didn't spin for the first 4 days of the Tour. But then I picked it up and immediately got hooked. I spun a length and then watched this video

Then I watched this one

and then I sat down and did it. Voila! I was doing it.

Since then, I have been spinning daily and learning to do the technique better. One thing I learned about myself is that I prefer to spin a long length of single, winding it on the spindle as I go. Then I unwind it off and butterfly it onto my hand before plying all of it. It seems to go smoother to do it this way rather than alternating the two more frequently.

With that as a prequel, here are my Tour pictures so far...

This is the fiber. I warned you. It is bright but the colors are so pretty. This is why I wanted to chain ply it and preserve the colors.

Since the fiber is Rambouillet I am plying it rather tightly. I want to make sure I get a nice smooth round yarn which will not pill as easily as Rambouillet is known to do.

Day 5 spinning.

Day 6 spinning. Yes, there is very little progress but that is YARN! I don't need to ply it!

And last but not least, day 7. I have been photographing my progress at night and then posting it to the appropriate thread in the am. It is easier than trying to do it all at night. I am a member of three teams and so I need to post the pictures in at least 3 team threads.

Actually, I just finished spinning and plying that fiber in the photo above. That will go into the day 8 progress photo.

I have also been making stitch markers based on this tutorial. I have given away all the ones I have made so far. I will make more and photograph the results one of these days. It is a lot of fun. I should make some for myself.

I will probably go back to a Beijing post and then alternate with Tour updates. But who knows? Maybe I'll find something else to write about.