On Wednesday I spent four hours just walking around the maze like streets of Lhasa. I think going alone is great, because I feel free to peek in any nook and cranny and people also feel more comfortable approaching me (a good thing in the day). I went to a very small monastery/nunnery and as soon as I entered a nun asked me to come help her with her English exercises. Then another waved to me and invited me into her bedroom where she took out a tin of candies and dried yak milk/cheese to offer me. She insisted that I take some of the yak stuff. She only spoke Tibetan so our conversation was limited and I soon left. Then another nun gestured for me to come to her room. This one housed two young sisters, who were both studying English and I helped them correct their most recent exercises. Both rooms had their own little alter with Buddha statues and metal bowls to give offerings of water. And they cook for themselves on a little stove. After I left I was invited into another room where 15 nuns were making ink rubbings of the scriptures which they rolled up, covered with a yellow ribbon, and will later put inside a statue of Buddha. While I was there, out of nowhere they started chanting, meditating, I don't know what. It was neat. The whole complex was covered with flowers and had long rows of brass cylinders that you spin as you walk by to symbolize the continuation of the scriptures that are contained inside. In a happening monastery you can always hear the humming of the revolving scriptures.
Later I talked to some of the bad-ass looking guys who wear hefty wool tunics with sleeves that hang a foot longer than their arms. They often wear braids and red ties with tassels around their heads. I got them to teach me the Tibetan words for mouth, nose, eyes, and ears..ka, na, mi, and I forget ears. A funny thing is that Tibetans point out a direction with their lips, so they look like they are puckering like a fish or something.
