I was really impressed with my Canon EFS 17-55 lens. Very clear pictures. Of course, I couldn't post the 25MB per pic originals, so here' some resized. This place was as close to being in Tibet without actually being in Tibet. There are several Tibetan villages in the area and most of the locals I met were Tibetan.
Tibetan prayer flags
The water was clean enough to drink.
This shot was taken at the "Mirror Pond"--named for obvious reasons.
Cow crossing in the mountains
These next couple of pictures are pretty cool. I was just at a place called Huang Long (Yellow dragon) and at this particular spot I was standing at over 4,000 meters. I had to take some medication to protect against altitude sickness. The cloud bank in the next pic was just raining down hard on me just 20 minutes prior.
This. This is interesting. So I went to this Tibetan festival thing and I was selected to participate, among others. We had to use some sort of churning device while shaking our butts to chanting and singing.
As you can see, when it was my turn, all were amused.
So apparently, I was the "best" and when the whole ringleader of this thing discovered I could speak Chinese, he decided it was time to take it to another level and make me a Tibetan king.
So, I had to go in there, introduce myself as king, and declare that I was married to the land (Jiuzhaigou).
Then I had to sing a song. I sung a grandiose version of "Happy Birthday"
Then I got to take my seat and I was instructed to slam my fist on my table and demand that people come up and sing songs for me. Unfortunately for my girlfriend, I chose her first, followed by several others. It was absolutely hilarious.
On to the horses...
Surprise spider