iris batch (belmont)

sunday. the only thing good that can be said about this day was the 4400 marathon on the USA network. although it wasn't really raining (an occasional shower here and there, nothing too serious), i didn't feel like going out because it was cold. besides, my brush with poison ivy has opened my eyes to the dangers (more like annoyances) of naturing. in the evening i rode over to my parents' place and had dinner.

afterwards my mother and i helped my father replant the front lawn. my job was the seed caster and i made sure i tossed the seeds evenly onto the soil. later we covered it up with a thin layer of dirt and gave it a quick watering with the sun already going down.

i told my parents about my new route through central and southern china. originally i was going to come in through hong kong and leave via shanghai; now i'm going in reverse direction, starting in shanghai first. why? i have two weeks to make it to the town of litang near the sichaun-tibet border (my tentative departure date is july 17th), for the annual horse festival which starts on august 1st (and lasts for 10 days). this means possibly not visiting suzhou or nanjing, and flying to yichang to take the 3-day ferry boat up the yangzi river to chongqing. besides the time sensitive nature of actually making it to litang in time to see the horse festival, there are other challenges: litang is 4014m above sea level (mt.washington is only 1917m) which means possible altitude sickness, and the average summertime temperature hovers around 50 degrees. afterwards i spend 2 more months leisurely traveling through southwestern china, finally exiting at hong kong and back to boston sometime in october.